From the cemetery atop Church Hill, everything for miles around could be seen. In the summer sky above the hill, every day swallows came chattering, swooping for insects. Even on the hottest days cool breezes moved among the tombstones. From the cemetery atop Church Hill, everything for miles around could be seen. In the summer sky above the hill, every day swallows came chattering, swooping for insects. Even on the hottest days cool breezes moved among the tombstones.
That day, even before reaching the hill's top, from deep inside the woods, we smelled something special. It was the odor of freshly broken earth mingling with smells of crushed grass and wilting roses.
"Funeral... " I whispered to Red Dog.
Reaching the woods' edge we saw that the funeral was over and the hearse was pulling away. Red dirt already had been piled atop the casket and now wilting flowers made into wreaths and bouquets lay strewed atop a grave. Maybe Red Dog, who knew nothing of funerals and graves, imagined that the people in the hearse had just planted a flower garden among the tombstones.
As I stood wondering what Red Dog was thinking, honeybees came visiting the fading roses.
"These honeybees know that they have found something special," I mused as Red Dog listened, "but they will never understand why all these flowers are here today."
"Red Dog," I continued after thinking for a while, "in so many ways you and I are like honeybees who every day find heaps of beautiful flowers. Yet, neither do we understand the reason why..."