The years continued.<\/p>\n
That was the strange thing about grief.<\/p>\n
At first, it feels like life stopped.<\/p>\n
Then one day you realize years have passed.<\/p>\n
Children become adults.<\/p>\n
Houses change.<\/p>\n
People age.<\/p>\n
And the person you lost remains the same age in your memory.<\/p>\n
David stayed forty-eight forever.<\/p>\n
Ethan kept growing.<\/p>\n
Melissa kept changing.<\/p>\n
I kept learning.<\/p>\n
One spring afternoon, Ethan visited with a question.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think Dad would recognize me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you still ask questions like him.\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what I meant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven after all these years?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause people are not remembered by their age.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan nodded.<\/p>\n
Later that evening, we sat outside.<\/p>\n
The tree David planted decades earlier had become enormous.<\/p>\n
Its branches stretched over the yard.<\/p>\n
Ethan looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad planted this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe never saw it like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes that bother you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he planted something knowing he might not see the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tree became the perfect symbol.<\/p>\n
A person can create something they never fully witness.<\/p>\n
A kindness.<\/p>\n
A lesson.<\/p>\n
A change.<\/p>\n
A future.<\/p>\n
David had done that.<\/p>\n
He had not controlled what happened after him.<\/p>\n
He had simply planted something.<\/p>\n
And we had grown.<\/p>\n
The years continued. That was the strange thing about grief. At first, it feels like life stopped. Then one day you realize years have passed. Children become adults. Houses change. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-every-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1859,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions\/1859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}