Daffodils

I think I will plant daffodils on my daughter’s grave. Have you ever seen them when they appear suddenly in the early Spring in a disused pasture, or along an old fence line, or on the side of a forgotten road? I like them best that way: in the wild, an unexpected treasure. I will plant a cluster of them at her head and at her feet and a few scattered randomly about as if dropped from heaven.

When I found out that Erin had been fatally injured in an automobile accident, her body only being kept alive by some machine so that her organs could be preserved for transplant, I was hundreds of miles away. There was nothing I could do but weep and pray. A man offered me a drink of whiskey but I refused. I wanted my grief to be pure and not dulled. I knew I had to get to the very bottom of it before I could ever begin to crawl back up again. That was almost 20 years ago. I am still crawling.

Yesterday, Valentines Day, I sent my wife three roses and asked her to place them on Erin’s grave and I thought about her and wept. I was, again, miles from home. The tears I cried were not bitter tears but were sweet tears of sorrow. God gave us tears so that we can cry out our sorrow from time to time lest it fill us up. We have to let out some of the sorrow to make room for something else. Maybe joy.

Erin was a sweet, gentle, loving soul. She was perhaps too delicate for this world. God took her, some say. I only know that she was here and is now gone and her passing left a hole in my heart. But I will not let that hole be always filled with sorrow. When it gets too full I will cry it out to make room for something else.

I will plant daffodils on my daughter’s grave and water them with my tears.

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