Still as Fresh

 

 

He took another look at the headstone

With the red roses stuck in the top of it

The rest were saved for the vase at home

As had become his monthly habit.

 

On this particular day of every month

He had gone through this very rite

Of placing flowers in the top of the stone

Right here on his wife’s burial site.

 

After five years the memory was still fresh

Almost as though it were yesterday

And at her grave he would stop to think

About that day that she went away.

 

That morning was just like any other

She had dutifully put his breakfast

And in her cheery voice had called to him

To partake in what was to be her last.

 

This was their rite each and every day

Before they would head off to work

And to think she was taken so suddenly

Still filled him with a lot of hurt.

 

Not even a chance to say goodbye

And snatched without a parting kiss

Trapped in the wreck that was her car

Why should it have happened like this?

 

That phone call was etched in his mind

It was the worst he had ever heard

“Your wife has had a terrible accident”

How hard it was to accept such a word.

 

Leaving his workplace he drove to the site

And what he saw he could not but reject

That the car he gave her on her last birthday

Was one and the same as this awful wreck.

 

He thought to himself this must be a dream

And that soon he would awake

But no amount of pinching himself

Could alter the present fate.

 

 

It was still as fresh as ever

Though five years since the fateful day

And there as he looked on his wife’s headstone

He knew it was there her remains lay.

 

Stewart Russell © September 21, 2016