The scent of freshly cut wood and decaying leaves hung heavy around her nose, which was cold from the crisp fall air. As she walked down the winding, wandering dirt path, the leaves cried, crackled, and crunched under her feet, reminding her of all the happy falls spent with her grandparents in the south, the many days of playing in the perfectly sculpted mounds of multi-colored leaves. As she walked down memory lane, it took every bit of strength in her body to keep from crying. As she walked, she was not alone. As she walked, he was above her watching over her, loving her, in heaven with grams and god. As she walked, she was sad that he was not with her. This was the same walk they had taken so many times before, but it did not feel the same. They used to take this walk to visit Grams, but now she takes the walk alone to visit him. The nearer she got, the more she wanted to turn back from the pain that lay ahead. She fought back tears as her knee collided with the ground an!.
d began to flood thick, dark, crimson red blood. Gramps rushed to her side and lifted her from the ground to relieve the awful pain that was shooting through her pint-sized knee. She hit the ground with a relived sigh in front of a large depressing memorial. The autumn leaves rustled past, brushing up against the sun warmed stone. The whisper of the trees in the gentle wind sent a several birds soaring into the dark tired sky. A breath of nature tenderly lifted her hair into her face and she wiped the stream of tears off her cheek. She watched as a squirrel scurried past her Grampa's gravestone. Its excited chirps flowed into the silence of her thoughts and it stood on its haunches, gazing at her with piercing eyes. With one last twitter it dropped to all four and hurried along its acorn hunting. Her eyes returned to the gravestone and the wilted flowers drooping inside a modest vase. The flowers were so lovely, like delicate pieces of blown glass.
