Before he passed away, I painted a portrait of my dog as a saint.
With a gold leaf halo and a wreath of flowers.
After he passed, I placed an LED votive candle on a small shelf beneath it, always lit in his memory.
My daughter, just learning to speak, points to iconography and asks “Whassat?”
I told her, that’s Stanley. He was your brother, our protector, and my soul mate.
I did not know she’d been pointing to his wreath.
She calls all flowers by his name
—
Death is the memory of blooming.
The scent of fading petals.
Not the absence of flowers.
Always depicted as a dark figure
waiting to shepherd you home.
Never a void of aching desolation.
We speak of death as part of existence,
not as its antithesis. Contemplating
nothingness would be too fearful.
