Letters From The Grave

by Jeanie P Johnson

  This threat of a war bothered him, because Doran was sure it was going to escalate into something larger than life, and he believed it would merely amount to a few skirmishes. Also he would have to choose the south over the north, to pay his allegiance to, if the Governor couldn’t keep the state neutral, and he knew Doran would end up supporting the North since he was against slavery.

  That would make it difficult to remain at the same plantation he thought, sadly, to himself. He liked Doran, and he wanted to help him secure his plantation, but anyone in their right mind should know that the south could not survive without slaves, and if they were freed, where would they all go? How would they earn a living? None of them were educated. The state of the Union was going to be a shambles when it was all over with, if the north really won, the way Doran insisted it would.

  Doran pulled the letter from his breast pocket. The perfume, Emma always put on her letters, permeated his senses. Now he wasn’t sure if the smell reminded him of his dead wife, or the live being, somewhere out in the future, who was just as untouchable as the one who had died? At least her words touched him, he thought.

  April 25, 1981

  Dear Doran,

  I cannot believe that two years have gone by since I started writing you. Before, you seemed so unreal, and it was frightening to think I was writing to someone in the past. Now you seem like you have always been a part of me. I sometimes see myself in the past, walking at your side, being that support to you, that any faithful wife would be. And then I am drawn back to the present, and know this can never last, just as our past marriage had not lasted as long as we had expected it to last. I sometimes count the days, knowing there will be a time that we no longer can write to each other like this. Yet then, I am thankful for the days that we have had, and that we will have to continue to share our thoughts and dreams. I know at some point, that I will be forced to let the past go, and look to the future, but I have not had any sign of your future self in a very long time. Perhaps he has given up on ever meeting me, or maybe he has met someone else and married her, believing our connection was just a fluke in his imagination. I do not know, so I worry that you and I will not be joined one day in my present time.

  I continue to paint my graveyard etchings, and they continue to sell, but I do not know if the Doran who claimed to be related to you, bought any of my new paintings or not. Sal says he has never seen him again, since that first day, when I brought my paintings of you and your wife into the studio. Yet the sales keeps me alive, and prods me on to do even more work.

  You will be pleased to learn that I have continued to care for all of the graves in the plantation plots… even the graves of the slaves. Someone else is tending them as well, but they always do it when I am away. It could be Doran of the future, since I looked into the records and discovered his family still owns the property where your plantation once stood. It has stayed in your family all these years, so that should please you, even though no one has ever attempted to rebuild on the property.

  Every year, on my birthday, someone puts fresh blue flowers on Emma’s grave, so it must be your future self that is doing it. He must know more about me, than I realize, because I am usually involved someplace else, when he does it. He still doesn’t want me to know that he exists, and maybe it is because he has chosen to marry someone else, instead of contact me, and let me know of his existence. Yet if I am still writing you, and you both live in my awareness, maybe it is not possible to know the two of you, both at the same time.

  I know the war in your time, is about to explode into your own life, and I worry about that, because I know I have no power to stop it or to warn you, in order to turn the tides for you. At first, Missouri will remain Neutral, but as pressure of the war prevails, it will split in two, and people will have to take sides. Stay with the north, because they will win out in the end.

  I believe we are all given our own challenges in life, and that is most likely why you could not save Emma from dying. Her dying, though, has taught us both about the past and the future, and our connection to everything in the past and the future, so maybe it is a lesson to both of us in different time experiences of how we and everyone else is connected in ways we can’t imagine.

  I will be thinking of you often during the hard days that will be ahead of you, and hope that it is not all lived in vain.

  Love, Always, Emma

  Doran brought the letter to his lips and kissed it, as he breathed in Emma’s perfume. He then put Emma’s letter with the rest of her letters in the box he kept in a locked drawer of his desk. Only his mother knew where the key was kept. He had told her that if anything ever happened to him that she had to preserve the letters for future generations, because his future-self was related to him, and that future-self needed to discover his connection to Emma. He believed that was why this future-self knew so much about Emma and when she was going to place her paintings in the studio, because he had read the letters and knew she was there, waiting for him, if he only held out hope. Emma said she had not had any contact from him ever since she received the blue flowers from him. Now he worried, just like Emma did, that his future-self had given up hope, or had met someone else, and decided to marry her instead.

  Only there were more important things to worry about, now that the war had started and would continue to grow as more and more southern states joined in the fight. His future plantation was at stake. He wondered why none of his future relatives had rebuilt the plantation, but maybe they had to sell all his belongings to merely survive the war, he shrugged to himself. He had to remind himself to let his mother know about the treasures he had hidden, so his son would have a future. Only he thought it best not to let Mark know about them, because he was leaning in the direction of fighting for the south, and that frightened him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  1982

  Doran sat in the concealing shelter of the half tumbled down barn, and watched Emma tending the graveyard of his ancestors, as though they were her own. Well maybe one of them was her own, but she had taken great interest in the life of his great, great grandfather, and only she knew the conflicts he was going through, because even though, now, Doran could read her letters from the past, he could not read the letters that his other-self had sent her. He only had scant recall of anything during that life, but the one incident that impressed and bothered him the most, was the dream of him dying, and then seeing Emma at his own grave. She, as well as he, knew when Doran Foster of the past would die, and yet she kept it from him, so he could live a full life, without anticipating the day he would be killed. He probably didn’t even know he was going to be killed.

  Doran had driven his motorcycle, to the plantation, as he had done many times before, without Emma knowing of it. He always came from a different direction, even though it took him longer, so she would never see his tire parks. He had learned her schedule and worked around it, so he was never at the plantation at the same time she was, and if he was there, he always kept the bike hidden in the barn, and always watched her from a distance, as he was doing right now.

  While he managed to stop contacting her, in subtle ways, he could not keep from keeping an eye on her, waiting for the day he would finally present himself to her. He wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, because he didn’t have any letters to go by in order to guide his actions. But now, Emma’s letters were filled with doubt that he was even waiting for his soul mate. He personally didn’t have to think of a way to let her know he was still there, on the sidelines waiting until she had written her last letter to Doran of the past, because once again, her own letters mapped it out for him, and all he had to do was what the letters, indicated he had already done. He wondered if the actions he took was of his own making, or from the after math, which she wrote about?

  He saw her spread a quilt on the ground, and take out a book to read, as she rested in the shade of the dogwood tree. Eventually, she set the book aside, and lay her head back on the pillow she had been resti
ng against. She was so very still, and he realized that she had fallen asleep. Doran noticed the bluebells growing wild in the field, along with forget-me-nots. He took a pen from his pocket, and scribbled out on the back of a business card, he had gotten from Sal’s studio, “You are still my fresh blue flower, so don’t forget about me, Doran.” Then, he quietly ventured out and picked as many blue flowers as he could find, and cautiously approached the blanket, where she lay, hoping she did not suddenly awake to find him there, or it would spoil everything.

  He scattered the flowers around her body, and left the note in the pages of her book, which she had placed on its face saving her place, but now the card was saving another place. It was a poem book, and he chose a special poem to mark with the card. He hoped she would understand the poem. She started to stir, and he tiptoed away, finally reaching the shelter of his hiding place to watch and see what she would do.

  When she saw the flowers, scattered about her, she let out a small yelp, and stood up, looking around, as if trying to discover where the flowers came from. She probably guessed. The last time he had contacted her, he had sent her blue flowers, so she had to know he was still aware of her, and had not forgotten her.

  Doran watched her sink back to the blanket, strewn with flowers, and then she noticed the book, and the card that marked the page. She opened the book, paused to read the note on the back of the card, glanced around again, and then her head bent over the book, and he knew she was reading the poem. The poem he had chosen was called, You’ll Love Me Yet.

  You’ll love me yet! - and I can tarry.

  Your love’s protracted growing;

  June reared that bunch of flowers you carry,

  From seeds of April’s sowing.

  I plant a heart full now; some seed

  At least is sure to strike,

  And yield - when you’ll not pluck indeed,

  Not love, but may be, like.

  You’ll look at least on love’s remains,

  A grave’s one violet;

  Your look - that pays a thousand pains,

  What’s death? You’ll love me yet!

  Once again, Emma looked around, trying to seek out who had scattered the flowers around her, knowing full well who had done it. After a while, she gave up trying to see where he was, and pulled out her writing material. He knew she was writing a new letter to Doran of the past. He knew what that letter said, because he had read it many times before, and it was the letter that had guided his actions.

  May 3, 1982

  Dear Doran,

  I sit at your grave, and wonder if you came to me while I was sleeping, nearby. My dreams had been of you and I walking in a meadow, near a river, holding hands and planning the future. Only I couldn’t tell if it was you of the past whom I was walking with, or you of the future. Since, according to my friend Sal, you both look like one another I only knew it was you that held my hand, and made me feel so content. I never want to lose that feeling, and yet, as the days get closer to the unknown, I worry if I will keep that contentment, that your letters bring me, and the thought that I may meet you in this life, someday soon?

  I woke to find blue flowers strewn about me, and a card, saying I will always be your fresh blue flower, marking a poem in a book, called You’ll Love Me Yet. It had to be your future-self that brought the flowers, and marked the poem, yet there was no one around, and I felt I had been there alone all day. How did someone arrive without me knowing it? And yet, he found a way to be there, just as you have found a way to work into my heart, even though I have never met you, or seen you in person.

  Somehow, you are a part of me, and will always remain a part of me, even in death. Even after my own death, something will hold our souls together, so we can feed off of each other’s love. The poem says, “You’ll love me yet,” and yet I know I already love you, and have loved you from the beginning of time. I just don’t know when I will be able to love you in the physical. Will the past repeat itself? Will we be lost to each other, again, once we are able to meet? I hope not. You have to promise me, that if you ever find me in this life, that we will remain together, until we are both old and have shared our life together for a very long time. I know you wish for that too, but how can we make sure it happens?

  Love Always, Emma

  That had been one of Doran’s favorite letters that Emma had written to his great, great grandfather. Only he knew that she had also written that letter to him. She may not know he was reading all her letters from the past, but she knew something held them together in a way she did not understand. She kept hoping to meet him, while dreading having to lose Doran of the past, once he was killed. Only she had contacted him after he had been dead for over one hundred years. Would that contact start all over again, like a recording of time that never stopped, once he died and she couldn’t write to him any longer? Would she pull him to her from the ethers of time, so she could always share letters with him?

  He wouldn’t allow it, he promised himself. The day that his other-self was killed, he would make sure he met Emma, before she had a chance to forget that she had a soul mate waiting for her right here… a soul mate that her communication with from the past, was preparing her to meet in the future.

  His grandfather had already died, and now it was up to him to carry on the quest of meeting her, and showing her the letters, and letting her know that she had been the one that brought happiness into his great, great grandfathers last days on earth, and that happiness would spill over to his future life with her beside him.

  Doran looked around the plantation. He had joined Emma in caring for the graveyard, but he still hadn’t been able to start construction on the plantation itself. Even if he could afford to rebuild it, he would have to wait for another year, before he could start the project. By then, Doran of the past would be dead, and he will have met Emma of the future, and revealed to her his part in her past experience with David, and how he had been willing to wait for seven years to formally meet her, even though he had been in love with her all that time.

  Emma had told his great, great grandfather to store his valuables away during the war, but if he had done that, Doran’s family never discovered where he hid his belongings or if his earlier ancestors had discovered where he put them. Perhaps they had used them over the years. He knew his family had a certain amount of wealth which they lived on, but it was supposedly from investing what money they did have, over the years. Maybe part of that money came from Doran’s estate, he thought.

  He wanted to fulfill his grandfather’s dream, though, no matter how much sacrifice it took. He would rebuild the plantation, exactly the way it was when Doran of the past was alive, and then all of his future children would be taught the story of Love eternal, that flowed beyond time, and brought Emma and Doran’s love to full circle again. Anyway, that was the way it was supposed to go in his mind.

  He watched as Emma finally shook the blue flowers from her blanket, after taking a few and pressing them in the pages of her book, then tossed the blanket in her car. She opened the book and read the poem again, and then put the card back in its place in the book once more.

  Once she had driven away, he approached the grave, and began to compose his own letter. No wonder his grandfather knew he would never be able to watch indifferently from afar. Doran had to let his other-self know that he had been born again, and eventually, he would watch over Emma once more, and keep her safe, and shower her with love. The very letter he was composing was also in the bundle of letters from Emma. He didn’t know how it worked, since the letter already existed, but the letters that Emma hadn’t written yet, also existed before she ever wrote them in the here and now. Though he had memorized that letter he was about to write, which had returned to him through the past, the words came from his heart. He must have planned those words, long before he ever read that letter from himself, to his past self.

  Dear Doran,

  You will be shocked to learn that this letter, written to you, is from y
our future-self. I have been waiting for seven years, after receiving the letters that Emma wrote to you, saved by your mother, given to me by your own grandson, whom she had given them to before she died. In the letters, I learned of my own soul mate, which is also your soul mate, since we are one in the same. You, through me, have been given a second chance to be with Emma again, but I will not approach her until after you have left from her existence, and left that space for me to step in and take your place. Rest assured, that you will fulfill your dream of the future, and be with the woman you and I both love, in our own separate times upon this earth. And perhaps even in future lives, we will be able to be with Emma again, and again, for I know we will never tire of being her soul mate.

  Your future-self, Doran of 1982

  P.S. I plan to rebuild the plantation again, so our dream of the future can continue.

  When he was finished, he placed the letter in the cubby hole beside the one Emma had written, turned the key and replaced it under the rock, and then walked back to the barn. He hoped he had not made a mistake by writing to his past-self, but he wanted to give that other-self, peace of mind, so he would know that no matter what happened to him in that life, he would continue in this life, and still be able to be with Emma once again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE