Chapter Fifteen
I'm standing at the two small, simple headstones that bear the names of my parents. Obviously, they hadn't been able to afford anything nice – not the polished marble or smooth granite headstones that filled the cemetery. No, my parents were off in a corner of the graveyard, their headstones small and unremarkable.
It was rather fitting for how they lived their lives, actually.
I squatted down before the two headstones and looked at the names and the dates of their deaths that had been carved into the rough, coarse stone. I hadn't been here when they died – I'd gotten word while over in Afghanistan, of course. I was offered bereavement leave to come back for the funerals, but had declined. What was the point? It wasn't like I had any special affection for either of them.
My father had been a drunk – a vicious drunk at that. He'd often used me and my mom as a punching bag whenever he felt wronged by life. And he felt wronged a lot. My mom hadn't been as vicious as he was. At least, not physically. My mother's particular skill was using her words – and she could use them in a way that made me wish for a physical beating from my father instead.
Cuts and bruises healed – the impact of my mother's words had a longer lasting effect.
I looked around at the other graves and noticed that most of them had flowers or some small token from a loved one. There were obvious signs that the people who resided in those graves were missed. When I looked down at the plain plots that housed the remains of my parents, I saw that there was not one flower and not one token placed upon them. They quite obviously, were not missed. By anybody.
“To tell you the truth,” I say to the two graves, “I don't even know why I'm here. It's not like we ever got along. And it's not like we ever had a family bond or anything.”
Honestly, I really have no idea why I'm here. Maybe, it's to confirm the fact that they really are dead. Maybe, this is some way to provide me with some sense of closure in my life. Back in the Corps, I'd met with a shrink a few times. He'd told me that I would never truly be able to move forward in my life if I hung on to these things from the past – these things that caused me pain. Namely, the relationship with my parents.
It was his belief that I needed to confront my past, make some effort to come to terms with it, and then let it go. He said that I needed closure on that chapter of my life. Only then, would I be able to move on from it and move forward unhindered.
Yeah, my relationship with the shrink didn't last very long.
I preferred life in the military. It was simple. Orderly. I knew what was expected of me. I could just go out and do my job. I didn't have to worry about stupid concepts like closure or moving forward. My job was simple – see the bad guy, shoot the bad guy. It doesn't get any easier than that.
But for whatever reason, almost the minute I hit the town limits, I felt compelled to visit the graveyard.
“Maybe, that shrink was right,” I say. “Maybe, I did need to see this. To know for sure that you're dead, gone, and not coming back.”
I stand up and turn to leave, but then pause. I look out at the sea of headstones, at the riot of colors from the flowers placed on those graves. And although there is a part of me that feels badly that these two people had so little impact on the lives of others that nobody bothered to even put a flower on their grave, the other part of me feels somehow satisfied by it. Part of me feels like in death, they are getting what they deserve for what they wrought in life.
I turn back to the two graves. “Actually, before I go,” I say, “I just want to get a couple of things off my chest.”
A soft gust of wind blows across the cemetery, sending dry leaves skittering across the grass. The sudden breeze made me think the spirits in the graveyard – my parents in particular – were trying to communicate with me. Although, I don't know what my parents would be trying to communicate. Would they be asking me for forgiveness? Or would they simply be launching another verbal assault from beyond the grave.
Knowing them as well as I did, I suspected it would probably be the latter.
“I guess I just want to say that I hope you two are rotting in hell,” I say. “For eighteen years, you made life beyond miserable. You twisted me in knots that I'm still trying to untie. Believe me when I say that you two fucked me up but good. I'm glad you're both dead.”
I stare down at the graves as if expecting an answer. Obviously, none is forthcoming. Which is fine. I have a little more to get off my chest and I hate being interrupted.
“As parents and as human beings, you both failed. Miserably,” I say, “The fact that they dumped you two out here in the corner of the boneyard, all by yourselves – it says a lot about the both of you. All of it well deserved. I made something of myself, you assholes. You did your best to tear me down. To make me a useless piece of trash like the both of you – but you failed at that too. I did something with my life. Unlike the both of you.”
I open my mouth to speak again but find that – I'm done. I'm surprised to find that I have nothing else to say. It strikes me as incredibly odd given that I had so many years of rage built up within me. So many years of pain. And because of that, I thought that I'd be standing there throwing verbal grenades at them for hours.
But the desire to do that simply – evaporated.
Maybe, that's what closure feels like – the need to exact a pound of flesh simply disappearing. I'd said my piece and maybe now, it's time to move forward.
The only problem is that I've lived so long with that weight on my shoulders and that rage within me bubbling just below the surface, I'm not quite sure how to live without it. That dark anger – in a way – defined me.
It's one reason I was so effective in the fields of Afghanistan – I could actually kill without the barest shred of remorse. My anger and my rage made me a better soldier. And if the anger that had sustained me for so long did simply vanish, I wasn't sure how I was going to manage to live without it.
But, that's a discussion better left for another day. I'm so screwed up in the head right now that my old familiar companion – the rage – might still actually be somewhere deep down inside of me. Might not have gone away at all. Who knows?
All I do know is that I said my piece to my folks and I was now done with them. Totally and completely done. And I feel pretty damn good about that.