In an abandoned cemetery high in the wooded mountains lay two gravestones. The inscriptions had long worn away by the wind that whistled through the trees and the rain that fell from the skies in heavy sheets.
Grandma Flora, the elderly Catholic woman who baked cookies and told stories around the fire, was a little girl when the two teenage twins had gone missing in the woods. They had engraved two stones for two empty graves as no remains were ever found. She remembered kneeling by her bedside and praying for Him to take the two lost souls into His heavenly palace.
In a well-kept cemetery on the outskirts of a rural New Zealand town lay two gravestones. They were old and worn down but clean, the white marble gleaming in the sunlight surrounded by fresh bouquets of various flowers. Chords made of soft braided leather decorated with various dyes, stones, and feathers hung from iron rings.
There were at least a hundred of them, one for each year. Isla and Patrick Richards had started the tradition after they were forced to acknowledge that their youngest children were not coming home. After they had died, their children and grandchildren had continued the tradition, cleaning the graves and decorating with their favorite flowers.
In the void, a place where time and life were meaningless, a prayer reached the ears of a Creator, leading them towards the aimlessly floating souls. The Creator let themselves mourn over the lives, over the potential for life that had been snuffed out before their time.
Folding the souls into their arms clothed with robes made of starlight, the Creator felt their face harden into a mask of determination. They created new forms for the lost souls, modeling them after the younglings his beloved Firstborn cherished.
Giving their blessing, the Creator watched with warm eyes as they sent their creations into the land they had formed, whispering a fond farewell as they landed amidst a flash of light. Nodding to themselves, the Creator turned away from the land. The children were now in the safe and protecting hands of the Firstborn.