The Family Lost in Green

by Mel Madden (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

We’d driven three hours from Washington, D.C. for a three hour hike. We’d have to drive back before dark, of course. But in Shenandoah, plans are only as sturdy as the hiking paths: rocky, winding, and uncertain. Blue tree markings offer suggestions every dozen yards, promising a horizon if only you continue upward. After hours of heavily wooded, wild forest, however, the lines grow less frequent and more mocking. The only remaining glimpses of blue are found looking straight up through constellations of leaves. No one wanted to say we were lost. We take turns pretending to know the way, distributing the blame equally among ourselves. A narrow line pounded by feet opens into a wide road paved by wheels, and at last we are no longer hiking. Following the road downward, we’re escaping. But before we could reach the safe dirt of a parking lot, the instinct to wander reappears. I’m drawn by the bright sight of open grass, like I’d previously felt drawn to the setting sun whispering West. I leave the certainty of the road and pass over a small bridge to contemplate the green. The bridge was like a comma- hardly a pause, hardly noticeable. Ahead, I see a gate. There is no fence, as if it doesn’t matter to keep people in or out, only passing through. A vaguely circular, seemingly empty plot emerges: a family cemetery lying among the green, a cemetery in the middle of Shenandoah National Park. Ankle-length grass growing from the bones of people. Judging by the long-past year on the gate, I’m curious why the grass isn’t longer. An unnamed, unspoken game begins. It is as if the living cannot help but enjoy and make a spectacle; our best and worst quality. Stepping carefully, but nevertheless too loudly, a game ensues with the reading of stones. 1872, I announce. That’s our first marker. Now, who can find older? It’s a simple archaeological hunt. We see death marked on another stone: 1911. Now, we have a range. The most interesting stones are the ones that span centuries: she was born in 1854, and died in 1932. How old is that? Was that across the Civil War and the Great Depression? 1941 doesn’t seem so far away anymore. A few stones say nothing at all. I briefly ponder physics, wondering if this means they are so old that the numbers have disappeared with the wind. Then, a new set of numbers makes me forget about numbers at all: 1901-1903. Such a small dash, older than the child. Shockingly, ominously, I notice several more short life spans. They are four-year-old children, a thirteen-year-old girl, a twenty-year-old boy. This is no longer a fun game. Life reads like a massacre. I turn to letters, which have always been kinder to me. Letters offer names, jobs, causes of deaths, personalities, and quotes, which all offer stories. I infer my own stories, based on how many different last names there are, and how many common ones. I discover the patriarch, the matriarch, perhaps the neighbors they grew close to over the years. Today, the grass makes them all grow closer. With fading light, our eyes tear away from the ground, back to each other and the life of the forest beyond. In a shared instant, we feel wanderers’ remorse. Were we supposed to be walking here? We tiptoe out self-consciously, feeling the stares of mothers and fathers below us. Turning back before the bridge, I imagine the family looking out at the same land, back when it really was empty. I feel their pride reflected by the bright green, a place carefully chosen to lay family and friends to rest. After years measured in grassy inches, they have been remembered by a few wayward hikers. I’m grateful there are no visible footprints left trampling their home, grateful for the land itself as I step off the bridge. I’m a little more aware of where I am, despite being lost. A little more in awe of my own numbers, the ones not yet set in stone. I walk away from the comma of a bridge, into the dashes of my own life.