07/23/2025
He Thought He Was Alone at the Cemetery — Then a Small Voice…
“You’re not really going to bury her for real, are you?” The soft voice of a child broke the silence, reaching Mr. Thomas’s ears like a whisper carried on the wind. He reached out his hand to touch the figure in the coffin, then quickly recoiled.
Mr. Thomas — or simply Thomas, as everyone who occasionally passed through this forgotten cemetery called him — drove his shovel into the wet, heavy soil with a groan that betrayed both exhaustion and habit. Just another day, indistinguishable from the hundreds before. For over twenty years, this had been his world: the old cemetery on the edge of the village, a place where the city’s noise and cruelty had long since faded into distant memory.
Here, among gravestones and crosses, silence reigned. Here, there was no need to pretend. Thomas often muttered about the modern world — about how young people were always staring at screens, about how no one truly knew how to grieve anymore. But there was no bitterness in his voice, only a tired acceptance: the world had changed, and he had stayed behind. He had long since grown used to loneliness, to the scent of damp earth, to the weight of honest labor that left his body aching — yet kept his soul strangely at peace.
“Grandpa Thomas!” rang out a voice, clear and bright as a bell, scattering the old man’s thoughts.
Skipping across the mounds of grass came a little girl of about eight, slight and sprightly, with bony shoulders under a faded cotton dress and worn-out sandals. Lily. His frequent visitor, almost like family now. She belonged to this place as naturally as the mossy crosses and silent crows in the birch trees.
“You’re back again, my little bird,” Thomas rumbled, leaning his shovel against the dirt mound. He wiped his hands on his pants and dug into his weathered satchel. “Hungry, aren’t you?”
He handed her a sandwich wrapped in old newspaper. She took it eagerly with both hands, as though it were something precious, and began to eat quickly, joy radiating from her face. Her cheeks puffed and moved rapidly, and Thomas couldn’t help but smile.
“Slow down a bit, or you’ll choke,” he warned softly. There was only care in his voice. He knew exactly where Lily lived, and his heart ached for her.
When she had finished eating, Lily looked up at him with large, too-serious eyes.
“Grandpa Thomas… Can I stay here tonight?” she whispered, tugging at the hem of her dress. “Mom… is getting married again.”
Thomas didn’t need her to explain. “Getting married” in her world meant drunkenness, loud voices, strange men, wandering eyes, and danger. He remembered the bruises he’d seen on her arms months ago. That day, he had stormed into the house and, with nothing more than his presence, silenced everyone inside. But he knew it was only a temporary solution.
“Of course you can, little bird,” he sighed. “Come on now, it’ll be dark soon.”
The next morning brought another burial. A young woman had died — drowned in a luxurious car outside the city. Her relatives came, strangers with cold eyes and tense expressions, clearly more concerned with legal documents than with grieving.
As Thomas worked, he pondered the unfairness of the world. So much money, beauty, and youth — yet not a single soul at her side to weep. Only haste and self-interest.
Lily sat nearby on a bench, her legs swinging above the ground. She had become part of this place, like a small shadow always nearby.
“Who died, Grandpa?” she asked.
“A young woman,” he answered without turning.
“Do you feel bad for her?”
“I feel bad for all the dead, Lily. They can’t change anything anymore.”
He straightened, leaning on his shovel. The grave was ready — deep and even. His job was done.
“Come on, let’s go warm up with some tea,” he said, reaching for her hand.
She ran to him and grasped his rough hand with her tiny one. The simple gesture made something in his chest warm. The guardhouse, though small and smelling of old herbs and wood smoke, was the safest place in the world to Lily.
The next morning, a hearse pulled up. A black car stopped beside the fresh grave. Two men in crisp suits stepped out, unloaded a polished coffin, and set it on wooden stools at the edge of the pit.
“Hurry up, we’re on a schedule,” one of them barked at Thomas.
He frowned. He hated this rush. One should pause, stay silent, and say farewell with dignity.
“It can wait,” he snapped. “This isn’t firewood. There’s a proper way to do this.”
The men shrugged and drove off, saying they’d return in an hour. Thomas was left alone — with the coffin, the quiet, and one last hour of peace for someone who would soon lose even that.
He sat on the bench, smoking his handmade cigarette, eyes on the coffin. Just then, Lily crept silently out of the guardhouse. She tiptoed to the edge of the grave, crouched, and looked inside. The woman resting on white satin looked beautiful, her face waxy but peaceful — as if she were only asleep.
Lily stared for a long time, then turned to Thomas and asked softly:
“Grandpa, you’re not really going to bury her, are you?”
Her words struck his heart like lightning. He gasped, coughed, and put out his cigarette. He wanted to tell her to leave, to look away — but something in her eyes, the way she believed this was all a strange game, stopped him. He had no words… Full story in 1st comment 😮👇
