Sunday July 11th

Day 82

I stick fragrant stalks of lavender into the flower holder at the base of my mother’s grave - several stems into each hole to make a purple speckled circle. I fill the container with water from the tap next to the skip where all the dead bouquets get thrown. I trim the grass and dandelions that have flowed over the concrete slab with kitchen scissors. She liked neat edges. I don’t think she’d mind that we only visit occasionally.

On my way back to the car I pass two grey haired men tending the flowers on a grave. One of them says,

“We does our best for them don’t we?”

“Yes, we do,” I say.

The other man says something but his speech is distorted and childlike and I don’t understand. He grins at me. His black and red belt buckle spells Elvis.

When I arrive at my father’s he’s sitting at his big polished round table, writing.

“I couldn’t sleep this afternoon,” he says. “So I said to myself, ‘get up, man, and do something’. So I ate a peach and started my diary.”

He reads to me the piece he wrote about visiting the graveyard yesterday. It makes me cry. This is how he’s doing his best without her.