And after which Rosamond kept her promise and took me camping in the Adirondacks, just the two of us. They were the most wonderful three days of my life—tracking animals through the forest, fishing in a cool green mountain stream, and at night gazing up at the stars and together remembering Hayden so hard that he became forever preserved in the misty landscape of our souls. And when the dawn came his presence was felt in the warm sunlight that slowly surrounded us. Thus we became eternally connected to each other, even though it was to be the last time I would ever see her. Hundreds of small white butterflies with black smudges dart and pirouette among the overgrown honeysuckle that clings to the high granite walls of the convent. I am not permitted to attend the service. So I stand outside the iron gates and my mind wanders back to the many funerals Grandpa had taken me to as a boy, cursing the medical establishment all the while. I’m surprised by how the past has stayed with me throughout the decades, always just beneath the surface, invisible and heartwarming, threaded to the future, the way the end of summer seamlessly stitches itself into the fall.
