Last Night I Found Your Headstone
By: Melinda Kay
Tags: PTSD, Personal Essay, Relationships, Multiple Sclerosis, Child Abuse

Last night, I found your headstone. The picture peered at me through digital haze, blurry from 36 years of tears unshed — or perhaps I merely need new glasses.

I made the picture bigger, searching the granite stone for the details of the childhood I lost far too soon. Maybe they were etched beneath the letters of your name. The name that still makes me squirm and fight the urge to hide. Details I could not find.

I made the picture small again, wanting to click it away, close the screen and forget-like I’d done so many times before. My cursor froze over the red x in the corner. My heart wonders why it didn’t mean more — that last night I found your headstone.

**

Do you remember that house — the one with the tree house? Do you remember that day? I do. It was spring or summertime. The sky was a vivid blue, so bright that it hurt my eyes to look at it. I wore the yellow dress that Mama had made for me, the one I was wearing the day you told me I was pretty. You were in a good mood that day, do you remember? I do. Your giant hand engulfed mine as we walked up the front path to the door. You smiled at me. And then…you weren’t smiling anymore.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The ground reached up and wrapped itself around you. You crashed to the sidewalk and all I could do was stand there and cry. I wanted you to get up, but you couldn’t. Do you remember? I do. The grown-ups came rushing to help you. All I heard was your angry voice:

“Stop crying. You’re acting like a child.”

I was a child, then. But not for long. Do you remember? I do.

**

Last night I found your headstone. It was a relief in a way. I wondered what had happened after they took your cold shell away. I bent to kiss your cheek. An act of duty, not affection. My lips are still freezer burned.

“Did your Dad know you have purple hair?”

I silently shook my head.

**

“Tell me about your bad dreams.”

You said, one night to my sisters and me. We each recounted a dream of terror. You took great delight in naming them all and calling them one by one down the stairs. There was great theater in the way you kicked them out the front door and locked it behind them so these dreams could not trouble our sleep again. You kissed me goodnight that night. Do you remember? I do.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

**

Last night I found your headstone. Out of curiosity I looked for Grandma’s too. It was there — standing next to yours. Cold grey stone, unadorned with epitaphs of love. I wanted it to read “The Creature in Idaho lies here.” Instead it bore only her name. Virginia. Innocuous. Innocent, harmless sounding. No testament to the terror she reined. Dead four years and I never knew. I had thought the world would have become lighter somehow, happier when she was gone. But my universe didn’t shift. I didn’t know. Until last night, when I found your headstone.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

**

The heavy metallic scrape of your walker startled me. I winced as you lumbered haphazardly into the entryway where I had set up watch.

“What’re you looking at?”

you accused, as if I had been staring at you instead of the rain. I wished I had stayed upstairs and watched the storm from my bedroom window. You couldn’t climb the two and half flights of stairs in the house on Pioneer. I might have been safe from you if I’d just stayed upstairs. Do you remember? I do.

“I was watching the rain, Daddy. Tyler told me that it was gonna snow today!”

I forgot that happiness and excitement was unacceptable in our house, that you became enraged if we laughed too much or too loudly. Of their own accord, my feet started to dance around the tile of the entryway. I didn’t notice the way your eyes suddenly turned cold, replaced by slabs of blue ice-a warning signal. Do you remember? I do.

“I was waiting for it to start, ’cause you know why? When it starts snowing, I’m going to build a snowman and a snow-fort and start a snowball fight…do you think it will snow, Daddy? Will you build a snowman with me, Daddy?

Your cold, unloving stare landed on my face moments before your hand crashed into my cheek, your wedding ring cut into my flesh and drew blood. Do you remember? I do.

Although you couldn’t walk well anymore, you could still send me crashing to the floor with one swipe. I didn’t move while you turned away without looking at me and made your way slowly back to the overstuffed brown chair — the throne from which you ruled the kingdom. I could hear your labored breath as you struggled to sit. I knew I should help you, but I was too scared. Instead, I stood on my shaky legs, grabbed my doll, and started toward the stairs that would lead me to the safety of my bedroom.

Do you remember? I do.

Photo by _Mxsh_ on Unsplash

**

The night I found your headstone, I was processing a new fear.

“You may have M.S.” The doctor had said “We need to do more tests.”

I numbly scheduled appointments, thinking of the legacy you left me.

Disease.

I watched it eat you for 14 long years.

I saw you turn from towering giant to drooling vegetable.

Would it happen to me now?

I decided it would not, it could not. Your power is rotted, faded, gone.

You can’t hurt me again.

And that night, I found your headstone.

*This personal essay was first published in the 2016 fall edition of The LongRidge Review.