"Grab me some water, would ya? How are you doing?"

Michael and I had arrived at the graveyard and were moments from exiting his van to visit his chosen burial site.

"How do you think I'm doing?" I asked, holding the water bottle to his lips. I find keeping my hands busy and his mouth occupied with food and drink is an excellent way for me to ease myself into challenging conversations. You have to learn things like this when simple questions like, "Can I ask you a question?" are met with a sincere "Can you handle the answer?" My lame attempts at avoidance don't fool Michael for a second, but the gestures give me comfort nonetheless, and he indulges my little game.

Helping me out, he took am extra long drink, never taking his eyes from me.

"I don't know. Tell me."

"Well, I don't know either."

He accepted that answer because it was true.

"First I want you to listen to this." He indicated that I should play the tape he had cued up on a talk by Wayne Dyer. What he played deserves it's own blog post, which will follow shortly, but for now I can say it set the tone for what was to follow. Michael led me to his gravesite, which lay at the foot of his mother's. At his request I placed a wreathe for her and then I offered to clean away the evidence of the Canadian goose migration which had soiled the stone.

Despite my wiping the marker clean I found when I returned home that I couldn't, for the life of me, recall seeing any last name on the gravestone. I could remember the years of birth and death, I could recall her first name, her middle initial. Even "Wife, Mom, Grandma" and the engraved image of the cross with two angels kneeling in prayer beside it. My mind, that day, simply would not register "Schwass" carved in granite.

I sat on the ground which he reserved for himself the day after 9-11 and then laid back to reflect on the oak branches arching over the site.

"I'll give you some time here." Michael began to make his way to the large statue of Mary, whose outstretched arms encompass this section of the cemetary. After some moments I sat up and watched as he made his way, slowly, over the uneven earth peppered with grave markers, trying to minimize the jostling of his aching, November-chilled frame.

As always happens when I am with Michael, I am aware that my time with him occurs on two levels. There is the gross level of the senses, which get bound up with the emotions of the moment and have no apparent end to their creative ways of dealing with them, as evidenced by their blatant refusal to see his last name on the gravestone. These emotions that have tortured me endlessly and have tried many times to make a project out of saving him from his suffering (read: my suffering) and ultimate death (read: my further suffering).

But, through relentless dedication to learning how to recognize and take responsibility for my emotions and inner turmoil, I have been increasingly aware that another calmer part of me is able to take in everything around me for deeper reflection later. This visit to the graveyard was no exception.

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