Seasons of the Heart

Arthur Mitchell rose at dawn, his knees popping like the rusty hinges of the garden gate he'd meant to oil since last spring. At eighty-two, mornings began with a ritual: a small white **vitamin** tablet washed down with coffee, the bitter taste a familiar companion to his arthritis.

Barnaby, his orange tabby, wound around Arthur's ankles with demanding purrs, reminding him that breakfast for cats took precedence over human contemplation. As Arthur filled the bowl, he caught sight of the faded **baseball** trophy on his mantelpiece—1953, Little League Champions. His grandson had asked about it once, confused why Arthur never watched sports on television.

"Some things," Arthur had told him, "are best kept as memories."

But it was more than that. The trophy reminded him of long afternoons with his brother Tommy, both boys dirt-streaked and grinning, their mother calling them home as streetlights flickered on. Tommy, gone now fifteen years, had been the one who could make Arthur laugh until his ribs ached.

Today, Arthur would visit the old ballpark, now a community garden where neighborhood children planted tomatoes and sunflowers. He'd told his daughter he felt like a **zombie** some days—going through motions while memories surfaced unbidden, her brother's laugh in a stranger's voice, Tommy's smile in a grandson's face.

She'd squeezed his hand. "That's not being a zombie, Dad. That's being a father. That's being human."

Perhaps she was right. The world moved faster now, screens glowing where faces once looked back, but love remained constant. As Arthur watched Barnaby chase a sunbeam across the floor, he understood what decades had taught him: the past isn't gone. It lives in the small moments, in vitamins and cats and baseball trophies, in the way memory transforms grief into something softer.

Arthur finished his coffee and stood up slowly, joints complaining, heart full. The garden would be beautiful this time of year, and someone needed to remember the things that still mattered.