They Just Got Unlucky

I wasn’t expecting company.

I come to this cemetery twice a year. Same plot. Same routine. Say what needs saying to someone who can’t hear me anymore. Leave.

That’s the arrangement.

The man on the bench didn’t seem to know the arrangement.

He was maybe seventy two. Solid. White at the temples. The kind of man who looked like he’d worked with his hands his whole life and didn’t regret it. He was sitting on a small bench between four graves arranged close together – two older stones weathered and dark, two newer ones still holding their color.

My family plot was three rows over.

Close enough that when he nodded I nodded back.

He looked like a man with something on his mind that had been there a long time.

I stayed.

We didn’t speak for a while. That’s acceptable in cemeteries. Silence is the native language.

After a few minutes he said – without looking up:

“Four of them. Same family. Same plot.”

I looked at the stones.

Two from 1928. Two from recent years.

“Your family?” I asked.

“What’s left of it,” he said.

He was quiet again. Then:

“My grandparents died the same night. November 1928. My grandfather made home brew in the basement. Did what a lot of men did back then. Government took away legal drinking so men made their own.” He paused. “He was proud of it apparently. Shared a bottle with my grandmother that evening.”

He stopped.

“Neither of them woke up the next morning.”

I didn’t say anything.

“My father was five years old. Woke up. Went downstairs. Couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t wake up.” He looked at the two dark stones. “Five years old.”

The wind moved through the trees above us.

“He was raised by his aunt. Good woman apparently. Did her best. But she didn’t talk about them much. Nobody did. Back then you didn’t talk about things like that. Shame had a way of making history disappear.”

“What did your father know about them?”

He smiled slightly.

“Almost nothing. One photograph on the mantle. that was it. That was the whole story.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photograph. Handed it to me without ceremony.

Folded, faded and worn down. A young couple. roaring twenties judging by the clothes. They were standing close together near an open window – his hat slightly tilted, her face turned toward his. She had the most beautiful smile. The kind of smile that meant something. he looked like a man who couldn’t quite believe his luck.

“That’s them,” he said quietly.

I looked at it for a moment. They looked happy. the kind of happy that doesn’t know what coming. I handed it back.

“Your father never tried to find out more?”

“He tried.” He carefully folded and returned the photograph to his pocket. “But the people who knew them were gone by the time he thought to ask. that’s the thing about waiting too long. The answer go with the people.”

He looked at the newer stones now.

“My parents lived good long lives. Dad never really talked about his parents even to us. Just that photograph on the mantle. Every time I asked he’d say – They were good people. They just got unlucky.”

“I’ve been coming here for thirty years,” he said. “Since my father first brought me. He’d stand here for a while. Never cry. Never say much. Just stand.”

He looked at all four graves together.

“I think he was trying to feel something he never got to feel when he was five. Something he didn’t have words for yet.”

He stood up slowly. Straightened his jacket.

“I bring the photograph every time. Show it to them. Tell them what’s been happening with the family.” He paused. “I know that sounds foolish.”

“It doesn’t,” I said.

He nodded once.

“My grandfather made bad home brew on a November night in 1928. Didn’t know it was bad. Wasn’t careless. Wasn’t reckless. Just a man trying to find something good in a time that wasn’t offering much.”

He looked at the dark stones one more time.

“Three generations of our family never really got over one night he didn’t survive.”

He picked up his hat from the bench.

“They were good people,” he said.

They just got unlucky.

He walked away through the graves.

I stayed a while longer.

The two dark stones from 1928 said nothing. They never do.

But I kept thinking about a five year old boy going downstairs on a November morning. Calling their names. Not understanding the silence.

Carrying that silence for the rest of his life.

Passing it down without meaning to.

Some losses don’t end with the people who suffer them.

They just get quieter.

– WiseGuy The Speakeasy – Goodfella Gifts