Evie's Grave

 

   Wednesday C and I made a pilgrimage to the Ft. Snelling Cemetery. Evie's daughter told me that Evie would be buried out there with her husband. 

   I didn't want to go, but needed to. I found out about Evie's death with a phone call. There was no obituary, even on the funeral home website. Due to Covid restrictions there was no funeral, memorial service or burial I could attend. When this happens it seems a little surreal. There's nothing concrete to hold on to.

   Honestly, I don't think I would have wanted to go to any viewing. I wouldn't want the last memory of my friend to be a casket shot. I'd rather remember her sitting at Buca enjoying her meal or sitting at her kitchen table eating a chicken leg. However I needed something to make this real for me. This meant a trip to Ft. Snelling. 

   Military cemeteries are wonderful things. They are neatly laid out and have good online maps so graves can be found. I knew the name of Evie's husband so all I needed to do was find the section and spot where he had been laid to rest. 

   It wasn't hard to find. Thankfully the snow was melting and only a thin layer was on the ground. We found the section where Evie is and parked on the edge of the road. We got out of the car and started to walk. It shouldn't be too hard to find. She was buried on Tuesday. We walked down a row counting the numbers on the graves until we found a freshly turned plot. 

   There were no flowers or decorations on the plot. Just the freshly turned brown dirt. It seemed a bit desolate and sad to see her resting place so bare.  However, Evie had always been a practical woman. I'm sure she had left instructions that there were to be no flowers. There was a small metal stake near the headstone that had her name on it and the date of her death and burial. She died on the 15th, a week and a half ago. 

   C and I stood at the foot of the grave with our arms linked. C talked to her as he does at such times. I just stood there, a few tears streaming down my face. I missed her and was sad. There would be no more phone calls once a week. No more dinners with her anywhere. I had wanted to get a Covid vaccine soon so I could visit her again. Now there was no rush.  I knew that I should be glad that she was no longer in pain and no longer unable to breathe and no longer frustrated that she got tired so easily. She'd gone back to God and was hopefully reunited with her beloved dad, her best friend Judy and the several children that she'd miscarried.

   Her spirit, the part that made her what she was, wasn't in the box under the freshly turned dirt. All that was there was the form that her spirit inhabited while she was on the earth. Before we left I crouched down beside the grave and put my hand on the spot where I though her shoulder would be. I let my hand rest gently there for a couple of minutes. I just wanted to tell her one last time that I loved her, missed her and that her friendship meant a lot to me.

  I slowly stood back up feeling peace. She knew. She knew because I had told her while she was alive. I showed her. There was nothing more that I could have done, except the one thing that I couldn't, as a responsible heath care professional, do which was to visit her during the pandemic. I would not have the burden of wishing I had done or said certain things earlier. 

  C and I turned and walked back to the car. I got what I needed.....