Emmetsburg: Twenty-seven

John knew the spot. It was small place at the back of the cemetery set off quite obviously from the other graves. There all the stillborn and infant children were buried. It was as if they bore a separate caste from those who had lived and loved and dreamed. Their tiny plots and inconsequential gravestones were quietly succumbing to encroaching grass. A few had been recently adorned with toys and trinkets and candles. There were dried flowers on another. The rest were forgotten.

John didn't pull in all the way. It seemed more appropriate to get out and walk the rest of the way rather than to disturb the peace and quite of this place, as though there was a necessary reflection awaiting. As though there was something whose value was measured in unhurried steps and silence.

There are moments beyond word and description. Moments that pull the body to earth with an undeniable weight, like the roots of a great oak holding it firmly to earth. What words, after all, could appropriately describe the loss of child. When at last they came to that place, the inscription on the flat limestone marker was all that needed to be said.

DANIEL PATRICK PERKINS
born JUNE 11, 1929
died JUNE 12, 1929


John looked skyward and felt the fullness of the emotion, like a stone in his chest. Little Daniel had been born breach, strangled by the umbilical cord. He'd lived through the night, his final breaths fading like echoes across the sea.

How does a soul live only for one day, thought John? What god could conceive of so fundamental an injustice? Could not the universe exist and allow for the life of a child? It all called to mind for John the purpose and the very existence of the soul. It seemed to him that the very purpose of the soul was to live, and if nature eschewed waste, at least in theory, wasn’t the waste of a child’s soul the greatest of god’s hypocrisies? He looked to Anna for some explanation, but her expression was as heavy and distant as he had ever know.

She could feel his expectant gaze, but Anna was somewhere a man could never go. She felt herself pulled into the grave, filtered thru the grass and poured down to soak through the soil until she filled the small casket beside her child. And he was there, sleeping deeply as Anna pulled the boy to her breast. And there in that quiet place she cried out loud, her voice absorbed by the heavy earth so that not another soul in the world would hear.

John stood for longer than he thought he could bear. He stood for Anna, but remained unsure when she turned and quietly walked back up to the road. He followed, keeping a step or two behind her. Her gate was smooth and measured. She looked skyward and all around, as though contemplating the moment. She was so strong, he thought, but then it all fell to pieces.

Anna stopped without turning back. Her mouth fell open in a silent lament, and Anna gave a shuddering breath but held back tears. With that she thrust out an arm, grasping for some anchor, as though grief might sweep her from the earth and fling her out into space and freeze her in that moment forever. John rushed to her. He took her by the arm and led her up to the truck.