The Things We Keep Building

I sit on the screened porch, the morning humidity already thick at 7 AM. On the table beside me sits my daily regimen—four vitamins that Arthur always called my "anti-zombie protocol." Before these pills and my coffee, I do indeed shuffle through the kitchen like the walking dead, Arthur's voice still echoing: "Take your vitamins, George, or you'll be eating brains by noon."

Arthur's been gone seven years, but the ritual remains.

Barnaby, our golden retriever pup (now twelve and graying around the muzzle), rests his head on my foot. Dogs, I've decided, are the only creatures who understand the passage of time without needing words. He was here when Arthur planted those palm trees along the driveway—spindly things then, now towering sentinels that rustle in the Gulf breeze.

"Grandpa!" Maya's voice cuts through my reverie. She's ten, all elbows and knees, standing at the pool's edge in her neon swimsuit. "Watch me!"

I watch. Of course I watch. I watched her father swimming his first laps in this pool thirty-five years ago. I watched him almost drown, actually, before Arthur jumped in fully clothed—expensive suit and all—to scoop him up. "Family first," Arthur had said, dripping and laughing, "dry cleaning second."

Some days, swimming through memory feels more real than the present. The vitamin bottle rattles as I pocket it—a small anchor against disappearing completely into the past. These pills, this porch, this palm-lined view: they're the infrastructure I built to hold myself together after Arthur left. A legacy, I suppose, though not the kind I expected.

Maya executes a clumsy cannonball. Water sprays the palms. Barnaby lifts his head, thumps his tail once.

"Perfect form," I call out, and she beams.

What I don't say: perfection isn't the point. Neither is staying young, or avoiding the zombie fog that sometimes descends before dawn. The point is showing up. Day after day, vitamin by vitamin, palm by palm, dog by dog, swim by swim. This is what we leave behind—not monuments, but the accumulated proof that we kept building even when it felt like shuffling.

Arthur knew that. He planted trees he'd never sit beneath. He loved dogs who would outlive him. He taught me that the most radical act of faith is simply taking your vitamins and waking up anyway.

Barnaby sighs, content. Maya kicks toward the pool's edge, trailing sparkles in the morning light. And for this moment, the zombie in me retreats, and I am entirely, vividly here.