Graveside

I decided to visit James today and check in. I visit often. I made the now familiar drive to Denton and took a book. I spent a few hours there. The spray we put on his casket wilted long ago, beaten down and slowly succumbing totally to the oppressive summer heat. Fresh flowers have a very short half life. I wandered the graves around his, wondering what neighbors we'd made. A boy caddy corner to James died at 13 last year. Today would have been his 14th birthday. Visitors trickled in throughout the evening, complete with Happy Birthday Balloons fastened to the headstone, fluttering in the wind long after the visitors departed. I wonder what a year will bring.

They dug a grave across from James- a service in the morning. Across the street, another baby boy, four months old. Another three person plot, parents on either side. Yet another baby resides a few rows over, a five month old. Their ages remind me how grateful I am for the eight we had. You can identify the children's graves quickly. More clutter- bunny rabbits and animals littering the base of the headstone, rattles and other plastic toys slowly fading in the sun. I spent a little time with each of them, wondering who besides me would visit my boy on summer days in the future, who would wonder at the toys I might bring him. Older teenagers and early twenty-somethings form the next cluster of graves in terms of age, offensive lineman and others with inscriptions alluding to premature deaths and extracurricular activities. Car wrecks perhaps, one cannot tell for sure. No one puts how they died on their headstone. It doesn't matter enough.

I curled up with a book and read some, the time wasted away quicker than I expected, quiet and peaceful as I'd hoped it would be when we first visited. Two trains, a few groundskeepers, and one insane jogger, who must have made long laps around the place for more than an hour. She was rail-thin already, I half expected her to keel over on several occasions. Perhaps she just thought it would be more convenient here.

I am not quite sure why I come so often. Kara is right in that it brings some people more comfort than others. Visiting James' grave is not visiting James. James is gone, he was gone well before he ever made his way to Denton. All that remains is his body, my son left at this world at 3:50 P.M. on July 16. He's not waiting for me in Denton. And yet I go. I go perhaps because it is the only place left in the world dedicated solely to James. He still has his room of course, his things remain untouched. But that's a place dedicated to his life- this is the only place commemorating his loss. Sometimes, I need to spend some time with that. It still seems stunningly unreal, an anomaly that I cannot believe. So I go to his grave to mourn him, because I need convincing that he's gone, that he needs mourning. I linger in the still, quiet space that he rests in and try to find a way to acknowledge that he's actually there, that my son has joined all of those other graves I wrote of before, that we buried him. In many ways it's not for him that I go, indeed, James doesn't need me or anyone anymore, he's undoubtedly found much more exciting people to play with. I'm going because I need to deal with him being gone, and it helps to talk to him about that there. I am not sure if that is the correct answer or the just the right answer for right now. I expect it to change. In a few years, I'm sure I'll agree with Kara and find it sad, which is unquestionably is. I'll go less and know the joggers less well. Right now, I'm just glad I have somewhere to go. As with so many other things, I'll figure out the rest later

Day Twenty Five

At some point, I have to stop calling these daily updates. At some point, daily is not my situation with James. I do not see him everyday. I do not hear him everyday. I do not play with him everyday. Right now, he's at a funeral home somewhere. I don't even know where. The hospice people suggested a funeral home and I took it. I didn't have time to comparison shop. I thought we'd had the upcoming week to plan, to mobilize, and to prepare. But as with everything on this journey, things simply happened much more quickly than we ever anticipated. The oncologist were ok with starting chemo on Monday. We didn't even make it through the weekend. I suppose I'll write this day as I did the first day. In many ways, the day James got sick and today each mark the beginning of new chapters in my life.

8:30 A.M.: I wake up. Somehow, I'm surprised. Part of me always expected God to take me up on my offer to trade places with James. I lay in the bed staring at the ceiling for an hour. The patterns are more intricate than I remembered. I wonder about James' view from his crib- always lying flat on his back. At least he always started that way.

9:30 AM: I shower. I cannot get the smell of yesterday off of me, no matter how hard I scrub. It's in the pores.

10:00 AM: I make my way out to the living room. One of James' toys, his singing puppy, randomly goes off. We always called it the zombie puppy. Part of me wants to throw it against the wall. The other part wants to fall on the floor and cry.

10:30 AM: Kara and I form a vague plan to go and look at cemeteries. Neither of our families are from Dallas, and we need a place to bury our son. More importantly, we need something to do other than sit in the house and wait.

11:00 AM: We visit the first cemetery. It is surrounded by strip clubs and warehouses. They haven't mowed, and the artificial pond in the front is dry and sad. I am not burying my son here.

11:20 AM: The second cemetery. No fence, and I have to drive past a schoolyard filled with children playing soccer to get there. It shouldn't make a bad first impression but it does. It's more quaint, but too random. Not here, either.

11:50: The third cemetery. Still no fence or shrubs, placed in the middle of a subdivision in the suburbs- two cemeteries actually, one an outgrowth from the original. There is a baby's grave we pass. She was two years old. That seems like lifetime to me.

12:20: The fourth cemetery. Kara's cousin, who drowned at two and a half, is buried there. Her aunt, uncle, and grandparents will be. It is in the country, near Denton. The road to it reminds us of the roads we lived on in Waco- winding and country, horses and imposing houses squatted on two acre tracts surrounding it. It is quiet and calm, peaceful. It is, unlike so many others, a possibility. There is a babyland, just for babies. It's full. I cry just looking at the tiny monuments. We decide we want three plots, wherever we go. One for each of us.

1:45: We visit the Fifth Cemetery. The director/salesman wants to sell us a family plot for 200,000. At the very least, will we consider a flat, not upright, space for 9,950? There is a special on a 6-seater for 79,000. I want to throw him out of then back up over him on the tour.

2:30: Lunch with the family. Campisi's Dallas. I wonder if James would have liked Sicilian, Roman, or Neapolitan pizza. I have so many questions like that. I have no answers.

3:00: We meet with the minister to discuss James' service. They are immensely accommodating, as they have been throughout. We are truly blessed by their support- both during James illness and now. We discuss his service. I find it hard to participate meaningfully, trying to interject what I feel is appropriate, though I have no idea what that means.

4:00: The minister gave us the names of more cemeteries. We're off.

4:30: Cemetery six looks more like a park than anything else. A few benches here and there and garden signs- they all insist on calling them gardens, not graves- indicate that the dead reside here. I suppose it's an option.

5:00: A cemetery in uptown, old and mildly gothic. The kindly old man locking the gates informs us that plots will be given only to those with family already there, or those who can find two plot owners to vouch for them. What does it mean to vouch for a cemetery plot? I feel like I'm interviewing at some sort of bizarre coop board. The kindly old man feels bad for us. He gives us the name of someone to make it happen.

5:45: Cemetery number eight. It's like the combination of all of them- it's weird. Somewhere in the middle of them all. Which makes it not quite right for anything. The tour is a Buick LeSabre, just like the one my grandmother once drove. I wonder how she James, and my grandfather James are getting along.

6:30: Home again. I go to James' room and sit there for a long time. I have no idea what I am going to do here.

8:30: Dinner from Keller's. I should stop eating. I just need something to do.

And now I'm writing. I'm missing parts. I'm missing everything. I know James is fine now. He's healed, better, tossing balls at unsuspecting passerby and laughing when he gets a hit. I just miss the boy.

Thank all of you for your support. It has been tremendously affirming to see how James has touched the world. Your prayers are with us.