Ever have one of those days? I’d barely slept the night before, upset over a tense phone call I’d had with my estranged daughter. Then I got up at 5:00 A.M. to help my son, Brad, deliver newspapers, only to have us argue over something trivial.
My husband couldn’t find any clean socks, and blamed me for being late for his new job. The phone rang. It was a bill collector, reminding me of a past-due payment. I still had to begin homeschooling lessons for Brad, clean the house, do the laundry, help my elderly mother with some errands and, to top it off, my fibromyalgia was flaring up.
One of those days? “Lord,” I muttered, “it feels like I’m having one of those lives!”
“I’m going for a walk,” I told Brad. “Start studying. I’ll be home soon.”
I headed down our road till I reached the cemetery. That’s normally where I’d turn around. But I wasn’t ready to go home. I looked at the headstones shaded by the trees, not a living person in sight. The perfect place for peace and quiet. I crossed the street, entered through the main gate and set out on the paved path that snaked through the grounds.
I sat down in a shady spot beneath a small willow tree and finally let my tears flow. Lord, sometimes life seems so difficult. My problems feel too big to handle. What can I do? I buried my head in my hands. Yes, I was feeling sorry for myself, but didn’t I have a right to?
The sound of an approaching car made me look up. An ancient Cadillac slowly drove past, coming to a stop a few yards away. An old man climbed out and walked to the passenger side, opened the door and helped an old woman to her feet. She leaned on a cane.
The two of them went around back to the trunk. The rusted hinges moaned as they opened it. With great effort they pulled out a plastic milk jug filled with water. The woman struggled to carry it toward one of the plots. I wiped my eyes, jumped up and hurried over.
“Can I help you?”
“Please walk my wife to our son’s grave,” the old man said. “I’m afraid she’ll fall.” The woman handed me the jug and put her arm in mine, leading me to a stone etched with a name in bronze.
I ran back to the car to help the man unload more things: a shovel, a spade, clippers, some mulch, cleaning fluid and a soft cloth.
“We clean our son’s grave four times a year,” the old man said. “Ever since he died in Vietnam.”
“Let me help you,” I said.
There were two small evergreens on each side of the weathered stone that needed trimming. “We planted these the first Christmas without him,” the old man said. “It was his favorite holiday.”
I listened as I snipped overgrown branches and added mulch around the roots. “He was such a sweet boy,” his mother said. “He helped me plant flowers and vegetables in my garden.”
The father told me he missed the lazy weekend afternoons he and his son spent together. “He loved to fish, but if they weren’t biting we’d go home and shoot at empty cans in the yard.”
Their son joined the army right after high school. “We still keep his room just as he left it,” his mother said.
There was one last thing they wouldn’t let me do. When everything else was tidy, the woman knelt down and polished the surface of her son’s marker. Quietly, she hummed a song. Finally, she held the cloth to her chest, laid her hand on her son’s name and said goodbye.
Then the couple joined hands and walked to the car. I gathered the tools and returned them to their trunk. “Thank you,” the woman said. “We do this for our son, though it’s getting harder and harder. We rarely see anyone else on the days we are here. You were a blessing.”
“It was a blessing to help you,” I said, hugging them.
I watched their car drive away then headed toward the main gate. Time to get back to life. I was ready to go home. To teach my son. To do the laundry and help my mom. And to work on repairing things with my daughter.
My life could be hard, but it was good. I couldn’t let stress stop me from counting my blessings—or let me forget to be a blessing for someone else. It was just what I needed to do.
