This is another grief story. Today I head to Marathon, Texas for a small music festival, the aptly named Marathon Songwriter’s Festival.

Sunday. Yesterday. August 4 was the fourth anniversary of my wife’s death. It passed without much notice. Only a close friend and a cousin offered condolences. And I think that’s as it should be.

High up in the middle of the big chinquapin oak is a dove’s nest. I discovered it one day quite by accident. I was standing by the tree with my hand on the trunk, thinking how thick it felt and remembering back to the days when we planted it.

It is odd in the first days of August to look out the kitchen window and see a lawn of intense green. A lawn that would make a suburban dad proud. A lawn that would make an HOA smile. A lawn that speaks of a surfeit of water. A lawn that speaks of rain.

Got up this morning, made the bed, and thought, this is an odd thing, making my bed when no one is looking.