To the Artist Who Designed Our Son’s Gravestone

We should not have to pay money to bury our children.

 

We were offered the standard free coffin. It looked like a shoe box, only a little bigger. A coat box maybe. Nothing like what I would expect to put my baby into. Nothing warm like the blankets we had wrapped him in.

I took one look and burst into tears. He removed it very quickly from the room and brought in another. This was one wasn’t the free model, but it had some character to it: beveled edges, a satin lining. A little pillow.

As if to say, not yet. We had not yet completely agreed to this death. We had not yet let it enter our hearts. Our arms were still warm from him. I could still smell him when I close my eyes.

And then we had to go look at the plots. First, he took us to the free plots, close to the road. There was a sewer nearby. I couldn’t fathom leaving the baby near a sewer. No. We found another plot. Shade trees. Surrounded by other babies. Some with only one date on the headstone. I realized, slowly, those babies were born and died on the same day. One date. How many hours? 2? 7? None?

But the headstone was free. We went to a tiny office near the cemetery. We said we wanted sunflowers. We called him “sonflower.” Rainer, after Rilke. His name etched in stone. His dates:June 4-July 14. So much longer than many of the others. We held him for weeks.

Months after he has died, we run after work just to keep moving. We go to the grocery store and try to remember what we like to eat. I pick up the potatoes. Do I like them? Chicken? Salad? What makes a dinner?

The drawing of the headstone is ready for our approval. We go down to the office.

The artist has drawn the sunflower, so simple. Sonflower. Our son. Our flower. This is given to us. The one gift. The stone that says forever, he was here. He was real. He was ours.