The Source

“Who is really living next door to you? To what extent do you know the answer?
and therefore for a minute now and then… are grateful for their presence?” Hafiz, A Year With Hafiz: Daily Contemplations

I see David more now that he is dead.

I see ghosts. Not the glowing figure of someone gone, but a burning memory like staring at the sun and looking away only to continue seeing spheres. The more years I live the more ghosts I see.

A man at the market walks with the same casual pleasure. The world spun and David stuck out his foot to meet it.

A laugh at the coffee shop echoes David’s. The smile from a man David’s age comes from the same genes. If he no longer exists in the flesh, he lives in those around me. His death connects us.

David was the first person to die who I can say I loved. He was a neighbor across the street. His garden was greener. His flowers blossomed. Cars would stop at the sign in front of our houses, and the drivers would look to David’s yard for signs of progress and secretly for silent advice on their own planting schedules. This was my technique. David knew better. He lived here his whole life. I was a transplant.

David watched me haul buckets of water from the house on a hot June day. I walked out the front door for the second time with five-gallon buckets of water sloshing and spilling onto my legs and watched with surprise as a rainbow of mist moved across my salad greens and corn. On the other end of the rainbow was David, smiling. His hose draped across his left hand and his right was holding the source. A damp line on the warm pavement between our homes connected his yard to mine.