Essay

June10

By: Nancilynn Saylor,

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There is no year written here, just June 10, because every year it arrives to find me in the same a melancholy state of mind as I await the time heralding its arrival.
On June 10, 2004, I lost my son, my first-born child. We spoke on the telephone early that morning as we often did; by evening he was dead. I keep waiting for the time “it- will- get- easier”; after eight years it has not, so I know it never will. My sister lost her first-born son two years earlier; I watch her continue to grieve .It will never change. I know! I still remember his last words to me! I can hear him say them, in my head and in my heart.
I remember all of his favorite foods, his music, and his hazel- green eyes that crinkled up at the corners when he smiled. He loved hot summers and no rain. He really disliked rain. His life was about motorcycles and barbeques and his friends; dragonflies and butterflies; pretty girls and snakes, beer, pets, and his family. He loved his mom and dads’ and brothers; aunts, uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins.
We stood, side-by-side the day we gave him his Viking Funeral at the lake; that summer day in the rain. His friends were with us- at his side in death, as in life. I knew I was not the only one with a knot in my throat blinking back hot tears. His dad was by my side, though we’d been divorced since he was a year old. His brother and best friends tried to keep us all in order…then the funeral pyre arrived. I lost it…The box that contained his ashes, and other important memorabilia from his friends were laid on the bed. A flag was raised and his brother and father shouldered it, carrying it down to the water. As they brought the Viking ship to rest in the water, accelerant was added and a torch applied. I stood up on the slope in tears. I looked around at his nieces and nephew and friends and family. All I could do was cry.
Looking up, I saw the very faintest of rainbows appear in the evening sky. It seemed as if my laughing thespian was orchestrating the moments of the scene from which ever cloud he rested. It appeared to be the work of a young rainbow novice, one who loved rainbows but not rain. It was as if he reached across eternity with the perfect final touch…through my tears, I smiled and took a picture.
June 30, 2012
Today it is a bright beautiful clear blue summer day. Today, it is hot, there is no rain. This day, on the anniversary of his birth I decide to barbeque in his honor.
I smiled, knowing he would approve.

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