I love you. I hate you. I don't feel either way about you. I don't feel anything about you. That's how it went. In that order.

It took years for the moss to grow up and over the gray Buddha. But to me it was very fast, like in a stop-motion, time lapse film. The emerald moss started as a velvet carpet at the old statue’s feet but, as if seasons were seconds, it quickly consumed the stone sage. The Buddha was now gone. Nature had taken its course. Who was I to stop it?

I talk about him freely, as if he was alive. Which, of course, he is. In a way. He is alive in a way that other people, who are still alive, can never be. I see and hear him clearly and that is comforting. In a way.

They’re beautiful and smell good. They even come in different colors. Clearly, though, you can’t pick one and take it home. Well, of course, you can. But that would be a big mistake. Trust me.