Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [98]
We are all silent for several moments. I look around at this congregation of Griffiths and can feel the current that binds them. They are a family forged by love, tempered by tragedy and hard lessons. They are bonded by blood and genes and a melding of spirit, ineffable, unquantifiable, as powerful as life or even death. They have long since given part of themselves to one another, unconsciously and naturally, a merger born of selflessness and generosity. The Griffiths are going to be all right.
Later, Mary and I drive up the long winding hill of Oakmont Memorial Cemetery to lay two white roses on Bobby’s grave, almost exactly eleven years after he was laid to rest here. It is a magnificent, cloudless day, with the same penetrating blue sky of that other afternoon. The Garden of Peace sits on a crest, commanding a spectacular view of Mount Diablo’s graceful arch.
Bobby is buried in a neat row of graves, with strangers ranged on either side. (When someone dies so unexpectedly, there is no time to think of family plots.) A simple bronze plaque marks the space. It shows a pastoral scene of mountain, lake, and forest. At the bottom, per Mary’s instructions, an inscription reads, “See You Later,” a favorite expression of Bobby’s, with cosmic connotations in this context.
The setting is parklike, with lovely rolling hills, a well-kept lawn, a splendid oak tree, pines and maples. Except for the unobtrusive grave markers, one would not know this was a cemetery. In fact, a jogger in white shorts trots by at one point. Each site has a receptacle, filled in most cases with colorful summer flowers and/or an American flag. The cemetery seems to be non-sectarian; there are no religious symbols in evidence.
Mary bends to put the roses on the marker. About seventy feet away, a middle-aged woman sits on the grass next to a grave site, her legs straight out in front of her, apparently communing with her departed.
“I guess she finds solace from visiting,” Mary says. “I don’t. Bobby’s body is here, yes, and I think about that sometimes when it rains. But his spirit is not here. It’s like an old house you’ve always known and have left and shouldn’t go back to.
“I’m slowly but surely learning to live with Bobby on a spiritual level, which is quite different. I experience his spirit with my own. I’m learning to accept that kind of relationship.”
She rises and stands peering at the marker. “I know I can’t have Bobby back, and that never leaves my mind. I think about it every day. I don’t think anything else could happen to compare with that loss. I’ve walked through the fire and I’ve survived. I don’t think there is anything that could destroy me now.”
We turn to head back to the car. “You know, when Bobby died, I wrote in the last page of his diary, ‘Bobby gave up on love.’ That was another revelation to me. He killed himself because he gave up on love—love of himself and love from others. That’s the bottom line. That’s what we all live for.”
It occurs to me that one of the victories in this tortuous saga is that Mary, who had given up on love as a child, learned to love herself in the course of grieving her son’s loss.
We walk on the gravel road past the woman we’d seen, who is still sitting silently on the grass next to the grave site. Mary says, “I remember when we first started this, you asked me why I chose to do what I’m doing. I have it clearer now. It wasn’t penitence. It was to right an injustice, to let gay kids know they are equal to all other human beings.
“I will go wherever I can to deliver that message. I worry, ‘Am I spinning my wheels? Are the kids listening? Is it getting through to them that they are okay?’ Don’t give up on love. That’s what Bobby did.”
At the car, she turns for a final glance. She looks quite beautiful in the tailored celery green linen dress her children gave her for Mother’s Day, her silver hair neatly framing her face. In this moment, Mary seems