"When tire treads fade, and the distant lights are memories swept away, this land can take to such an awful silence..." like always after saying such things, Grandpa began rambling in his usual way, his voice less than audible over the freshly fallen rain. Momma called it senile grumble. “I reckon that man has too much on his mind, and too little to say”, I heard her tell daddy one night through the screen door. Nothing about him was the same since grandma’s passing. It was almost as if a part of him had been buried with her. Moving room to room almost silent, his presence acknowledged only by the whines of the floorboards beneath his feet. His grief laden face had long forgotten how to smile, his hands how to feel, and his heart to love. I no longer knew this man.
We spent long summer evenings on the porch as strangers, looking out over the land never saying a word. All the while his tired eyes distant as the old dirt road leading away from the house, slowly vanishing into mere nothingness under the darkening sky.He loved his wife, and she'd taken his heart to the grave, and as many times as momma kissed him through pursed lips, and I waved goodbye, we'd always leave grandpa the same way each time, sitting on the porch, looking off to the horizon...

long after the sun had set.