The Final Wish of Mr. Murray McBride by Joe Siple

Author:Joe Siple [Siple, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Published: 2021-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

It’s early in the morning and in the driver’s seat of the rental car, I stuff the last bite of a stale hotel muffin into my mouth. I park the car across the street from St. Joseph’s Church and retrieve a bundle of flowers from the back seat, along with my oxygen concentrator. I never heard Murray talk about a love of flowers, but it would feel strange to come empty-handed.

I enter the church grounds, but instead of going through the large, wooden doors, I curve around the old building and take a grass path to the back and into the cemetery. My mom brought me here a few times when I was a kid, but I haven’t been back in years. Things have changed, unsurprisingly. The trees are taller and the sunlight filters onto the grass differently. It’s disorienting, and it takes me several minutes to find his gravestone.

Murray Everet McBride

Born 1898 - Died 1998

Loving father, grandfather, and husband

I place the bouquet on the hard granite, leaning it up against his engraved name. I’m not sure why I came out here today. Maybe I’m looking for inspiration. A way forward.

Until I saw the fear on Alexandra’s face, I didn’t fully understand that she and her father could actually be deported. Not just theoretically, but for real. I’ve heard stories and read newspaper articles about deportations, but it happened far away and I didn’t know those people. It wasn’t in Lemon Grove. And it certainly didn’t concern a little kid named Alexandra who just wants to live the life she’s known her entire eleven-and-a-quarter years.

“Hey, Murray,” I say. Only the air and the rock and the trees are listening, but maybe Murray can hear me somehow, too, even after all these years. So many years. I hate how time takes people away a little more each day.

“I wish you were here, I could use your help.” I chuckle a bit, remembering our escapades together. “I know I never would have admitted it when you were alive, but you knew a lot more than me about this kind of thing.” The words take me back to the time we spent together. The support he gave me. The wisdom he shared. “You knew a lot more about everything,” I say.

I lean over and touch the ground next to the gravestone to make sure it’s dry, then sit and wrap my elbows around my knees. I sit like that for several minutes before the real reason I came here, even if I didn’t know it until this moment, appears. It’s Father James, with his flowing robes trailing behind him like a cape as he walks through the morning sunshine.

When he reaches me, he says nothing. He adjusts his robes as he takes a seat on the ground a few feet away. He leans his back against a large tree trunk and exhales as if the effort takes a lot out of him.

We sit in silence for a long time without even saying hello. Father James has done enough of this kind of thing to know that I’ll talk when I’m ready.

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