A man I saw today....

The field, probably once part of a farm from many years ago, is set near the highway, probably there long before the highway was ever even thought of. It was a desolate field, bleak and empty except for the slabs of stone, lying throughout. Some of the stones were accompanied by old dried out flowers that had been cut weeks before and left to weather the elements. A few even had fresh flowers lying near them. The flowers were a kind of tribute, not to the stones but to what the stones represent, many that placed them there are the last to guard in their hearts what it is, who it is, they honor with the flowers.
The weather is cold and dreary; the wind burns deep, to the bone. One man stands alone on a hill in the field, he is old, his black overcoat and his dark green scarf, knitted by his granddaughter, try to keep out the chill. The wind blows his thin gray hair as he leans down to lay his small bundle of flowers on the plain gray stone, though it does not compare to the stately and even elaborate ones that are nearby, it mean so much more to the old man. The memories it represents still flow through his dusty mind as if they were yesterday, even though many thing have faded in his mind, the memories of love do not fade. His shoulders are hunched over as he hides his face from the biting wind; tears roll down his wrinkled face, hidden from his children, from the happy grandchildren he is so fond of; tears that he shares only with the solitude and silence; he doesn’t cry from pain or hate but from the love he always holds in his heart and the memory of that love, the memory that the gray slab of stone represents to the world, a memory he will always hold dear.