Day Twenty-Eight/Four Weeks After: The Old Men
The old men like to tell of the time the earth mourned so deep that the rains stopped. They would gather under the big pecan trees on the lush St. Augustine grass, sit around the small table, and talk about when the rivers ceased running, the natural pools evaporated, and the wells dried up. Even the mesquite trees dropped their leaves while they were still green.
That was after the twenty-one souls arrived safely in Heaven. We know this, they nodded in unison, because the thunder clapped, and big rain drops fell from the storm skies the night they left us. But it has been a month now, and the land is silent, unmoving, and bears the weight of our grief. And it is a heavy burden.
One of the men wiped a tear away. His friend buried a grandson, he says softly. Another replied that he lost count of how many he knew who laid little ones to rest. They all nodded again. Took four weeks to bury them all … that’s a long long time they all agreed.
And now that they are in the earth — she mourns for them. She shut the life-giving waters. One man stood up and looked north, passed the stately houses, beyond the railroad, out across the fields, towards the blue hills. He shielded his weak eyes from the hot sun, trying to see further … see further than the drought could reach. “I think it goes as far as the sun sets,” he solemnly stated as he turned to join the other men. They nodded again.
One slowly bent down and picked up a dried oak leaf, his hands calloused from years of building houses. “Even the mighty oaks are sad,” he tells the others as he holds the shriveled leaf up for all to see. He continues, sagely, “Uvalde has been home to many great oak trees that reach up high into the sky … and they too grieve. The ground is soaked in loss. The grass breaks as you walk across it, the dust blows in your eyes, the flowers are gone.”
“Will it rain again?” asked one of the men. He is younger than the others, more eager, and he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses back upon his nose to see his elders clearer. He felt their gaze upon him.
Finally, the oldest among them stopped puffing on his cigar, and, beside a bowl full of shelled pecans, set down his glass of brandy … his daily ‘strike a blow for Liberty’ … and gruffly affirmed, “Yes.”
“But when?” the younger man impatiently asked, pushing his glasses back again, then leaning back in his chair as he nervously slid his hands back in his brown blazer’s pockets, trying to look calmer than he felt.
The oldest man looked keenly at his protege before he said, “Every day we are a day closer to rain.” He took a puff on his cigar, blew a circle of smoke, and watched it float over the younger man’s head like a halo. “Every day our hearts beat stronger. Every day we heal. But” and he paused for effect, pointing with his cigar so that all the men realized he spoke about something greater than just rain … “but we do this together. We cannot do this alone. Uvalde must come together, stand together. It is this way that we have always survived.”
The men hmphed their agreement. They sipped their drinks in unison, and their talk turned to the days when the rains fell, and a cool breeze blew through the open windows at night and mommas said prayers at the bedside with their children and tucked the covers tightly around them and told them sweet dreams … and no one knew of the Evil that waited …
Yes, the old men nodded, once the earth mourned so deep that the rains stopped.
We are #UvaldeStrong. We must stand together.
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