Warm days gave slow way to the damp and chill of Fall. Soon snow and harsh winds swept from the North, and the state went white, full of peace and still. He took the time, kept up in the thick walls of his home in the woods, to mourn, grieve, and come to a new sense of life.

As Spring fought the good fight, snow now slush and a cool wet on the earth, he dared look once more on the world. Deep breaths drew through tired lungs to wash the pain and ache. On a damp porch step he sat, eyes full of cloud and mist from age and wear. Through this veil the small pink clumps caught his mind, a call to his soul. What trick is this, he thought.

There, on her grave, the spot in which he laid his love, grew a stand of plant not there in the past. New growth. New life. Out of the snow and ice the shoots sprang, bright and gay, as she had been, as she was still in his heart. The smell found him next, one he knew well. He could see her at the sink, at the stove.

Chives. Sweet wild chives. One last gift.