What I'm learning from grief

We have seen a lot of death around here lately. Last summer, our neighbor came by to tell us he was throwing a block party. Two weeks later, he had a heart attack and died. His wife threw the party anyway. We planted a tree for him in his yard and drank lemonade.

My stepmother died after a long illness. We all sat for 20 long minutes in a mausoleum full of echoes, while two workers hoisted an urn containing her ashes into a two-storey columbaria using a creaky, moving scaffold.

Another elderly neighbor dropped dead suddenly at home alone one day last winter.  After he died, and still to this day, I think of him every time I go outside to work in the yard.  For twenty years, he was always there across the road, keeping an eye on our farm.  He is no more.