THE CEMETERY GROUNDSKEEPER, annoyed at having his peaceful day interrupted, chased the pack of noisy boys away. If they were not visiting a relative or friend who had passed on, they had no business there. A fat wooden slingshot, protruding from the back pocket of the nasty, fatuous ringleader, betrayed the true purpose of the boys’ visit. They wanted to steal beauty. They wanted to kill birds. Before the groundskeeper could scare them away with his rake, a shiny, smooth stone, almost the size of an apricot, hit its mark. The death throes of the Cardinal took a few moments to cease, like the bubbling hiss of flattened waves withdrawing from the shore.
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in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit his daughter was murdered (beaten and raped) he was burying her today after the mass (her coffin was in front of the altar) the priest would speak standing at the pulpit (it was behind the coffin) only the closest family members were sitting in the front church pew (his wife himself his son his parents his wife’s parents and younger sister) damn you I said don’t bring a gun she woulda given us her purse now what now what do we do you shot her twice you idiot and in his cloudy paralyzed thoughts he wondered if everyone could fit into his car before realizing that his parents had driven themselves there would be ample room (between his car and his parents’ car there was room for ten people) you get twenty years for rape you idiot not to mention the robbery so what happens if she ID’s us later huh what then he tried to calm himself to relax his mind to realize that in a few moments there would be some comfort delivered by the priest (that was the purpose of the eulogy and the mass) so it must have been his mind taking liberties with his beleaguered senses because for a second or two he thought he saw his daughter’s face in a flash thought moment of illusion he thought he saw her reflection on a shiny spot of the polished casket wood (it was a very sunny day there were very large windows in the church) Lord Jesus Christ only begotten son Lord God lamb of God Son of the Father you take away the sins of the world it seemed so real that he instinctively jerked his head around to see if she was really behind him he tried to reassure himself to return to reality to come to the rational conclusion that his daughter’s face was merely the afterimage of having looked at her in repose for the past three days lying in her casket she was so still
thanks for your great glory Lord God heavenly King O God almighty they argued as they drove away from the abandoned building where they had taken her they forced her to undress they had followed her from the ATM machine her wallet was full of money there are reasonable limits to being a concerned parent now honey I want you to let her have some independence after all she’s almost twenty while the technician was out for a smoke they brought in an emergency case multiple gunshot wounds to the chest this would be only his second performance in the O. R. have mercy on us you take away the sins of the world receive our prayer he was the only assistant anesthesiologist on duty at that hour of the night the strange thing was that the priest’s voice kept echoing throughout the stone church walls yet somehow my daughter’s voice was inside my head it seemed louder all I could hear were the last things she said I guess that’s normal is that typical doctor he was worried about his wife’s sanity you are seated at the right hand of the Father have mercy on us for you are the Holy One there was nothing behind her eyes only a frightening emptiness of course it is you’ve been through an extremely traumatic experience that would be the case for any parent it’s the suddenness of it the shock of it
we praise you we bless you we adore you we glorify you we give you thanks for your great overwhelmed feeling of unreality as he sat under the perfumed clouds of incense he stared at this long wooden tube that contained his daughter’s body you alone are the Lord (he had listened with attention and sympathy when friends explained similar feelings of dreaminess being somehow removed from the irreducible reality of the moment being confronted with the finality of death during the wake or the mass or the burial of their loved ones) but I gave you all my all my money from my purse you said you would let me go please don’t do anything to me please he could not persuade his wife to accompany him and speak to the psychiatrist he tried to convince her that talking about it might help them both you alone are the Most High Jesus Christ she would not speak to anyone she needed shock therapy she had to be sedated just to be able to get dressed and come to the mass she looked at the back of the pew throughout the entire mass she never looked at the casket with the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father Amen
Holy Holy Holy Lord God of hosts Heaven and earth are full of your glory Hosanna in the highest after a few years the detectives (who were most sympathetic and gracious at first) no longer took the man’s calls apparently there were many instances like this and effective police work was limited how many times had the lead detective tried to comfort the man by explaining that there were many unsolved homicides Let us pray may the Lord be in your heart and on your lips sitting in a dark moldy bar several months after the attack the accomplices enjoyed a feeling of relief see what’d I tell you there’s nobody to ID us and no evidence connects us to it I told ya didn’t I see his wife retreated more and more into a state of deep depression an endless hole in which the sound of her husband’s voice had grown fainter that you may proclaim his Gospel worthily and well in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit it reached the point where the man could no longer bear to look into his wife’s expressionless eyes barren like a field of concrete he wept when the convulsions and shaking strands of saliva from the shock treatments made it look as though she was being tortured in some kind of futuristic Middle Ages chamber blessed are you Lord God of all creation for through your goodness we have received the wine and since the groundskeeper had been a widower for many years he and the man nurtured a sort of bond I’m sorry but your wife just isn’t responding the way we had hoped the man felt his wife had succumbed to a mental death they no longer had the physical and emotional companionship that was so precious it started to dissolve after their daughter was murdered and a decade later there was nothing left we offer you fruit of the vine and work of human hands it will become our spiritual drink blessed be God forever
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord so that is how the years passed his wife retreated into a shell of hopeless depression he did not want to burden his son who married and moved far away to Hosanna in the highest our Father who art in Heaven it seemed to the man that his daughter’s murder heralded the beginning of a living nightmare that consumed what had been such a harmonious family life you idiot you know that’s what ya get for doing what we did now it’s been years and you all of a sudden get a conscience you wanna turn yourself in well I’ll show you something right now discovered from ballistics that the same gun was used in that ATM killing from several years ago cleanse my heart and my lips almighty God could not forgive himself for letting her go out that night it seemed as though he never slept anymore he was always in a daze a somnambulistic state of endless guilt he should have stopped her but she wasn’t a child she deserved some freedom and independence irrational guilt underlined several times in the psychiatrist’s notes smelled of that incense for days after the funeral the poor man could not rid himself of the sweet and bitter myrrh it seemed as if the pungent notes of the holy vapors followed and haunted him they were always in his nostrils it was a mocking persistence with humble spirit and contrite heart may we be accepted by you O Lord and may our sacrifice in your sight this day be pleasing to you bleeding couldn’t be stopped her aorta was decimated one shot severed it from the heart one shot went straight through the left ventricle nothing could be done his wife finally lost all cognizance of her surroundings it was like a catatonic state the doctors recommended a sanitarium at first he was ashamed to think of that but the futility of it made him realize it was for the best maybe a professional psychiatric environment will help her he said these words over and over to himself and to his wife’s parents but each time he uttered this empty phrase he believed it less and less regain some of her inner self maybe she will come back to us Lord God wash me O Lord from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin pray brethren (brothers and sisters) that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the almighty Father
cannot communicate or recognize her surroundings the loss of her daughter turned the poor woman into a zombie while her husband lived a solitary life consisting of little more than visiting his daughter’s grave and developing a friendship with the kindly groundskeeper that I may worthily proclaim your holy Gospel the Lord be with you and with your spirit
hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come they will be done on earth as it is in Heaven give us this
brought him no sense of peace it mattered little that the detectives were able to trace the gun and find the other robber glory to you Lord praise to you Lord Jesus Christ through the words of the Gospel may our sins be wiped away “That’s right! I’m not going to the trial! It won’t bring your sister back! It won’t let your mother be sane again!” exclaimed the father as he hung up on his son who had travelled across the country to attend the trial of one of his sister’s killers who was blessed are you Lord God of all creation for through your goodness we have received the bread of the jury have you reached a verdict became the lonely existence of a man who had lost everything that was precious to him all that remained were weekly trips to the cemetery to visit his daughter’s grave at least there was the groundskeeper who always had a few cheerful things to say yes we have your honor we offer you fruit of the earth and work of human hands it will become for us the bread of life blessed be God for ever by the mystery of this water and wine and in ways both mysterious and plain the years passed his son stopped communicating with his father after the trial of the second assailant ended in a hung jury it was as if he blamed this outcome on his father’s refusal to attend the proceedings and he may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity was lost there was nothing left his wife’s soul had gone elsewhere the doctors even recommended that he visit her only once or twice every few months since he was much older now his health had significantly deteriorated and his visits only deepened his depression so may the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name for our good and the good of all his holy Church “was a charade” wrote the father in his journal near the end of his life it was a record of his bitterness his loneliness and his anger “there is nothing beyond the facade of that charade we are trapped into this hypnosis of belief it is a hoax for the sake of money and power and I have lost everything now I cannot visit my poor daughter’s grave I am too old I am too sick my son has disowned me and my wife is a living corpse I have been abandoned by the trickery of religion we have all been abandoned we have all been deluded by” the Lord be with you and with your spirit lift up your hearts we lift them up to the Lord let us give thanks to the Lord our God it is right and just
the combination of old age rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease made it impossible for him to visit his daughter’s grave I thought it may have been a year since my last visit he was not sure he would have to look at a calendar these days there are so many things that pass through my mind so many things but he just could not remember yet for some reason he thought it must have been spring when he last visited his daughter’s grave a Cardinal kept angrily swooping down at me vigorously protecting its nest from my presence safeguarding its young with their hungry beaks open cavernous red mouths lined in white waiting for sustenance I remembered the royalty of the red head and face the severity of the black mask the intensity of the staring black onyx eyes it was majestic regal and dignified this creature would never stop defending its home and its offspring no it would never stop it would never stop
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By the time the groundskeeper returned to the grave, the bird was still. He shook his head, regretting that he had been too late to prevent the boys from carrying out their deadly mission. The senseless cruelty of it made him very angry. This was the plot of that murdered young woman (the name on the headstone was very familiar to him). Her father visited the cemetery so often over the past thirty years, he and the worker had become chummy. They chatted each time the man visited, depending on how much the groundskeeper had to do that day. “I wonder if my friend passed away,” said the groundskeeper to himself. He had not seen the man for a year.
He was very fond of nature especially birds. He buried the Cardinal near the grave. It had rained that morning. The soil was moist. That made it easier for the worker to dig the hole. He was past seventy and found it difficult to bend or kneel.
He said a prayer and walked away.