Her

DOES GOD REPLAY your sins for you after you die? These are the sort of thoughts I ponder as I stare down at the gravestones. The moon is absent tonight, the earth silent. “Silent as the grave,” they say. I shall soon find out.

I remember my sins. I remember many of the small ones, most of the bad ones, and all of the terrible ones. Sometimes I question why—why did I choose that path instead of a safer path?

But I am still good. I am not evil or wicked. The most important of the commandments I have kept, and sacredly.

God will take that into account once I am dead, won’t He?

I bend down to brush sticks from a stone. The name stares up at me with a hollow void. I try to imagine what this person was like in life. Their smiles, their joys, their dreams. So empty now. They took none of them with them into the afterlife. When a soul leaves its body, the corpse is left behind to decay. Loved ones sift through belongings and determine what to keep or discard. Property, if owned, is sold or handed down. Photographs may stay on display for a time, but in one, two, most certainly three generations, they will be tucked into a trunk. No one will recognize the person’s name anymore. The family tree will have expanded, their name unmatched to their image.

What does a person take with them when they die? Nothing. They go before God with a naked soul.

That is what I am perhaps afraid of the most. What brought me comfort here in this life will stay here in this life. What I hoped to acquire will be the death of me, and what I hoped to avoid such as death will come whether I wish it to or not.

In the end, I am powerless. I am barren. I own nothing, I hold nothing, I take nothing. It is me. God. My sins.

I rise from the grave, although my eyes continue to stare at the unfamiliar name of the unfamiliar person who lived an unfamiliar life.

One day my name will be carved into stone.

But where will my spirit be?