I tell Dennis to take a  wrong  turn  when  I  take  him  to  Paul's
Graveside.
I'm not used to these roads having street signs.
Turning back around, having round-abouted to the highway, he notes a
terrapin hunkered down  on  the  divider,  a  small  one  not  quite
covering the width of the yellow stripe.
We find the cemetery.
I've not been here for twenty years so we wander a bit to  find  the
right grave.
I am amazed at my genes in this dirt,  lives  buried  back,  uncles,
aunts, cousins, grandparents and beyond.
I keep forgetting I'm just one leaf and not the whole forest.
I keep forgetting that I too will fall.
I keep forgetting that I will sleep on, seeping  into  and  becoming
the soil.
I've brought an allium to plant.
Paul said, when he was twelve, "When I die, I  want  them  to  plant
onions on my grave so that everyone who comes by has to cry."
I hope he's satisfied with chives.
I start digging with my fingers.
Dennis asks if I'd like a shovel.
I reply that this is pretty darned poetic, but  a  shovel  would  be
more efficient.
The grave diggers turned up the soil from deeper  beyond  the  grass
roots' reach.
It is clay, it is flint, it is hard.
Dennis finds a Coleman multi-tool; I use it to pry rocks loose until
I get a hole big enough for the chives.
Cemetery rules forbid planting flowers, so I camouflage  the  chives
with the arrangements left over from the interment ceremony.
I did not make it to the funeral, but at Paul's bedside person after
person after person stopped me to say variations on "He helped me, I
mean he really helped me out a lot."
The silk roses are splattered with mud and reflect a  hard  and  icy
winter.
Still, they'll probably last another two or three months before  the
garbage collectors get them.
I wonder if the chives will survive the summer or  the  planting  of
the tombstone sometime in the future.
Somebody told mother Paul's temporary grave marker had been stolen.
I note it was under the fake roses and lilies all along.
Back on the road, Dennis sees the terrapin still hunkered.
He stops to save her.