Before the Brushstroke: Nearing the End

A Simple Short Story I Wrote Before Painting; Nearing the End

My grandfather once told me that the dead do not leave the world all at once.

They leave their bodies first.

Their voice becomes quiet. Their hands become still. Their footsteps disappear from the places where we once heard them. But something remains. Something that cannot be buried with the body.

I did not understand him when I was young.

I understand him now.

I ride alone through the morning, but I know I am not alone.

The horse beneath me carries its own silence. Its breath rises into the cold air and disappears. The grass bends beneath the wind, then rises again. Behind me, the others move slowly across the land, their figures appearing and disappearing through the morning light.

I think of my people.

I think of those who walked this earth before me.

Some have names that are still spoken. Others have names that have been swallowed by time. Some left behind photographs, stories, songs, and objects. Others left nothing that can be held in the hands.

But I do not believe that means they left nothing behind.

The earth remembers differently than we do.

We remember with our minds.

The earth remembers with everything.

The river remembers every person who crossed it. The mountains remember every foot that touched their paths. The trees carry rings inside themselves, layers of seasons that no living person can see from the outside.

Maybe we are like that too.

Maybe every life leaves a ring inside another life.

I have been learning about the histories and traditions of Indigenous peoples across this continent, and I have realized how dangerous it can be to speak of us as though we are one people with one story. We are many nations, many languages, many ways of understanding the world.

But in my own life, I have come to feel one truth very deeply:

We belong to something larger than ourselves.

The old ones knew this in ways I am still trying to understand.

Then death came close to my family.

And suddenly the things I had been reading were no longer ideas.

They were real.

They were the empty place where someone had once sat.

They were the silence after a familiar voice stopped answering.

They were the memories that came without warning.

Grief taught me what knowledge alone could not.

I had thought remembering someone meant looking backward.

Now I know it can also mean carrying them forward.

I carry the dead with me.

Not as ghosts.

Not as shadows.

But as pieces of who I have become.

The way I speak.

The things I fear.

The things I love.

The lessons I was given.

The mistakes I inherited.

The strength I did not know was mine until I needed it.

My ancestors are not behind me.

They are within the path I walk.

I look toward the horizon.

The sun is beginning to break through the pale sky, turning everything gold. For a moment, the world seems caught between darkness and light.

And I think about death.

One day, I will be the one who is remembered.

One day, someone may sit where I once sat.

Someone may hear my name and wonder what kind of person I was.

Perhaps they will remember my face.

Perhaps they will remember my mistakes.

Perhaps they will remember nothing at all.

And I have learned to accept that.

Because a life does not become meaningless simply because it ends.

A river does not cease to be a river when it disappears into the ocean.

A fire does not cease to have existed when the flame goes out.

And perhaps a person does not cease to matter when their heart stops beating.

We return to the earth in one form or another.

Our bodies return.

Our stories remain.

Our love moves through the people we touched.

And the people we touched carry it into lives we will never know.

That is the mystery of being alive.

We are temporary, but what we give to one another can travel far beyond the length of our lives.

I place my hand against the horse's neck.

For a moment, I close my eyes.

I think of those I have lost.

I do not ask them to come back.

I no longer believe that is what remembrance is for.

Instead, I thank them.

For the years they were here.

For what they taught me.

For what they left unfinished.

For the part of their lives that became part of mine.

Then I open my eyes.

The road ahead is bright.

I understand now what my grandfather meant.

The dead do not leave the world all at once.

They remain in the living.

They remain in the land.

They remain in the stories we choose to tell.

And perhaps, when our own journey comes to an end, we will not disappear either.

Perhaps we will simply become part of something larger.

Another memory.

Another story.

Another set of footsteps beneath the sky.

So I ride forward.

I do not ride away from the dead.

I ride with them.

Because I have finally learned that death is not the opposite of belonging.

It is only another way of becoming part of what comes after us.

And as long as someone remembers,

we are still passing through this world together.