Eternity

Even though Joyce had been dead and buried for nearly seven months now, the ache of loss worsened as the wounds were being ripped open, the rawness picked at by ongoing suffering. The same mourners who had been here starting the new year with that burial, found themselves having returned to her grave, standing around the freshly dug hole where her husband was being buried beside her.

Their son Morgan, just now seventeen, stood with the minister and the funeral director at the head of the coffin. He wasn’t listening to any of the words the minister spoke. The religious goodbyes and rites of passing on. The inadequate words of condolences and the assurance of a plan from above. His eyes kept darting between the box of wood his father now lay in and the turned soil a few feet away that marked the spot where his mother lay six feet below.

He felt a hand on his left shoulder. The minister had finished, everyone around had paid their final respects and were walking towards their cars, marching to the sad cadence that death brings to the feet of mourners.

The funeral director gestured for Morgan to step forward and say his own final goodbye. As the only other person who stood with them was Morgan’s grandfather, he was allowed his moment alone. The three men stepped off to the side. Fred, the grandfather, eyeing his daughter’s grave as he walked off with them, his eyes leaking the tears he was struggling to dam.

Morgan knelt beside the casket. A wreath of roses, marigolds, and lilies lay at the head while several individual flowers had been placed by the mourners who had now left. Morgan held a single pear in his hands, however.

His grandfather had brought it down from Connecticut where he had a pear tree on his property. He had done so when Joyce was buried as well. That tree being where Paul and Joyce had been married. Her mother making the family’s famous chocolate cake for the wedding. Morgan felt the loss of all of them in that moment. He wanted to fall forward into the pit and join them, wherever they were.

Morgan knew he couldn’t lean on the casket itself. The funeral director had advised everyone to keep clear of the mechanism that the casket sat on which would lower it into the ground. The harsh officiality juxtaposed with the stinging human emotion had left Morgan angry at the man, but it was quelled as his grandfather had drawn him near, sensing Morgan’s need for comfort.

Now, Morgan was left to face both the desire for the emotional closeness he would never have again, as well as the barrier of metal and wood before him which denied even the physical proximity to his father.

He recalled the moment he woke up in the hospital. Being told the storm that had wounded him had also killed his father; the doctors and nurses trying to console him by saying he was found in the arms of his father, as if that was something that would be comforting. How did they expect that to be helpful? It was as if he was being told his father died for him, as if his father had somehow given his life to spare his child, as if it was all Morgan’s fault.

He felt a resurgence of the anger as he knelt there, clenching the pear in his hand.

This was all his fault. The frantic torn images in his memory of the moments before he lost consciousness in the storm cellar playing on a defective movie reel behind his eyes. Why wasn’t he strong enough to lift the branch off the cellar door for them both to get in? Why didn’t they both risk the dash to the cellar in the house when the barn cellar was obstructed by the fallen tree? Why him? Why now? He’d already lost his mother; what did he do wrong to deserve losing his father too?

He was jerked back to the present by his grandfather’s hand gently pressing onto his shoulder. His eyes opened wide, and he blinked several times to shed the tears that blurred his vision. Wiping his face, he looked down at the pear in his right hand. His fingers had been digging into the flesh of the fruit; the juices leaking.

After a moment, his grandfather gave his shoulder a light squeeze, as if to ask if he was ready to go. Morgan slowly shook his head. The older man patted his shoulder, bent to kiss the top of his head, and took several steps back; observing his grandson in the throes of such tragic loss, knowing such pain himself, knowing there was nothing anyone could do for either of them.

Morgan had been in his spot for several minutes when the funeral director approached Fred. Before he could get a word out, the man gave a sharp look and pursed his lips. The frail looking man gently bowed his head in reverence and took a couple steps back, acknowledging the silent request. He had been in this position for decades but had never been in this particular scenario; being with a father who had to bury his daughter and only months later his son-in-law. While he had helped many people bury their parents, as sad as it was, he’d never done so for a teenager.

Morgan maintained his position for several more minutes until he stood and placed the gouged fruit atop the mound of flowers. The juices glistening in the sunlight. The early afternoon July sun feeling cold and bitter rather than the blistering southern heat that was their reality.

It was as if the cosmos were taunting him, telling him life wouldn’t miss his parents. Life kept going. Life wouldn’t stop for them. The sun kept shining. The oceans maintained their tides. Day, night, the seasons, the years, each would continue in perpetuity. The memories of his parents fading as those who knew them died themselves until there was no one left alive who knew them. Then the same for himself. He would one day be nothing more than the dirt beside his parents’ decaying bodies.

He stood there. The pear juice dripping from his fingertips as his hands lay limply by his sides, small pieces of pear under his fingernails.

He turned abruptly and ran off towards the gate of the cemetery where his grandfather’s car and the hearse were the only vehicles remaining. He grabbed at the passenger doorhandle, and it wouldn’t yield. He cursed and shook his hand, the pain of it having rapped his fingers a fresh sensation. That pain being the first thing he’d felt in days besides anger and depression. He crouched and punched the pavement until he fell back and sat down, holding his hand in his lap. Blood, gravel, dirt, and pear juice mingling on his hand, smearing on his dress pants.

Fred walked up to him; his walk had a different cadence to it than the other mourners had. While their sad funeral march had been generic of the bereaved, Fred’s held a sense of strength and determination. He crouched beside his grandson, handing him a travel pack of tissues he pulled from his coat pocket where two more lay in waiting for their turn.

Morgan took them gingerly; resigned and forlorn as his anger had subsided, forcefully released into the earth.

“When you’re ready,” he said as he stood, pulling out the key fob and pressing the unlock button, “I’ll be waiting. Gonna get the AC going.” He brushed his hand through Morgan’s hair before walking around to the other side of the vehicle and getting in.

Morgan opened the pack of tissues and dabbed at his bloodied knuckles, the adrenaline already fading, he winced as he picked out as much of the tiny debris as he could. Padding his hand with tissues, he got in the car.

He put on his seatbelt and the two sat there for a moment, looking out the windshield at the funeral director and the other men who had been waiting in the hearse. They stayed until the casket had been lowered into the ground.

“I love you, Morgan. We’ll be ok. We’ll get through this.”

Morgan didn’t say anything.

“Let’s get you to the motel and we’ll clean up your hand.” He put the rental sedan in drive and pulled out of the lot.

His room only being a few miles down the road, the drive somehow felt instantaneous to Morgan; his surroundings blurred and skewed by his emotions.

That was so stupid. Why punch the ground like that? What’s that gonna do? Now it’ll probably get infected. If anything happened to his hands, he’d never be able to be a vet. He needed to keep nimble to be able to perform surgeries. Fuck it! Who’s he kidding?! The future didn’t matter. Everything he’d hoped to achieve with the work he’d done for the past several years with Dr. Poulson was meaningless. All of that medical experience and training under her tutelage treating animals. What did any of that matter now? How could he save anyone, or anything, if he couldn’t even save his parents?

“Morgan?” Fred asked. They were in the bathroom of the motel room. Morgan sat on the lid of the toilet seat. Fred’s extensive first aid kit opened on the counter. He held a prepackaged dose of ibuprofen and a water bottle out to Morgan.

Morgan blinked and took the items, swallowing the pills and drinking the water. Realizing how thirsty he was, he drank it all. Then he held his hand over the sink while his grandfather cleaned the wounds with warm water and soap. His mind wandered as the hydrogen peroxide fizzed, the antibacterial ointment smeared, the gauze applied.

He wasn’t even aware as his grandfather left the motel room.

“I’ll be right back. Gonna get us a pizza.”

His thoughts darting between blaming himself for not being able to save them in the storm. Blaming the cosmos for anything and everything. Blaming the paramedics for not being able to save his father, and likewise, for saving him.

A hard knocking stirred him from the depths of his mental hole. He stood and walked to the entrance of the room and realized the knocking was on a neighboring door.

Several harsh knocks repeated with only a brief pause between clusters as whomever it was moved door to door. Shrieking mixed in with the pounding.

He opened the door.

“Hello?” he asked, any sense of interest muted. He could see, he could hear, but it was all so distant, far above him, nothing was left below.

“Please help me!” she whipped around to face him; her desperation echoed down the well he was drowning in. “My husband, he’s hurt!” Morgan felt a small tug upward. “The car just started rolling.” Gravity eased on him. “He was pulling the suitcases from the trunk.” He rose higher, faster. “He’s pinned against the wall.” He found everything before him freshly illuminated as he burst from the well.

“Please, help!” she grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. “Hello?!” she screamed at him. “Help, please! I can’t move the car. An ambulance is on the way, but he needs help now! No one else is around!” Morgan felt something in his hands, the first aid kit. He felt his legs moving, fast, he was running towards the parking lot. As he rounded the corner, the sight of a man trapped against the brick wall lifted the last of his nebulous despondency.

Charging over, he assessed the situation; there was hope. Morgan took her aside.

“We can’t move the car; it could cause more damage. But what we can do is keep him alert.” He said reassuringly. She stood there, sobbing into her hands. “It’ll help.” Morgan walked back to the man and talked with him until the ambulance arrived.