the postman

The hearse moved slowly down the narrow street where small brick houses lined each side, large shade trees hovering over their roofs.  My grandparents had lived in a house looking very much like these and not so many streets away.  

A stately magnolia consumed their front yard and in the back, a rose garden neatly sectioned, bloomed in full sun, for my grandfather, the man in the coffin, tested hybrids for a rose company.

Placed near the front walkway was a statue, a red-vested, lawn jockey.  Though still common in the south at the time, even as a child I found the fixture offensive and escaped it by entering the house through the back porch which smelled a bit musty but also of fresh peaches. 

This house is where my grandfather remained until age required he move, by then widowed and well into his nineties.

I enjoyed that plush ride to the cemetery.  In the deadly quiet, I had time to observe unfamiliar streets in the city of my childhood.

I spotted a postman.  At home, it seems we've a different mail carrier each day and those afternoons we'd offer shelter from a sudden summer downpour or leave a note to ring the doorbell for hot coffee on frigid mornings, are a thing of the past.  Is it here also, I wondered. 

He saw us too and I watched, a few seconds in slow motion as he turned, positioning himself on the slightly rounded hill of green grass to face the funeral procession.  He then removed his hat. 

I then cried.

That was a July day but I think of the postman each Labor Day, the federal holiday which sometimes falls on but always near, my grandfather's birthday. 

If the postman is still working, I sincerely wish him a very happy day off.