The Light Over The Cemetery Came Back On The Same Date For Three Years

My mother is buried in a cemetery on a hill, and I go on her birthday, in the evening, because she liked the evening and because the place is empty then.

The first year I saw it, I thought: helicopter. It was a single light, moving in a wide, patient circle over the far side of the ground, at maybe the height of a tall crane, and it took several minutes to come round.

No sound. That is the thing that took me a while to notice, and when I did notice it I felt my scalp move.

I watched it do three circuits and then I got in the car, because I am not brave, and because it was my mother's birthday and I did not want to spend it frightened.

The second year, same date, it was there. Same slow circle. Same silence.

At that point I did what any reasonable person does, which is nothing, because who do you tell? I did not want to be the woman who reports a UFO at her mother's grave. There is a version of that sentence that gets you a phone call from a concerned relative.