My father's name was George.  My name is Vicky.  But, I was without identity as I drove through interlocking freeways from the beach near Redondo to Forest Lawn in Glendale.  The business trip to Southern California was behind me.  Ahead, lay a destination even I could not have anticipated. 

      There was no intersection where the 101 freeway becomes 134 East.  Just a sign marking an invisible change in a continuous strand of motion.  It was at this junction that I reached for the radio dial in search of any sound to distract my thoughts from the miles driven in silence and sorrow and remembrance of my father.  A muted "click" revealed even the airwaves were part of this intimate journey.  Instantaneously, "The Way We Were" began to play - yes, it was too sentimental.  But my stifled cry finally cascaded to blur, then wash clean the passing images in a flood of warm, full tears that intensified the soft spring light.

     Seemingly unguided, my car continued onto I-5 South and then to Los Feliz Boulevard- East, then to the corner of Glendale Avenue.  Here, at the Glendale Flower Mart, I stopped for a bouquet of multi-colored carnations for Daddy. The florist arranged the blooms baby's breath and greens, just so.  Yet, beneath the edge of the waxed wrapping paper, order gave way to disarray and tenacity, as stems and leaves were entwined: supporting, perhaps clinging to the blossoms.

      These flowers would have to speak for me.  For I had no words as I drove on through the iron gates of Forest Lawn,  incongruously opened wide for unwilling visitors,  into this final sanctuary.  Past an indifferent guard, over the sloping, curved road, up toward the Wall of the Ascension.  There, on the crest of a hill, willow trees swayed in blessed forgiveness.  Gentle birdsongs, carried on the sweet breath of spring, comforted the intense quiet.

     Here, from the edge of life, I walked up a gentle slope, through the broken shade, my heart guiding me to a familiar tablet of bronze.  My eyes did not want to see my father's name among the other indentations in the lush carpet of green.  My eyelids closed tightly to ease the sting of reality, then released their sorrow, again.  And through my blurred vision, I saw his name, now fringed with the low overgrowth of tenacious, interlocking grass.  I fell to my knees, without regard to the damp earth, and began to pull feebly at the intertwined strands.  They seemed too tightly to bind his name to the tablet and the tablet to the earth, keeping my father from my reach.  My fingers were inexplicably weak - sliding, grasping - futilely pulling at the tenatious grass.

     My private moan of grief and heartbreak disturbed the thoughts of another visitor somewhere to my left.  In a quick moment, I heard his voice softly imploring, "Here, let me show you how to do that."  I wondered, what could he mean?  How to do what: grieve, cry, pray? 

     Before I could respond or even clearly see, he was there at my side, with something glistening in his hand.  With a constant stream of words I could not quite understand, he talked through this intrusion. 

     Finally, through my unfocused gaze, I saw a suited oriental gentleman, with small clippers held firmly in his slightly trembling hands.  Slowly, carefully, efficiently, he marked the length and corners of my father's tablet, removing the invasive blades of grass. 

     I coaxed the errant cuttings back into the border of green.  This caretaker left my side for a moment, as I traced and re-traced my father's name with a caress.  Then, unfamiliar hands appeared again to sprinkle water on bronze, then whisk the glimmering beads to a sheen with a small brush produced from his coat pocket.  My father's name and Air Force insignia were again as fresh and bright as his memory.