Rambling along 11

I got up at daybreak; I had a grave to dig.

The sky was grey, brooding lumps of dirty cloud pushed northwards and last night’s rain dripped from the leaves of the waiting trees, only the slightest trace of blue sky hesitated in the south.

The summer-baked ground was harder than bones and my pickaxe only dented the surface – this grave needed to be deep.

I found myself suddenly thinking of Tim, an old friend long since last seen, who worked one time as a gravedigger in Berlin, among people with whom he shared no common language. Perhaps not much had needed to be said.

I dug through the memories and a root appeared below the surface of the grave – I had to break this or start again elsewhere. Do I need to do either?

Does life finish with the grave or did life finish when she died, was my effort now a completion or had I finished when I was no longer able to prevent the passing of her days?

Completion.

My daughter is sleeping but she wants me to wake her when it is done, she wants to say goodbye.

I will tell her not to bury me but to lay me in the fire.

No one should have to toil thus in grief.