Gone, But Not Forgotten

The first thing Jaime felt as she came to was drops of water brushing her cheek. Still in the steep slumbers of sleep, her conscious mind gradually lifted through the heavy dream-like clouds that tempted her eyes to stay closed. Breathing in the fresh air, her lungs filled with cold and crisp clean with just a hint of scent. Lavender? Rose? A bit of both? She couldn’t quite decide, and curiosity got the best of her. Opening her blurry eyes, she was met with gray clouds amid dark, rainy ones. Adjusting to the sudden brightness her head turned to the side as her arm went up to shield her face. The rain was really coming down now, suddenly it had a newfound force.

Jaime got up from where she had been laying a second ago and quickly made her way under one of the heavy trees for cover. The branches were dense enough that there were barely any water droplets, giving her a small reprieve. Spying around herself for what seemed to be the first time, she was in a cemetery, one she knew well. In the small town of Teerpark she was able to cut through the cemetery on her way to school every day. She could see her mother’s grave from where she stood and assumed that she had fallen asleep next to it accidentally.

But…something was off, there was another grave next to her mother’s but no one else in her family had died yet, at least not that she knew about. Confused, she thought about waiting until the rain, now coming down in sheets, stopped or slowed, but saw a man come into view. He was tall, dressed all in black with a heavy coat and an umbrella. He crossed the graveyard at a slow pace, not minding the rain, and walked to the same grave Jaime had questions about. Aware that she hadn’t been seen, she leaned closer to the trunk of the tree, hiding from view. Something in the setting and the movements of the man-made her want to keep from disturbing him.

Without knowing who he was but curious about him, she watched his back as he stopped in front of the mystery grave and slumped down onto his knees, as though the weight of the world had crushed him. He bent his head down to touch the stone and turned his head to rest on top of it as he spoke. Jaime couldn’t tell if the man’s face was wet because of tears, the rain, or both. His red, puffy eyes made her think the latter, and she wondered if she’d seen him before. Someone from town who was back to visit perhaps, his build didn’t remind her of anyone. The rain had slowed and gone quiet enough that she could just make out a whisper,

“I’m still so proud of you, you know?”

The man opened the side of his coat and pulled out what looked like a magazine that had been slightly crushed and folded open to a specific page. He held the open page up to his face and softly kissed it, before laying the magazine down on the wet ground. He picked up an old vase of lavender and roses, her mom’s favorites, from next to her mom’s grave as he slowly got back up on his feet. Pressing one more kiss to the stone he turned to head back out.

Jaime silently gasped to herself, she knew who he was, but why had he come here, today of all days, in this weather? She had never known him to leave the house when it rained, he was always too scared to drive on the slick and muddy streets. She watched and waited until he had turned down the edge of the road and disappeared before walking back over to the grave. She stood in front of the grave she had visited a hundred times and stared at the one she didn’t recognize.

Jaime Lee Caro

March 2, 1993 – July 12, 2011

Loving daughter, friend, and writer

“She believed, and so she did.”

Her fingers brushed over her name as she tried to make sense of it. Her gaze fell to the magazine left on the grass. Picking it up she read the title of the article it was opened to, “Bestselling Author Still Number 1”. In the middle of the page surrounded by text was a picture of her at her high school graduation, cap, and all. She gasped and almost dropped the magazine.

There was an article about the story she had written years ago but had never published. She had always been so self-conscious about her writing, never thinking it was good enough or that anyone else would ever read it. There had been a car accident. A truck had run a red light down on Bixby Road. She thought back and vaguely remembered it, shuddering to herself as she saw the flash of white coming at her fast and felt the same fear that turned into a calm at the last second before she closed her eyes.

After the car accident took her life, her father had published it in her name. She smiled to herself, remembering the night she finally finished writing it. Two years of writing, editing, deleting, and revising, and what had come out was a novel about a young girl from a small town who turned into a dragon and saved her home from unspeakable evil. 

According to the article, three years later it was still number one on the bestseller’s list. She couldn’t believe it. She looked at the publication date marked on the back of the magazine. She understood why she had woken up here the way she did. This rainy day marked four years since her death, and her father had brought the article to show her. It was his way of saying, even though she wasn’t part of the world anymore, the world hadn’t forgotten about her.