Onto the Bus She Comes
Like most of my college mates who decided to live in the city rather than in our university’s town village, I ride the bus to school quite often. I have to get up with the sun, walk a mile down the hill to the bus stop at the beach and hop on line number five for the first leg of my commute.
One gorgeous autumn morning, I take my seat on the bus and pull out my books to study. At each stop, I glance up to watch who gets on and off. At this time of day there is usually an assortment of elderly, the homeless, grammar school and high school ages kids and community college students.
At the bus stop across from a Kentucky Fried Chicken a young woman carrying a bouquet of carnations steps quietly onto the bus. She is wearing black sweatpants, a new, blue jeans jacket and a pink blouse that looked like overdone cotton candy. Perched comfortably over her tightly braided black hair is a bright blue Dodgers baseball cap.
She breezes past my seat in her white tennis shoes and takes the seat directly behind me. 
The faint aroma of dyed carnations lingers under my nostrils while her quiet mien rests comfortably in front of my back. I shift uneasily in my seat and try to focus on my studies, the pressure of her presence imposing itself upon my awareness.
The bus lurches from stop to stop and my mind returns to my studies. Kids tell obscene jokes and laugh louder than necessary, repeating the vulgar punch lines for the benefit of the rest of the passengers. An older blind man coughs spasmodically until his infected lungs send a plug of sputum into his throat. He retrieves his cane from the floor and spits out the window. A tap on my shoulder excuses me from my book.
Transparency
Her voice says, “I bought these flowa’s for my Gramma.”
I turn to acknowledge her statement.
“Really.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Don’t they smell nice?” She holds the bouquet up so I can smell.
“Yes, they do,” I reply.
“Yeah, these are for my Gramma ‘cuz she ain’t alive no more.” She pauses, looking into the bouquet. “My Gramma, she like flowa’s.”
I do not know what to say.
“Really,” I say.
“Yeah, she’s living over there now.” She points through the homes and hills and trees to the cemetery where her grandmother’s grave awaits.
Why is she telling me this?
“What school do you go to?” she asks.
“The University,” I tell her. “And you?”
“This one,” she says as the bus pulls up to the stop in front of the city college.
I pick up my notebook and replace it with my knee so I can turn further around.
“When did she die?” I ask. I want to help.
“Thursday,” she says. Today is Tuesday.
“Wow, that’s not very long ago.”
“Nope,” she replies.
“Were you close to your grandma?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “We was real close.”
She looks down and I study her face. Purple eyeliner is drawn perfectly above her eyelashes and she wears bright red lipstick that beautifully compliments the brown skin of her face. A shy smile flickers across her lips and she looks up. I look away.
“We was talking last night,” she goes on. “Me an’ my gramma. I woke up an’ she was there an’ I says, ‘Gramma, you didn’t die!’.”
“It was a dream, though,” she sighs.
“Yeah, that happened to me with my father, ” I tell her.
I dreamed once that my father came back home for a short time. I begged him not to leave again, but he couldn’t stay.
Neither of us has to say anything about how it feels to wake up to the truth: the agonizing disappointment and emptiness; the heart racing to keep ahead of the fear that stalks it; the aching aloneness that squeezes the chest and grips the throat, threatening to stop the breath.
She looks at her flowers and smiles, lost in memories. Her smile is a little girl’s smile. She greets her grandmother’s death with a naivete and calm acceptance I envy.
“How old was your grandma?” I ask.
She was eighty-three.”
“Was she happy?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it seems she lived a full life.”
“She sure did,” she replies, and then longingly, “She was a beautiful old lady.”
“I bet she was,” I reply.
She responds with that childlike smile and looks down at the flowers, her head tilted slightly to one side. I look out the window and watch the cars and bicycles whiz by the sleepy downtown shops.
Things Turn
“Is your dad dead, too?” she asks.”
“Yes.”
“How old was he?”
“Fifty-one.”
“Ooh, that’s young!” she says.
“Yeah,” I reply.
My mind walks back in time and enters the hospital room where my father spent his last days. Images and sounds from ten years ago stream through my head. I see my father, who was once strong and 
healthy, lying on the hospital bed, tubes coiling from his emaciated body. The thirteen year old kid that stood next to the bed, holding his father’s tired hand starts to cry, and I have to turn toward the front of the bus.
I remember the time he told my younger brother and me to get out of his hospital room and when we did, he screamed in agony while he waited for the nurse to bring him another morphine shot. The screams echoed down that hospital hallway and onto the bus. I became angry at his pain; angry at my loss.
“What happened to your dad?” she asks.
I tell her about the cancer and that my father received the diagnosis on my thirteenth birthday and died just over three months later.
She smiles slightly and said, “Life is funny sometimes.”
I tell her it certainly is, though the word “funny” in this context has nothing to do with fun.
Things Heal
The bus pulls into the transit center and we say goodbye to each other. I sit on the bench waiting for my next bus and watch her board hers.
I envy her.
I had wanted to help, and instead she had helped me. She helped me to see the futility of my anger, the inevitability and necessity of death.
I envy her because she is going to go to her grandmother’s grave and tell her grandmother she misses her and that she loves her.
This girl is doing what I have not yet been able to do. She is taking flowers and mourning properly. She is letting the pain and longing out, allowing them their way rather than keeping it all inside to fester and boil, infecting other chambers of the soul.
She accepts the death calmly. For as far as she is concerned she still has a grandmother, only now her grandmother lives inside her mind and heart. Her grandmother’s life now blossoms within her soul, the seeds of love having been planted.
All that is needed now are the cleansing rain of tears and freshly turned soil of the heart.
Note: While sitting on the bench, waiting for my next bus, I wrote down this true account of a wonderful few moments I had the pleasure of experiencing one day while I was in college.
Some books I have found helpful for the grieving process:
photo credits: wohnai, DeusXFlorida, ali_i, ohhhbetty, Tony the Misfit
