One for the Price of Two

I've just passed away.

The morning mists of the last remaining Connecticut forest clear, leaving their wet parting kiss of dew before disappearing, like all human life, into the light and heat of day. What can remain long when looked at by the unblinking eye of the Sun?

My Grandfather is dead. My Grandfather is alive. I've never seen anything die, but as society counts it, He is dead. I have trouble understanding the difference, though I know there is one. Maybe because I cannot hold his hand? But I can, I do. I feel his familiar squeeze back. Because I cannot see his face? But I see it reflected back in all those that deeply loved him. In pictures of him, in my own heart and mind.

Where has he gone?

A man goes to the store, leaves his dog at home. Thinks fondly of his living dog as he buys groceries. But the dog died as soon as the man left. Where is the death then? Where but in the head, in the thought, in the belief. In the man and not the dog.

Change I see, but death I've never met, save as the necessary first half of change. The second half being birth.