30th birthday

It isn't ever quiet; just about 100 feet from the interstate. Poor Henry Bartosiewcz never got any sun. Too close to the overpass.

I have the fifth spot in the 12th row. I like it here.  Plenty to see, the hum of the interstate, now 8 lanes wide, keeps me company at night.

I am 15 years old, and have been here for 15 years now. I've seen lots of newcomers. No one visits me anymore, I'm okay with it. Really it's only in the winter when there is snow on the ground when it strikes me just how alone I am here. That's when I can see all the icy, frozen footprints that continue on past my grave.

No one ever stops. I'm a silent, invisible witness to a parade of grief for those in spots 20-260 in row twelve.

But today I prayed silently for subzero temperatures, for the snow to stay forever. Because today 6 foot prints were in the snow, perpendicular to my headstone.

Size 7, size 12 and size 13. My mother, my father and my brother had come to visit. Quietly at first, with one balloon.

Then slowly some small talk, the cold, the noise, what's for lunch and finally a good laugh about the time I got locked in the bathroom at my aunts house on Christmas. They stayed for 24 minutes.

That was 6 days ago. I should be 30 years old and 6 days, but instead I am forever young.  I placed my hand into the frozen imprint of their feet. I cringed the first time someone trampled over their footprints. The balloon didn't last long. in the cold. The helium condensed and because it was weighted it stayed put mocking me with its shrivled and wrinkled yellow smiley face bouncing just inches off the snow. 2 days from now a strong wind would blow it all the way to Helen Markowitz and she would curse the shriveled smiley face that would get entangled on the lighthouse her granddaughter left for her last year.