When my grandfather died it was warm, just as he would have liked it. The crabapple tree in my front yard had recently reached full bloom and the leaves towering over my house were an ever shade of ivy; summer was on its way.
We buried him on an even warmer day in the sun-heated dirt. I felt better knowing he could be part of the earth while it was warm, that way he could be warm for a while. The day he died, I remember thinking that even the microbes continued to live on the spoon he had eaten off of only a few days before, yet his last breath had been taken and he would no longer be with us.
The trees had also been thriving, while he lay still and lifeless. But those trees reminded me of him, not he himself but a presence of him. They swayed patterns in the atmosphere, like the smile he used to make when my dad would hold his camera in front of his eye and say, "smile" while my grandmother tickled his side to produce a large grin and joyful squinted eyes. The trees stop moving sometimes and make me realize he is gone. But after all, perhaps people could be similar to these stalks of beauty.
In the winter the trees are dormant and their glorious leaves have died and toppled to the ground, they appear to be dead. Yet in the spring they revitalize themselves and come back more beautiful than remembered. People cannot return as they are when they leave, but they can remain as memories. And in a pool somewhere hot, with palm trees and sunshine, the memory of my grandfather swims. I said goodbye to him, but he is not gone completely, I will remember him so fondly, his presence will be near for as long as the trees continue to sway to his smile and the sun heats the earth.
