I said: it’s not just a garden.
He knew that too.
Roy died in March of 2011.
He was sixty-seven years old, which is not old enough, though I am aware that there is no age that would have felt old enough, that the specific age at which he died would have felt premature regardless of what it was because he was still himself, completely himself, still the man with the Saturday projects and the anniversary flowers and the smile that took its time arriving.
He had a heart attack. He was in the garden, which was where he spent Saturday mornings when the weather allowed, tending it with the same attention he had built it with.
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