The Perfect Flaw

         It was raining.
         I thought it was appropriate as I stood under a black umbrella, water creeping in like a thief into my black shoes, as I somberly looked at my father’s gravestone.
         The world was distorted by a shifting curtain of silver.
         I stood alone with my father. The funeral had already ended half an hour ago. I had maintained my composure, save for a few tears that had slipped past my barriers and silently cascaded down my cheek. My mother had whispered in a choked voice filled with her own sorrow, “It’s okay to cry.”
         With the rain constantly pattering on the roof of the black umbrella, I reviewed those melancholy moments before everybody left. Family members and friends with grief in their eyes and hands filled with compassion had tried to console, had tried to tell me how sorry they were and how they shared my pain.
         But they didn’t understand that I was robbed of time that could’ve been spent in my father’s company. The years had mounted to six on account of a stubborn father and his stubborn daughter refusing to bend.
         My mother must've seen something worrisome in my expression for she had tried to stay, her concern palpable in the air. But I had sent her away, gently but firmly. I couldn't explain to her that this was time that I needed alone with my father to say things...think things...do things that would have to replace all those empty years we had been apart. I couldn't tell my mother that. This was something between my father and myself, a shared secret drowned in disgrace.
         My eyes rested upon the gravestone, a symbol of my father’s death and a marker for where his body lies. It was such a mundane thing, so gray and lifeless, a reminder of death and sorrow when it should be a reminder of the life that was lived. Tears started to distort my vision, the silver-coated world started to blur together. Without interference I let the tears fall, the tears that wouldn’t escape so freely during the ceremony. These tears were not only a symbol of my grief, but they were a symbol of my apology for letting the years get away, for letting the arguments grow into such an ugly monster that it had eaten away at the barriers around their love. A tear dropped from my face, carrying with it a small measure of my sorrow as it became one with the rain.
         Memories, unwanted and yet necessary, flowed like water into my mind. I remembered how my father had always wanted the perfect daughter with the perfect grades and the perfect college and marry the perfect husband and have a perfect job. Oh, how he set those standards so high. Time and time again I would reach for it so desperately. I would stand up on my toes and jump with all my might while my arms stretched beyond their intended length… but after so many failed attempts, I had finally realized that I was trying to catch the stars.
              And so I had stopped standing on my toes. I had stopped jumping. I had stopped stretching. The arguments started, the telephone calls started to get fewer and fewer between, the seething anger inside both of us had taken root and was given water to grow by our stubbornness and continued isolation from the other.
Now here we are. The apology that was overdue, the reconciliation that was so late in coming, had finally arrived.
         But it was too late. It was late and I was standing on my father’s grave.
There was no doubt that I had loved my father. There was no doubt that he had a major role in the play that was my life. Why didn’t I remember that in those past few years?
              The umbrella drops to the ground. The silver curtain enveloped me in its embrace to join the rest of the world. Quietly I let the rain wash away those years that were silent, those years that were empty of a father’s presence, those years that were so foolishly spent in nurturing a bitter but fruitless anger. It was all washed away and I was standing cleansed before my father. I felt our love restored to its fullest, our forgiveness for each other healing our scars that can’t be seen but were caused by neglected love. The happy memories were brighter and were easier to recall.
              My hand inched into my coat to pull out a red rose. As my eyes roamed over the gravestone, my thumb gently caressed the silky petals. Mother had bought my father flowers that were perfect in appearance but were lifeless in touch and fragrance; a flower that never dies. A mistake that shouldn’t exist in this world, because nothing is perfect. Not me. Not love.
              Instead, I had picked the red rose that was limp in my hands: it was real. It had cold velvet petals and the green stem that could be so easily punctured. As a penalty for having life, it wasn’t flawless, but rather had a drooping countenance and ruby petals tinged with brown.
         With the utmost care, I laid that forlorn rose on my father’s gravestone. I thought that that rose looked more beautiful than the perfect ones that my mother had picked.
         And I thought the rose was a perfect way to say goodbye.