“He loved to laugh,” we remembered,
and looked again at the empty headstone.
“Alexander G. Teton, 1982-1999.”
Carl brushed his hand across his name.
His face seemed to say, “I can’t believe he’s gone,”
but Carl sat silent.
Nearly three months since he had passed away,
and Carl still blamed himself.
“Remember his REM trivia questions?” P’Etra asked us.
Like it was yesterday, I think; Alex always took us Near Wild Heaven.
Now he dwells there closer than ever.
We get up, hold hands, and some of us pray.
I stay silent, watching Carl watch the headstone.
“I remember the funeral,” Carl tells me as we leave.
“All those people, those empty people, asking if I was a friend of his.”
I remembered too, Carl didn’t need to remind me.
“And I said simply, ‘We were very close.’”
Carl still wished he had done more. “If only…”
Carl?
“’If only,’ they said. ‘If only he had continued his counseling.
If only he had stayed closer to the world of…’”
and Carl broke down. “…world of ‘God’.
That wasn’t it. There was nothing he could have done.
If only I had done more…” Carl. No. It was no one’s fault.
Alex just couldn’t take it.
We left the gates of the cemetery hand-in-hand,
the sun now shining in the cold winter sky,
leaving the resting place of an unfortunate boy,
whose grave we had covered in flowers and Millennium paraphernalia.
But the most fantastic sight leaving the cemetery that day
was the colorful flag that stood over his grave.
Carl had left it there, I have no doubt.
It stood there, proud, brave, and strong,
just like Alex.