by Lillian
It was a cold and dreary mid-morning when Ashley visited her parents' graves. Coincidentally, it was the one year anniversary of her parents' death, and the weather matched Ashley's melancholy mood. She could almost feel the rain, even though it wasn't falling. In her mind, rain covered her eyes, blinding her as she continued on her path to the graves. Mud covered her black boots, turning them brown. The bottoms of her jeans were soaked through from the moist grass, still wet from the dew of the early morning.
The sun was nowhere to be found, playing hide and seek behind the dark gray menacing clouds that threatened rain. It was one of those days that no matter how great of a mood you were in, the weather would always depress you. It wasn't helping Ashley's mood on this particular day, either.
As Ashley approached the burial site that cradled her beloved parents in the earth's resting place, a raindrop from the thunderstorm in her mind fell from her eye. She found it hard to believe that her parents had been gone a whole year.
Once Ashley drew nearer, she could read the familiar tombstone clearly. "Mary and Ben Sykes, together forever." A picture below their names depicted wedding bells. Their dates of birth and death were carved below that. Mary's side read, "October 3, 1956 - December 14, 1998." Ben's side read, "January 16, 1952 - December 14, 1998."
Ashley's mind flashed with images from December 14 of the previous year. That night, she had gone out with some friends, they had gone bowling. When Ashley got back to the house, she changed her clothes, and sat in the kitchen in her robe, drinking tea before she went to bed. As she was washing the pink Valentine's Day mug, the phone rang. It startled Ashley so much that she almost dropped her favorite mug, that her parents' had given her. When she answered the phone, Ashley was informed that her parents had been killed by a drunk driver swerving out of control on a local road. The rest of that night had been a blur.
Now, Ashley brought with her to the grave a bouquet of pink roses, the kind her mother carried when she married Ashley's father. It was her mother's favorite kind of rose.
Crying softly, Ashley knelt down before the grave, and set the flowers on it.
She spoke three simple words that held so much meaning, "I love you."
Ashley's mind was filled with things she longed to tell her parents, about school, work, family, friends, everything that was going on in her life, but Ashley hoped they were just watching from above. It was her reassurance, it was all she had left.