Her skirt clung to her knees, wet with the cold, penetrating rain. Her mind was not on the intonation of the priest, nor on the wooden casket draped with the American flag.

She was remembering another day when she had stood with him under a chestnut tree waiting for the end of a light spring rain.

Her hand had been clasped firmly in his large one. She had felt loved and safe...

She was shaken from her thoughts by the creak of the casket being lowered into the earth. Someone placed the flag in her arms and she let it drop in the mud.

She stumbled away from the freshly filled grave sobbing hopelessly. The rain continued on through the night and by morning the flag was buried in the mud, irretrievably ruined.

Tammie Bee