To Mourn

Yesterday, on my way back from Santa Fe, I saw a woman decorating one of the roadside crosses along the freeway. This particular cross was in the median and it was huge. The woman had pulled her minivan into the median and she was carefully adding plastic flowers and beads to the cross. She was all dressed up and 30 miles from anywhere. She was so deliberate in her actions and even watching her for a few seconds, I could feel her mourning. That got me thinking...how do we mourn? How do I mourn?

I have only visited a grave once and it was the grave of a grandfather I never met. I have lost people, but their graves are either across the country or nonexistent -- but I wish I could visit them. I wish I could be near my grandpa once in a while, that I had a place to go when I wanted to talk to him. But that would mean moving to Michigan, or visiting once in a while. Yet, every time I drive by the hospital where he died, which is at least once a week, I think about him and how much I miss him. Is the hospital my roadside cross?

My first boyfriend, Carl, had his ashes scattered on different mountains all over the world. There is a meadow in the Santa Fe mountains that friends have named after him, but I've never been there. Sometimes I dream about Carl though, and when I wake up, I feel like we've been having a conversation, which is really a wonderful feeling.

When I was younger, I used to think that grave yards and roadside crosses were only sad. But now I think they are both sad and beautiful. We always miss our loved ones and the way we honor them after they are gone are so human, so touching and so necessary.