The Waiting Engraver

Yesterday was an ordinary day until about five p.m. Then I got the text, along with pictures, that my wife’s monument had been placed. Nothing like a ton of gray granite with your loved one’s name engraved on it to announce the finality of death. It’s also interesting to see your own name beside hers with your birthday, along with a blank spot waiting for the day you meet your maker and the engraver can finish the job you both started. That’s a little sobering.

The finality of that big stone also makes it feel as though perhaps this is the last we should speak of this unpleasantness. And maybe it should be for a while. Perhaps it’s time for the river of grief to go underground, percolate through the rocks of my soul, perhaps to pop out now and again in the nooks and grannies of my life, but generally flow in silence, out of sight and mind. After all, talking about it all the time feels as though I’m making people endure a drum solo, and a mediocre one at that.

It’s tempting to think, as I write, that I’ll be concentrating on the banalities of life, but when you get down to it and the engraver is waiting, you realize there’s nothing banal about life at all. It’s actually pretty miraculous, and if you’re allowed to live it, it’s probably worth celebrating, especially when there’s a spot on a stone reserved to mark its end and you have no idea how long you’ll get to stay at the party. All I have to remember, in case I think this marks the turning of a corner, is that life is multi-faceted, and you never know what’s waiting just around the bend.