Thousands of them.  Thousands upon thousands over these last four years.  In each of my slow-walk days, I pass ten, maybe thirty, occasionally hundreds.  And even now, even after seeing so many of them they tug at the corners of my eyes, sting me with tiny jolts of sadness, lonlieness, regret, guilt even. 

Crosses.

The roads of South America are riddled with them.  Sharp corners, cliff-lined passes, crossroads, small town intersections, steep descents and tricky curves, each are infested with little concrete crosses, some homemade, some elaborate and ornamented, each one marking the spot where a loved one died.  Each one sums up an entire human life with a couple words in latin, a birthdate, a date of death, occasionally with a brief epitaph. 

Some of the crosses, especially the most humble ones, are left blank, just the rough face of hand-mixed cement, the arms of the cross askew, uneven…the memory of the person who died there fragments a little more with each passing year, as those who survive move on, die, fade away.  Soon only the cross itself carries the last hint that this person even existed.  And mudslides, floods, careless road workers, and erosion will snuff out even that mute shadow someday.

They stand like so many exclamation points by the road, warnings, the frozen tails of a cry, a groan, a wheeze, a sigh.  They are an instant of inflection created by flashes of surprise, fear. They are often clustered together in threes and fours, as if seeking company.  There are lonely ones too, however, pushing up, seeming lost and out of place along the flat wastes of desert straightaways. 

Sometimes I turn a corner and see a forest of them, arms outstretched, all different sizes and shapes.  Twenty, thirtyfive, fifty.  Whole families, whole villages,  wiped out in the time it takes to doze behind the wheel, to overcorrect, to not see the dangerous curve ahead, for a tire to blow, for a cow or dog to stray into a lane, for brakes to bleed and weaken…a blink, a breath, an uncontrolled tic, or a drunken lurch.  And what’s left of all that shattered glass, bent metal, burned rubber, crushed bone and opened veins?

Crosses. 

And I pass by them every day.  I read their names, calculate their ages.  My mind registers the colors of fake-plastic flowers, of water-stained photos, and sunburnt prayers.  I take in the flaking concrete, detritous, cracked stone, dust, neglect.  I stare into that unkempt look of forgetfulness, the abyss that whispers and mocks, “this soul never even existed”.

And I say to each one the only thing I can say, “I’m sorry.” 

for whatever that’s worth.