Your last walk, I ran past your bench last week

Curt—what did you see on that last walk?

Squirrels, those bushy-tailed rats, in a moment of late fall frenzy.

A mama pushing a stroller, your mind wanders to Benji, the little boy you lost to a brain tumor when he was 11 years old. He would have been a boy all grown up now, sitting with you, his hand warming yours.

Litter skitters across the bike path, swirls around the base of a tree, sending the nervous squirrels twittering. The last time you were home to visit your kids you went camping. At night around the campfire you told them what you wanted done with your ashes. They weren’t ready to hear it.

The sun slips behind the hospital across from the bench where you sit. Your last poem touched upon this: a life well-spent, lived to its fullest before the sun goes down. Some of your ashes will be next to Benji, some by your beloved Dawn, some mixed with the wind, as you sigh a breath of release.