We drop Jonah off at Hebrew and take Rachel and toddler Isaac to the park. There is time to fill and there is energy to burn. At 9 AM on a dreary Sunday, it is empty. Wet leaves blown into piles, puddles gathered in the low spots. It smells like autumn. Damp, dank with a sweet smell of rot.
The metal gate creaks as we enter and Rachel squeals for Ike to follow her. They go up and down the playground ramp, cajoling Ike into sitting first before he goes down the slide. She admonishes him for stepping off an edge that drops him sharply to the ground. Isaac is angry that he falls, not understanding how gravity could possibly let him down.
Just as we got in the groove, it was time to bring Rachel back to the synagogue for her class. Isaac cried and wailed. It was too soon. He wasn't done. How dare we?
While Joe walks Rachel to her classroom, I sit in the back of our car, feeding Isaac honey bears. Eventually I unbuckle him and watch as he climbs triumphantly into the back row bench, with a smug look. Its the row he stares at from his rear-facing car seat. The empty space.
Once Rachel is situated, we pile back in to visit the cemetery. I think about going often, but try not to go frequently. Nothing really changes there except for the season. The trees grow, the leaves fall, the snow returns. And then it melts back in.
I spend a few minutes unearthing the rocks that have fallen off her stone, returning them to the top. some are gently buried; they have been sinking into the soft soil. Many are gone and I wonder which tiny child may have pocketed the blue piece of sea glass, or the fossil from Lake Placid? Where do those things go?
Joe says its okay that they disappear. You don't leave a rock on top of a grave and expect it to stay. After all, time passes there too. And at four years out, the grief still fits in all the crevices, even when you can't find exactly where it has gone.
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