It’s March 7, 2016, his birthday, I miss him so much, God please tell me why did you steal him away from me? You knew I needed him. You knew he was my best friend. You knew he was my protector. The only one who loved me. Why did you take his last breath away? I need my uncle more than ever now. The only place I can have him is his grave, because of you God. Why does everyone say you are so good? You steal the people I need the most, you take them away from me. You didn’t need another angel, you have enough. He was only twenty three. F*** you God. Why won’t you take me? Why can’t I be with him again? I think while I drive through the graveyard to the grave I know so well.
It was warm for March, the grass was green and the yellow tulips we planted last year were coming up. His favorite color was yellow, we always brought yellow roses to him. We parked our gray Subaru Legacy next to the Williams/Sherwood bench my great gram put in when my great grandpa died. It was just Williams until Avery died, then she added Sherwood for him. The bench is a smooth gray stone.
All of Avery’s life he had a severe form of cerebral palsy which made him have speech problems, no control over his limbs, he spent almost his whole life in a wheelchair, but no matter the pain he was in he was always smiling and making everyone else laugh. He could speak and depending on how well you knew him you could understand him unless they were swears, those always came out clear as day; his favorites were “F***” and “A******.”
No matter how sad his smooth light grey gravestone makes me, it’s my chance to sit with him and talk to him. My gram, mom, and sister make lunch in the back of the car which gives me a chance to talk to Avery. I sit down in front of his grave running my fingers over the words
   Avery
  Charles
      March 7, 1983
      April 23, 2006
          Beloved son of
     Richard and Christine.
I run my fingers over the Boston Red Sox ball in the top right hand corner, and along Sherwood feeling the way each letter breaks my heart a little bit more. I look at the yellow tulips on my right and the little red truck to my left. It was his favorite truck. I started playing with the truck and talk to him about random things. The grass underneath me was warm and dry. It tickled my knees as I sat there.
“Hey Ave, I miss you, you’re thirty three today, I can’t believe it. I keep finding myself thinking you are still twenty three and that you’ll wake up and you’re not actually gone. I keep hoping this is all a big nightmare and I’m gonna wake up and be able to hug you again. I love you. It feels like since you were taken from me my life went downhill. You were keeping everything together for me. You were my strength. I read your obituary the other day, I read it when I miss you,” I say out loud my eyes brimming with tears threatening to flow, “I cried for three hours straight. Hey can you hear me when I pray to you? When I talk to you late at night? That’s when I need you most. Are you still proud of me? I know I’ve f***ed up a lot lately and I know I’ve made big mistakes, and tried to make my way to you. But are you proud of me? That’s all that I want is for you to be proud to call me your niece.” I hug his grave hoping he could feel it somehow.
My family stayed where they all while I sat hugging my uncle’s grave crying and wishing for the pain to be taken away. With each breath it felt as though a knife was turning more and more in my chest. I just need my uncle. I go back to the night we lost him, there I am six years old, walking around in matching owl jammies. I couldn’t sleep I knew something was wrong, no one told me what but I knew I could feel it. I knew it was Avery, I knew he had been sick, just not how bad he was.
His grave is a happy place but at the cost of a knife in my heart. It was happy because it was his place, it was where I could go to be with him. It was the saddest place because I always remember the night he died, the obituary, the funeral and watching them lower him into his grave.