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A Day of Mourning

May 7th, 2015
Larson Farm-Fairview, Virginia

On a hill amidst an ocean of hayfields was where the majestic old Larson house sat. Not like the hill was needed for it to be noticed. The ranch-style home's white outer paint coat, faded with age, stood in stark contrast to the rows of golden wheat beyond, no matter where one stood on the property. Also blatantly noticeable was the massive weeping willow tree mere yards from the home's front door, its seasonable lime-green leaves cascading towards the ground on yellow vines like a bright, shimmering rain. They served another purpose as well, however, as a curtain and a shroud for the brown patch of freshly disturbed earth several feet from the tree's thick trunk. The dirt patch had a rusted shovel buried tip-first in the grass beside it, and a polished marble headstone with its back to the trunk reading "Lisa Larson: Devoted Wife, Loving Mother, Caring Grandmother. 1949-2015" at its head.

May 7th was a day of mourning at the Larson farm.

Dark stormclouds had gathered in the usually-clear skies above the sea of grain-ironically, before the tragedy, a symbol of the bestowing and renewal of life on the farm-and cast a somber mood on the small funeral party, gathered in a semi-circle around the fresh grave. One of the mourners, a well-dressed elderly man, stepped forward out of the crowd and removed a tattered sunhat from his head with trembling hand.

"Today..." he began solemnly, voice quavering slightly. "We are gathered here not to recognize death, but to celebrate life-the life of a woman everyone here knew and loved. That woman is my wife, Lisa Larson." The old man chuckled slightly to himself, then continued: "I never gave much thought to Lisa's change of last name until after she, well...Passed on...But when I look back on it, I'm reminded how special our relationship was, and not just to us."

"You see...When we first met, all those years ago, her last name had been Chau," he explained, "and given the time period we grew up in, it was rare indeed that a white boy and an Asian girl would fall in love. But I suppose that did nothing to discourage either of us from our feelings for the other. Hell, it probably made us want to make it work that much more."

"It was in 1964, our fifteenth year on this earth, that she began bringing my lunch out to me in the fields everyday, when I would help my dad with the grain harvest. She always made the trip from her place, just a few minutes down the road from here, on her bicycle, and I'd know immediately if it was her or a passerby because she'd have a big sunhat-the one I have here in my hand-on her head."