I always used to say never give a girl a yellow rose—you know, because I don’t think she would be too happy getting a flower that symbolizes friendship and infidelity. If you want to ruin a date...anyway, lately I haven’t been feeling the color either. I don’t want to think about sunshine and golden beaches or that tiny flickering flame sitting on top of another year wasted. Within these rolling hills of death it doesn’t seem right. Yeah, I’m at a cemetery on my day off, what about it? We only think of death once it enters our own lives—no one goes to the cemetery for those people they’ve never met before. And how many of these people, how many of these plots, have no one left to care for them?

So, I’m here to remember the dead. Hey, Cathy, beloved mother and sister, how’s it going? Bill, Jan, Nick, Matthew. No one seems to remember them; no one seems to care. Someone put them here, in the ground, and then went on with their lives, pretending that nothing had changed, that someone hadn’t just left them forever. Their graves are encrusted with year’s old dust and fresh grass clippings. If I squint the grass could be an attempt at some kind of decoration, an intricate border. But Nick’s grime shield has been infiltrated by some careless ground men’s shoe, and Cathy’s looks like the wind tried to fight against time passing and gave up once it realized no one was coming to help.

Today, I’ll take care of you, you who have been forsaken by those who said they loved you. Today, I shall treat you like my own family except, you know, better. Because, even though I never knew you, everyone deserves to be remembered.

I place a single budding yellow rose in the receptacle standing guard at each grave, checking once more that I cut all the thorns off. I take the rag I brought and wipe away nature’s dead, moving my calloused hand in small circles across the stone. The shiny surfaces that haven’t seen sunlight since they were first put in seem to say thanks for caring. Beloved brother and lifetime friend, Matthew, wants me to come back. Jan, Bill, Nick, and Cathy too. And I will. Because, now, I have my own dead to take care of: Ethan, 2007-2014, “the world’s best son”. This was his dream—to grow roses in our backyard and listen to those who can’t speak anymore, to give to those who, I thought, couldn’t even give back to him. He loved to talk to strangers even though I told him not to. He jumped in puddles because he knew the truth: life shouldn’t be about keeping your clothes clean. Life is seeing the beauty in everything and then sharing it with other people. Well, Ethan, I’ve realized that you were right about another thing—that those who are gone can still give. This rose is for you, my little boy. Not yellow but red.

A rose can say anything, and today it says I will always love you.