Sand and Memories

We scattered his ashes on a beach in Berry.
The wind, like it was privy to our purpose, blew a gale for the horizon like a highway. And I saw him. A shadow. A hint of some immortal soul in the shapes his ashes made on their way into the water.
This man, once six feet tall, a tower, but shrinking as my memory grew to replace him. He was always tall to me. Even bent over facing final days he seemed to loom above my head like a giant tree. In his shadow I was a cotton thread pretending to be a rope. But I wound myself around his ankles and tied him to the earth, rooted him to it like the tree that grew in his soul and built this family.
Now he is no giant tree. Now he is contained within this tiny box, barely in existence. But before him stands his legacy. Children and grandchildren, struggling with composure, and combing through the memories of all they will leave behind, on this windy beach in Berry.