Time: Present Day

Scene: Clara kneels before the gravestone of her mother and father brushing away the fallen dead leaves. The overcast skies and chilling wind escorts winter behind it. Clara’s brother David leans again an old oak tree. Its branches are bare, a fitting image reinforcing the theme of death.

David: It’s cold and it’s getting dark. Can we go now?

Clara continues clearing off the gravestone.

Clara: We just got here. I haven’t even put the flowers down yet.

David looks down at the arrangement of flowers Clara took the time to put together.

David: Why do you bother? They’re dead. They can see or smell the flowers.

Clara ignores David which annoys him further.

David: It’s been four years, Clara. You can waste time coming out here, but when I mention mom and dad, you go silent.

Clara turns her head around towards David clearly upset.

Clara: Is that what you think that this is a waste of time?

David shakes his head.

David: Don’t… you know exactly what I mean.

David walks over towards the gravestone pointing out across the graveyard.

David: What is this place for? Can you tell me that? Thousands of graves some that haven’t been visited since the current occupant was laid to rest.

Clara looks back down towards the grave.

Clara: It’s a place to remember, to honor those that you cared about. I come here to talk to mom and dad…and to God.

Clara lifts her hand to her neck grabbing hold of a small golden crucifix. David see’s this and kneels down in front of her.


David: So for you it’s tied to religion not so much mom and dad. Whenever you are upset or scared you grab your chain, why?

Clara: It helps me…

David: What? Tell me what is does for you.

Clara stands, turning her back to David.

Clara: This isn’t the time, David. Why do you care what I believe anyway? Mom and dad believed in God and so do I. So did you before they died. You tell me what happened.

David slowly stands and looks down at the grave.

David: I said I believed, but… I didn’t feel what everyone said they could feel. I didn’t feel God’s warmth or his love.

David touches Clara’s shoulder causing her to turn around towards him.

David: You want to know what I felt. Nothing, I sat in church and acted like I was one of them, but it was all a lie.

David slightly lowers his head.

David: It was nice going to church as a family, but being around you guys was the only connection I felt. I didn’t stop believing in God because they died. I just stopped pretending.

Clara: I didn’t know. To sit there all that time and not feeling anything must have been hard. Even so we always had a difference idea of how religion should work than mom and dad anyway. I didn’t go around trying to convert people or wearing my religion on my sleeve.

Clara holds the crucifix in the palm of her hand.

Clara: Mom gave me this. You know that. Don’t you think that by attacking what I believe in you are just as bad as the bible thumpers that approach you in the street?

David looks at the crucifix.

David: You’re right. I just don’t see the point of being here. You say you come to talk to mom and dad, but their not here. Even if you believe in heaven then that’s where they are not below this ground.

David turns and walks back towards the tree.

David: Why do we do these things? Do we do it because we care about the person or only because it is expected of us?

Puzzled Clara looks in David’s direction.

Clara: I don’t understand, do what?

David places his hand against the tree and leans over looking down at the ground.

David: We knew they wouldn’t recover.

David pauses.

David: When we made the decision to remove them from the machines we did it because it was their wishes. They were gone long before they turned them off.

Clara lowers her head as tears begin to fall from her eyes.

David: You stayed with them until… For me there was no reason to stand in there. I didn’t tell you this, but one of the nurses came to speak to me.

David shakes his head.

David: She thought I had ill feelings towards mom and dad. It caught me off guard so I asked her why she thought that. She said why else wouldn’t I be in there. You were in there praying, being by their side, why wasn’t I?

Clara opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. David straightens up and looks out towards the street.

David: I asked her is that what she was use to seeing. People huddled around each other, talking, praying…crying. My question caught her off guard, all she did was nod. I told her I had no ill feelings towards mom and dad. I told her that I loved them with all of my heart. She didn’t understand. Then why, she asked.

David turns towards Clara.

David: Because mom and dad weren’t there. You sat in that room because you believed they were there and you wanted to say goodbye. I felt them leave us long before that. There was no need to stand there, there was nothing to say.

Clara looks in David’s eyes.

Clara: I knew they would never wake up… to see them like that…just lying there.

Clara looks up towards the sky then back down at David.

Clara: I can’t speak for anyone but myself. I was there for them because they would have been there for me.

David: Obligation.

Clara: Love. I wanted to say goodbye, I needed to. I come here for the same reason. It helps me to come here to talk to them.

David walks over standing next to the gravestone.

David: Their not here Clara. You’re not talking to mom and dad. You’re talking to the wind. If doing this is some form of therapy for you, then fine. I can accept that, but then call it what it is. People come here and place flowers and talk to nothing and then return home feeling better believing they did something.

Clara: How can you say that? Their bodies are still here. Yes, I believe in the human spirit and I believe mom and dad’s spirit are in heaven, but I come here to remember them.

David: I don’t need a gravestone or even a picture to remember them. I think about them every day and if I need to see them all I have to do is close my eyes. We say that love comes from the heart and that the loved ones we’ve lost live on in our mind and our memories. And yet people follow the same customs that have been handed down since time began. Massive flower arrangements, elaborate grave-sites a shrine of pictures. Do we not believe in what we say or are these customs so much a part of us that if we do anything different we are looked upon and judged like that nurse did to me?

Clara: That nurse had no right to question you, but everyone isn’t like you. Maybe you are right and coming here is more for my benefit than anything else, but so what if it is. You said you couldn’t feel the love of God. Have you ever thought that maybe that’s because you didn’t open yourself to receive it? It’s not magic. The feeling comes from inside you, but if you close yourself off to the world then you’ll never receive God’s or anyone else’s love even if you’re surrounded by it.

Clara kneels in front of the gravestone touches the grass below it.

Clara: You close your eyes to see mom and dad. You remember them in your own way. I can feel them here as well and can see them with my eyes open. I’m not talking to the wind. I am talking to them, who are a part of me. Where ever I go they are with me and when I am at places like this the feeling is stronger and that helps me.

Clara takes David’s hand.

Clara: Four years or four hundred I will never fully heal, not until I am with them again. A strong man looks for help from within. A stronger man also seeks help from without. You’ve spent your life keeping your feelings inside, looking only within yourself for strength. If you open up you accept the love of others and share in their strength.

David begins to cry as he kneels down next to Clara and places his hand on the tombstone.

David: I’m sorry, I wasn’t there. I should have been. I wanted to be, but I couldn’t see them like that. I didn’t want that to be my last memory of them. I should have told them how if felt…said goodbye. I’m guilty of the same thing. Doing something for my benefit instead of what they would have done for me.

Clara puts her arm around David and smiles.

Clara: It’s not too late. We can sit here and talk to the wind…together.

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