You Would Have Liked the Balloons

Dear Cheryl,

You would have liked the balloons. There were dozens of them, massed together in colorful bunches and handed out to your little son Braxton’s cousins at your burial. I thought the children would let them go all at once, but they released them slowly, one by one, and we watched them drift up until there were dozens of them floating away on the breeze to the softly sung melody of “Somewhere in the Skies.”

     Somewhere, somewhere in the skies, roses never die. 

It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

I disliked the funeral–as I dislike all funerals–with the masses of dark-dressed people, the quiet voices and downcast eyes, the not-knowing what to do or say, the plastic face in the casket that wasn’t really you, and the still face of Bentley beside you. But I loved the balloons.

Braxton took one, too, and let it go with his daddy’s help. He is too little to understand that he won’t see you again. He cries for you sometimes, and who can explain to a child not even two that he won’t see you again in this life?

He won’t remember you in a few years, but he’ll remember the spot where you should have been. Jay is a good daddy, but every person knows the spot where his mom should be. It is the spot closest to God’s.

Bentley would have liked the balloons, too, if he had lived to be more than a few hours old.

Two balloons, a pink one and an orange one, caught in the branches of a nearby tree, and a dad lifted his son to his shoulders to pull them down. The pink balloon was released last, and I watched it drift up and up and up until it was only a small white dot, then a pinprick, then gone.

Jay misses you, I know.

I am only a child, unable to comprehend such grief. I try and fail, like a two-year old trying to comprehend romance, to comprehend trigonometry, to comprehend the fact that his mama is gone. And so I forget it and move on. I enjoy my life. The sun shines; the grass is green; it is springtime. My schoolchildren finish their work early and play outside.

But Jay and Braxton miss you.

You would have liked the balloons.

Love, Luci