Beneath A Sycamore Tree

Yesterday a forty-eight year old man wandered the graveyard at Inglewood Cemetery, a bouquet of flowers hanging from one hand, a map of the plots in the other, unable to find his mother’s grave.  Back and forth he went, up and down the rows of markers, finding name after name, but not the name he was seeking. Already emotional at even being there, he stopped to take a deep breath. Wasn’t this how he’d spent most of his life with his mother: seeking and not finding? Yes. It was.

Out of nowhere came a soft, angelic voice. “Excuse me sir, do you need help?”

The man, startled a bit, looked up to see a young black girl in her early twenties, wearing a faded orange blouse, her prominent cheekbones set beneath dark eyes that were soft with concern. In her arms was a newborn baby, fast asleep, swaddled in a blanket. Clearing his throat, the man managed a reply, “I’m looking for my mother,” he said, “But I can’t find her. I have a map, but…”

She nodded politely. “Can I help?” And the man nodded back. “Sure.” 

The girl called over a girlfriend that was in a parked car nearby and the two of them went up and down the various rows, helping the man, looking for the same name he was. All to no avail. Sadness now began mixing with feelings of embarrassment and despair. Then, another voice called out to the man, this one in Spanish. “Which plot number are you looking for?” It was one of the groundskeepers, a look of pity on his face and a shovel in his hand. How does he know I speak Spanish, the man wondered. They talked. The man told the groundskeeper the number, and after a bit, at long last, the man was led with these three angels to the name he was looking for.

Then? Instantly, respectfully, they all left him alone. The man felt tired. He looked at the letters that made up half of his soul and dropped his head and cried, long and hard, the heavy kind of sobs that hurt your ribs when you try to hold them in. This had been a long time coming. Eleven months, sixteen days. But it was the right day, the day that would’ve been his mother’s 77^th birthday. The man placed the flowers; tulips, daisies, roses and his mother’s favorite, plumerias, on the headstone. Then he sat down and began to inventory his grief.

The man thought of all the hard times with his mother, all the moments of disconnect, misunderstanding, hurt and confusion. He plucked all the “why’s” out of the sky around his head and spread them out on the tall, cool grass before him, and was about to indulge in a garden of regrets, when, instead, he thought of the young girl and her baby. What a picture they were: a mother who had given life and was now continuing to give it, nursing that baby with coos and soft songs of sleep and peace. Hadn’t this been the man and his own mother once, forty eight years ago? Yes. It had. 

And that’s all that really mattered.

So, there beneath the wide spread arms of a sycamore tree, the man got on his knees and prayed. Then he knelt over and put his forehead to his mother’s tombstone and told her, one by one, every single thing that she’d done right in his life. He thanked her and told her how much he loved her, in soft, soft whispers. Like a lullaby. 

Then? He walked to his car and drove away.