I visit my father's gravesite twice a year—on his birthday and on the anniversary of his death. It’s not done out of grief or love. It’s a cold regiment. I just want to make sure the man stays dead. Maybe your relationship with your father, here or gone, is better than mine. If so then you can pack your happiness into a suitcase and move out of my goddamn neighborhood.
Okay, that’s not fair. My envy sometimes consumes me. There are millions of good fathers out there and I didn’t get one of them.
So, twice a year, I buy a bouquet of flowers at the grocery store near the cemetery. Then I place ten dollars worth of blossoms on my father’s tombstone. I’m the only heir—the only surviving relative—so our bloodline ends with me. Our family tree will wither, fall, and be reclaimed by the dirt. In twenty years, I’ll be remembered only by a few friends. In forty years, I’ll be just a name carved into an unvisited grave marker.
Nobody on earth will know that, for decades, I brought flowers to my father’s grave. Nobody will know about his cruelty. Nobody will know about my diligence.
Last week, when I visited his grave, I saw that a wedding was happening on the other side of the graveyard. A wedding in a goddamn cemetery! And not some goth travesty, either. It was white tuxedo and white wedding dress.
And so much laughter. So much joy booming across the distance.
What kind of assholes hold a joyful ceremony—a celebration of life—in a cemetery? Who invites the ghosts of their ancestors to their nuptials?
There were good reasons for me to hate them. Bad reasons, too. But I suddenly knew that wedding ceremony was populated by better people. Certainly better than my father. And better than me.
I suddenly needed to know those celebrants. So I began my walk toward the wedding because I knew they would graciously welcome a stranger. And then I turned back and grabbed my father's flowers. I needed to bring a gift to that exchange of vows. I wanted to begin a journey with something new in my hands.
Among Strangers