Lost But Not Forgotten

Thursday, May 13th, 1954

Dean knelt down in the grass. It was already growing thick and green, no sign of disturbance, not the raw earth he had seen last year piled around the large stone and the two smaller ones. The headstones were smooth-edged and rough-faced, a gray black in color. The center headstone, June’s, had a vase built into the base and he placed the flowers inside it, removing a handful of dried and withered stems.

Who had put them there?

He had only visited twice, but each time he had, there had been flowers, even in the winter. Just days old by the look of them.

The day was beautiful, sunny, and the dampness from last night’s rainstorm had already evaporated into the air. Dean wondered if the summer would be a scorcher, like last year had ended up being. Danny’s headstone was on the left side of June’s and Betty’s on the right, each flanking their mother. The large stone was apparently for both June and Dean.

“June Larabie Edmonds Born June 12th, 1925 Died May 13th, 1953” was etched on the right hand side, on the left, “Dean Arthur Edmonds Born September 15th, 1925.”

The rest was blank of course, but at the time of the funeral, he had still been in a coma. Seeing his name there, only the death date left off, Dean realized how close he had come. He reached out to the left and felt the granite cool under his fingertips, despite the warmth of the air.

A smiling nurse, a tiny squalling baby wrapped in a soft white blanket, a blue knit cap on its head.

“Here is your son, Mr. Edmonds, would you like to hold him?”

He had nodded and held out his arms, trying desperately not to shake, and stared at the tiny, red face nestled in a sea of white, his pale blue cap covered the bare wisps of brown hair. This tiny creature, a fusion of his cells and June’s, appeared red-faced and angry at being evicted from his warm and comforting home. A tiny hand flexed and then fisted tight, waving with a random anger at a world that was far too bright and colder than he was used to.

“He’s going to be a handful, this one is!” The nurse had exclaimed. “Do you have names picked out yet?”

“Violet if it is a girl, and Daniel if it is a boy.” He had answered, distracted, his focus centered on not dropping the tiny creature in his arms. He had helped make this. Half of him was contained in this tiny, angry little body. The baby continued to shriek.

“Daniel is a lovely name,” she said in response, her eyes were gray and matched the strands of hair peeking out from under her cap. “It means ‘God is my judge’. I’d best get this one off to the nursery for his first meal.” She took his screaming son from him with gentle, competent hands. “You can go and see your wife now Mr. Edmonds.”

He had released his hold on the baby, relieved.

Dean’s lips stretched into a smile, before disappearing again. It never really got any better than that.

His right leg and knee ached in the lush grass.

“Mr. Edmonds, how good to see you here.”

A shadow fell over Dean and he started at the woman’s voice. He looked up, peering to see the face haloed by the bright sun.

She smiled, “I’m Doris Jenkins, Howard’s wife.”

“Oh yes, of course, Doris! I apologize, I was just lost in thought.” Dean scrambled awkwardly to his feet, dusting himself off. He towered over the tiny woman.

Doris smiled up at him, fresh flowers clutched in her hand. “I visit my daughter every week and I usually have extra. I was just coming over here to put them in and saw you. How are you, Mr. Edmonds?”

“Please, call me Dean. I’m doing well. I just, well it has been a year, so I thought I should visit them, and...” His voice petered out.

“And you don’t know what you are doing here, do you?”

This was not the mousy woman he remembered meeting a scant handful of times.

“No, I guess I don’t.” Dean glanced back at the graves. “I don’t mean to offend, but I can’t figure out what I’m doing here. They are gone and I don’t believe in heaven or hell or that they are in the arms of Jesus right now. They are just gone and I can’t make it better.”

“And is it about making it better, Dean?” Doris asked softly.

“I don’t even know that.”

She nodded, “Will you walk with me?”

“Of course.”

Around them, the trees had fully leafed out and birds were singing. The air was warm, heavy with moisture from the evening rain and promising more to come.

They didn’t walk far before arriving in a small mix of trees and a family plot and tomb that read Belvedere across the top. Near the crypt were more recent stones, including a tiny one. Doris stopped at it.

“You probably didn’t know that I was married before. Tom and I were childhood sweethearts and we married straight out of high school.”

Dean watched Doris’ face as she spoke. Her lips curved up in a smile, her eyes dreamy and faraway.

“Tom loved to sketch. And he was so good at it! His sketch of a roseate spoonbill was so detailed that Audubon purchased it for their magazine cover in 1919.”

She glanced up at Dean, “I often wonder what Tom would have done if he had come back from the Great War. He was drafted the same week we learned I was expecting a baby.”

Doris’ hand caressed the small stone. She knelt and removed the withered flowers, placing the bright blue bachelor’s button in the tiny vase.

“He was so talented, so full of life and love. The gentlest man you have ever met, as well.”

Dean read the inscription on the stone.

“Ella Belvedere, beloved daughter of Tom and Doris Belvedere. If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”

And below that, one date, “February 6th, 1918.”

Doris sighed, “He was able to visit once, she had just begun to move in me, and he was able to feel it. The look on his face.”

She turned away for a moment, “He would have been an amazing father.”

Dean waited for her to collect herself, and she breathed out a long sigh.

“I went into labor on the fourth of February. They say the first ones usually take the longest, but even the doctor became concerned. When she finally came, well, the doctor’s face said it all. She was so tiny. Her hands couldn’t even wrap around my smallest finger, her eyes were closed, and her skin was pale.”

She looked up at him, met his eyes, “They were so kind. They gave her to me, wrapped in a soft white blanket. I held her against me and told her how much she was loved. And for just one tiny moment, she opened her eyes and I saw Tom in her, the same perfect color of brown that I loved and missed so much. She took a couple of breaths, and then, she was gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Doris.” He asked gently, “And Tom?”

“The Battle of Soissons in July, just five months later. His division was under French command. It was a victory, but at such a price.”

Her small, plump hands twisted at the buttons of her blouse.

“Howard was Tom’s friend and was there next to him when he died.”

Doris reached out, took Dean’s hands in hers, and met his gaze.

“Sometimes life’s mountains seem too big, too impossible to overcome. In those months that followed, I didn’t want to live. My love was gone, and the child that we had made together. I had no one and nothing to hold onto. One day, a few months after the war had ended, Howard came to see me. He knocked on the door, introduced himself, and of course I recognized his name from Tom’s letters.”

She gave a rueful laugh, “I was so angry. I was even angry at Tom for not coming back to me. I told Howard to go away. But he was patient. He stayed at a boarding house, found work, and visited me every day, and eventually one thing led to another. It took years for me to hold another child in my arms. But when it happened? The loss and grief I had felt over Ella and Tom changed. The wounds in my soul healed.

“You think that June and your children are lost and forgotten, but they aren’t, Dean. As long as you draw breath, so do they. They live in your memories. But don’t you dare live in the past. Remember the love, forgive the bad, and do the absolute best thing that you can do in these circumstances. Live your life.”

She gave his hands a squeeze and released them.

Dean felt a wave of sadness wash over him. “I just wish that, I mean, my marriage wasn’t like yours. I wasn’t...”

Doris smiled, “You weren’t perfect? You didn’t say the right things? You weren’t the best father or husband that you could be?”

“Yes, all of those.”

“Oh Dean, even if you had done everything right, how would that matter in the face of this? There are no do-overs, no perfect marriages. Do you really think that it would have changed the here and now? We are at the mercy of fate. Joy and sorrow, they are one.”

The words awoke a memory.

“I was given this book, it says that joy and sorrow are inseparable, that ‘when one sits alone with you at your board, the other is asleep upon your bed.’”

Doris laughed lightly.

“And it is true. All these years, Ella is never far from my thoughts. She would be grown now, possibly even a mother herself. I will always mourn the fact that she didn’t get that chance. I come here and visit her and Tom, but my life with Howard and our sons is a good one. I mourn what could have been just as I recognize that the person I was then, is not the person I am now. From what I have heard of you, Dean, it sounds as if you are embracing the opportunity for change as well.”

“My book.”

“Indeed. I’ve read it, you know. The copy you sent Howard is quite worn and well-used.” She laughed, “Once Howard finished with it, I read it, and then it was the book of the month for the ladies book club I belong to. Imagine, Dean, if you had not had the situation you were dealt, would you have ever become a writer?”

“I don’t know.” He thought about it, imagining June’s objections, and the kids’ constant fighting and distractions, “Probably not.”

She knelt down and gently touched the small stone. “Never forget them, but don’t let the loss of them hold you back from making your life a good one.”

“Thank you Doris.”

As he left Doris Jenkins to spend time with her infant daughter and young husband, her words, and her story, stuck in his thoughts. He walked through the headstones, the grass thick and lush under his feet. Memories of Danny, his favorite toy a six-shooter and holster that buckled around him, and Betty and that cloth doll she was never without slid in as well. His first book had borrowed heavily from his memories of his family, but there was more that he could say. The writer in him began to draw the shapes of characters, a snippet of storyline arising, the beginning of a new book stirring in the gray folds of his brain. Overhead, the sun was high in the sky and the slow wind felt heavy and wet.