Ashland Burial

I made it to eastern Kentucky again, to see my friend's grave. It was around this time a year ago that I learned that she'd died. She passed away almost six months before I knew it. About once a year, I'd look up her phone number and give her a call. Instead of a phone number, the internet gave me an obituary.

Our story was weird and winding. I can't say it ends at her grave. Now that I know where to find it, I can't say that I won't go back to see her again. I want to take things to leave with her: magnolia blossoms, Virginia Woolf books, a university ball cap. I might try to talk to her. This time, all I could say was, "Goddamit, Ann." I had to roll a coffee table across a mausoleum floor and stand on it in order to even touch her...headstone. It's not a headstone. It's a name placed on a marble drawer front. There's a brass vase attached, and faux flowers filling it up. I pushed them out of the way because faux petals were obscuring a part of her name.

There was a sofa sitting in front of a stained glass window and I sat there and looked up at the letters that formed her name and the dates, well, those significant dates. Birth. Death. It's really that simple. You don't see timelines with graduation dates or wedding dates or favorite accomplishment dates. We get two dates, and what little control we have over either. 

I'd say no control, except in her case, she had control over one of the dates. It happens. People take control of their second date. 

I can't say I've spent a lot of time in mausoleums, but it's strange in cemeteries where you have headstones just a few steps away from the mausoleum. Headstones often have titles, too: daughter, mother, beloved wife. There was no title this time. Just her full name and her two dates. And a brass vase filled with faux flowers. They were purple.

It was cold, and smelled like a cheap motel swimming pool. There were rooms, and the one where she was had a stained glass window with the word "Light," built into the design. I thought that was odd because the room was dark. I sat on the sofa and I looked up at her name and her dates and I sobbed for a minute because I wasn't ready for the enormity of it, even though I'd had a year to get used to the idea. There will never be goodbyes or any sort of closure. There will be me on an ugly floral couch spitting curse words because I'm angry that I lost a friend who didn't want to stick around. 

I couldn't find her at first. I walked along all the outdoor mausoleum graves and didn't find her. I finally called the number and the lady gave me the code to get into the larger building. When I told her who I was looking for, she remembered her off the top of her head. "Turn right, then at the end of the hall turn left, then she's on the top left," the lady said. I thanked her. I thought it was kind of fitting that I was back in Ashland, chasing Ann down. I'd done it before, years ago, when I came back to the river for a few days at a time and tried to make plans to see her. I'd drive to Ashland to meet her and she wouldn't be at our meeting place and I'd call her and get no answer. I'd call her parents' house and they'd tell me where they thought she was supposed to be and I'd go there and run into her aunt or uncle, who'd tell me I just missed her. Sometimes I'd find her and sometimes I'd go home bewildered at how quickly set plans could fall apart. I'd be frustrated, but rarely angry. I needed her too much to be angry with her. Maybe I idolized her a little too much, too. Maybe that's whey she dodged our rendezvous. Maybe she was busy, even then, wrestling with the thing. The thing that led to her name and dates on the wall in the mausoleum.

I stood on the wheeled coffee table and I placed my hand on her name. Then I climbed down and put the coffee table back in front of the sofa and then I sat on the sofa for a long time. I sat with her. She can't dodge me now. And I'm angry over it. I'm angry that I didn't have anything to say but "Goddamit." I'm angry that there wasn't a date for the year that we met, that she directed a project created by me and my friend, Amy, that she made us crawfish etouffee and we watched the Academy Awards. I'm angry that she used to dodge my visits and I'm angry that I wasn't a better friend. I'm angry that I didn't know that she was dead for six whole months. For six months, I lived in a world in which she no longer existed and I didn't know it. I'm angry that the sofa is ugly and the room is cold. 

I'm angry at Appalachia for taking her. It made her and it took her and I'm angry that we have at least one half of that equation in common. 

From the ugly sofa in the cold room, I could hear the traffic from the highway that runs beside the cemetery. I don't know if I'd find the sound comforting or maddening. Maybe a few of the cars are driving on, just passing through town, on their way to some place else. Maybe a few carry young women who are getting out of town. Who are getting out. Who are dodging hard lives. Maybe not.