Always

At the end of miles and miles of winding country roads, past farms both sprawling and humble, tall corn and bulky cows rumbling and ruminating in their fields, past the plenties of rich red sumac and sunny goldenrod, past the darkest wines and palest pinks of hydrangea, through brief breezestorms and eddies of the first falling leaves, that catch light as they swirl and scatter in front of me, past all this is Alex in his last place, in the lovely business of his new season: rest, and calm, solace and reward, a return to earth and all its light, color, movement overflowing.

His small grave stands in a military row, at ease between two very old servicemen, Frank and Winston, who died around the time he did, and I like to think that maybe he had a chance to meet them on his way; he always did like to talk with old soldiers.

He’s gone from what we call life.  But no one told me that if you lean your cheek lightly against the face of a gravestone that’s been sunning itself in a field on a clear afternoon in late summer, the marble is warm as living flesh.  And if you lean in and touch cheek to grave, and close your eyes and breathe quietly, it’s exactly the sensation of leaning on the smooth bare sun-warmed shoulder of a man you loved.