A very short story, about memory and loss…

Face to Face.

There were two large rocks behind the high hill, at the back of the grassy yard, behind the then new house the now old man had lived in when he was young. One rock was a beautiful and fragile mix of shining black and gold and ruby and silver streaks with sharp edges that caught the sun and glistened. One rock was dull grey and plain and edgeless. The rocks stood as guards at the bottom of the hill which had been the fortress of a then ten-year-old boy. Trusted friends. Stories told. Hours shared.

The sixty-six-year-old man had found his way back to the now gone house, through the now tree covered yard, up and over the now flatter hill, to the place where his rocks stood watch.

The beautiful, fragile rock was gone. Perhaps, unable to survive what it faced. Perhaps now whole, or in pieces, buried deep beneath the soil. The dull grey rock remained, barely visible, covered with vines and underbrush.

 The grey rock looked much older than remembered. Weathered. It sits alone now. Still in the same place. Not looking its best. Mostly hidden beneath things that do not belong there. The rock has not moved. It has been dulled, worn down by time and circumstance. The rock is still strong inside. The rock has outlasted many of the things around it. The rock seems patient, waiting out the endless rotating seasons. The rock is eternal.  It will never die. But it will never live.

 The tired man/boy sat on the remaining rock and thought about what was then to come, what still was and what had been. His future had been revealed a day at a time for over fifty-six years since he was last here.

 His thoughts are of one day in May, now many years ago. A Saturday. Like this one. He was still trying to make sense out of the death of his first son, who had been vanquished that day, by the tip of a needle, before finishing his thirty-first year.

But there were other days they shared. Over 10,950 of them.

From his seat on the rock, the man could remember every second of every day. He could see his son, at every age, timeless and present, beautiful, and fragile, visible and vibrant, yet distant and untouchable.

 For hours, they talked to each other silently about the past, present and future. When the man asked about why it happened, his son said nothing. As the man persisted, the son said something about it being complicated and then made up a reason he had to go.

 The man, alone again now on the gray rock, took a quick cell phone picture of the place the fragile rock had been, and went home.

“Grief never stops, that’s how we know love is forever.”