Purity

 

A. 1979 - 2012


     A person once close to me recently died, someone which encouraged me to share.  I remember her still intending to heal despite her wounds and always reviving the pursuit of love and light. 


I was young, just starting to drive a car when she phoned me, something ominous instantly shifted broadcasted through her environment.  Over the phone, I could hear someone yelling at her while she cried to me about his aggressive behavior.  The man picked up the line and a vile surge traveled upon his words, which terrified her and put me on edge.  He said many vulgar things intending to subdue her.  I could see he was morbidly imbalanced and had a twisted need to harm.  This relationship stemmed from her childhood in which he had been extremely abusive.  She had confided this to me years before.  After the attack ceased my friend asked me to come get her, which I did as soon as possible.  I thought I was going to have to physically protect her; the man had been so threatening when we spoke and had such a profoundly violent history.

 

     The abuse was never resolved and he always held himself over her with this terrifying command to comply.  As the memory was tilled, she felt ugly and horrible all over again, and I saw that this wound, despite the years which had passed, was still menacing and maddening to her.  She suddenly said she wanted to go see her grandfather’s grave, which sounded irrational to me.  However, I sincerely wanted to help her feel better, so I agreed and drove her to the adjacent city some distance away, to an enormous cemetery along the highway, which I had never even noticed because it was predominantly blocked by mature trees and had no vertical headstones.  When we entered the grounds, I stopped the car and noticed then that there were no upright markers.  She was still crying hysterically.  I remained detached but shared her pain, I hoped she would feel supported or eased by a sense of being understood at least.   I exited the vehicle and waited outside for her.

  

After a few minutes, she had collected herself enough to talk and joined me outside.  "Where is he buried?" I asked, hoping to help her look.  "I don't know," she replied through thick tears.  "Well, you must remember the general area.  We stopped here; is this the region?" I asked hopefully.  "I don't remember.  I was still a child when he died," she sadly replied.  "He could be anywhere. But he loved me and saw me differently.  I can feel him watching," she said.  "Well, we should just start looking," I suggested, and scanned around the vast grounds.

The grass had been mowed all summer and was unfortunately covering all of the stones as the clippings left had mounded over them all.  I would have thought it to be an empty field had she not told me of the markers set flush against the earth.  Something strong replaced the sense of impotency I felt, overtaking me through my vantage point and I momentarily saw outside myself from another’s perspective, viewing my body.  There was a darkness around myself and a push, which I took in retrospect as an external influence altering an internal reciever.  Viewing this instance was like the experience looped through time for me.  I saw myself looking through that day and remembered stopping in the field as I received that pressure, wondering what was observing.

 

While she waited, I stepped in a strange manner onto the grass next to the car, I walked in an unusual arc, and stopped randomly in the field.  Almost independent of my own will, my foot kicked and a chunk of sod flew.  I thought I would start there and hopefully find a stone to reference.  I realized it was, indeed, a marker, which seemed like a great beginning.  I calculated that I would begin searching left to right alphabetically parallel to this headstone until we reached their family name.  I removed the grass from the smooth stone and fell back with a rush in my solar plexus.  It was her last name. Then a sudden chill moved through my entire body, despite the intensely hot and arid summer air.

 

     Rising suddenly, I asked her his first name.  It matched the marker.  Not knowing which area of the cemetery and even where any stone was located, we drove right to the spot.  In an entire, uniform empty field of grass, the one area I kicked was his grave.  We couldn't even fathom the situation, the impossible odds.  Skeptical of ghosts or spirits, I looked at her, somehow knowing something had certainly directed me, aware that an unseen force I could not comprehend was right before us.  She looked shaded, although she was in the sun, and said she needed to be alone with him.  We spent the rest of the day talking in a secluded garden.

 

Looking back, I realize that she was aware of his presence, and spoke directly to his spirit.  He revealed to us both through his response to her, that, despite the emotions and effects which arise, we are pure and our essence is untainted by the world which appears to distort and harm us. This part of our beings understood.