"Come Find Grandpa In The Grave"

I ask you this...How would I ever have known to look for that letter there? How?? And how would I come to know all of the other things I knew before I shouldn't have even known them yet? The things I haven't even told you about yet?? I'll tell you how!! It had to be that damn crystal swinging dwarf Auntie Kay! I mean, right?? Ugh! I remember being soooo mad at her that day. All her fault...she must have voodooded me, or something. "Special", is what she said we were. Well, just so you know, being "Special" SUCKED that weekend...And sooooo many times since...

Ohhhhhh, I wanted my Mom to hurry up and come get me sooooo bad. She was supposed to be driving to the mountains to pick me up. I felt like I'd been there forever, and now....now, Dad was pissed off at me! That's putting it mildly, by the way. He'd been in really bad shape since the cozy coffin dropping day anyway. He'd spent most of the time at the bar down the road. On one hand, I had a strange feeling I shouldn't tell him about what had happened, and the letter and all.... But, then again, maybe it would make him really happy!! I mean, right? WROOOOOOONG! "Where the hell did you get this?" he had demanded. I got scared. I tried to tell him. It was no use. He said I had snooped where I didn't belong. He paced back and forth in the kitchen. I thought I was going to get a whippin'. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry...", I repeated. I ran back to the room and put everything back in the trunk, just like I had found it. Everything that is, except for my letter.

I tried to tell Mom what had happened when she got there. Uhhh, that went over like a turd in a punch bowl. They were fighting. Oh, it was bad. It was really, really bad. I gathered Grandpa Roy had called Mom just days before he passed. He said he NEVER wanted my Dad or his friends at the cabin again. He said he had changed his "Will". The house would be left to me...I was the Earp...I was the only grandchild.

Wait, where had I heard that before? Had Grandpa Roy told me that in my dream?
"Do you know who you are?... Do you know who you are?"

So anyway, who was "Will"? They were yelling and screaming about him. But...I did remember seeing his name in my letter. Will...Will... Oh, and there was someone else's name I remember seeing too. It was his neighbor. His name was written at the bottom of the letter and he had signed it above a line. There was someone else's name too, but I didn't know who it was. Nobody would ever know...because my letter disappeared. It wouldn't be seen again...

Summer came. Mom and my stepfather had split up and my brothers had gone away on an airplane to visit their other Dad...their "real" Dad...whatever that meant. It was just me and Mom. We stayed in the mountains at the cabin. We mostly stayed by ourselves, but my Dad would come sometimes on the weekend. He would bring all his friends. They would fill the entire property with their loud motorcycles. I would mostly hide in my little pink cottage. I didn't want to snoop where I didn't belong...

"Sweetheart", my Grandpa Roy said to me, stirring me gently as I snuggled in his bed one night. "You need to come see me." "But, I can see you now!" I thought. "Yes, but you need to come SEE me!" Yikes! He seemed a little mad. Ah, sheesh....What?? "You know where", he said..."You know where"...

"Mom, I want to go see Grandpa Roy", I told her the next morning. "We can do that." she said. "Let's just wait until your Dad comes." But Dad wouldn't go. He would NEVER go. Not even to this day.

Even after almost 25 years of being alienated, I tried to get him to go with me recently.
Nope! Gee..guilty much Dad??

Anyway, Dad would try to pacify me (himself?) by telling me about the gravestone he had bought for Grandpa Roy. He would tell me how beautiful it was, with mountains on it, and pine trees... So one hot summer afternoon, I talked Mom into taking me. Taking me to the place where they had dropped my Grandpa into a hole and covered him with dirt... "OH, how beautiful it must look now", I thought! And hopefully, Grandpa Roy would quit bugging me. Every night, every night..."Where are you? Hurry! Come!" Creepy, creepy....

"Stop the car!" It's over there!" I jumped out and started running. "Wait", Mom said. "We need help finding it. Let's go ask someone." Yea, right!! I didn't need to ask anybody! I knew right where it was. Running, running..."It's...right...HERE!" I dropped down to the grass... Wait...Whuh?...WTF?? There, right under my nose was an engraved plate... an engraved plate with SOMEONE ELSE'S NAME ON IT!! No mountains...no pine trees... "It's O.K." Mom tried to assure me. "You haven't been here for a long time. We'll ask for help." But I didn't need any stinking help! Oh, why wouldn't anybody listen to me?

"It's here. It's here. I'm here..." That's what I heard. Grandpa Roy. Couldn't Mom hear him?

"NO MOM! It's here! I know it is!" But Mom wouldn't listen. Neither would the little old man she fished out of the office who came to help. He wiped his sweaty bald little head, shaking it back and forth. "There must be some mistake." he said. "We'll find him"...

"I'm here Sweetheart. You know where. I'm here"...

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wouldn't accept the other unmarked grave they said was his. It was a lie!! I couldn't be consoled!!...

And so it would come to be...the wrong headstone had been placed on my Grandpa Roy's grave. And even though it would be a long time...eventually, the one with my Grandpas name on it, and the mountains, and the pine trees, would find its proper place. And years later, by some strange circumstance (?) I would come to meet the widow of the man who had mistakenly been marked in his place...