He'd hate the wind chimes, but he'd be excited about the rain.  There would be plastic along the back kitchen wall where water ran under the house if left to its own devices.
Old gutter spider webbed through the yard to direct water so that it didn't erode the bank.
Living on a hill has it's burdens.  There's a price to be paid for a view.

I was there putting down fertilizer this week and the wheel ended up in my hand.

He'd taken me down to the yard about a month prior to his death.  He wanted me to know about all of the faucets and how to keep the grove going.   Never mind that I had been given watering instructions on a dozen other occasions at least.

He wanted to show me how to put the shed door back on the track.  The door had separated from the quarter sized wheel that slid along in the track.  If one was gentle enough with the door, it could be pushed back together so that it held rather than falling to the ground.

I found out a couple of months ago that the shed was going to be demolished and replaced.  So much had changed since dad split his body a year ago, but I was shaken.  He'd given me a task.  Keep the door on the track.  I wanted to visit the shed prior to it's demise, but it didn't look as though that would be possible.

Logic would seem to hold that it's just a thing, and that Pop isn't there, but I had helped construct the shed and it was different than the other parts of his life that had been and were still being dismantled all around.

Then fate changed things and I got to have a last moment with the shed.  I apologized to the spirit of the squirrel that I'd dispatched for mom.  I touched the paint cans that had Pop's writing on it.  "hall bathroom" "back bedroom trim".  I nuzzled the tools seeking his smell.

When I attempted to take what I came for I ran into a wall.   The wheel was hopelessly trapped in the track.  A faucet adapter beckoned and I grabbed that, gave up, and walked away.  The tears stopped a bit later as I sat with my dog at the top of the property.

So now, a year and a half later, we prepare for rain by throwing fertilizer after weeding and raking out the wells beneath trees that are in their 7th decade of life.

The metal shed had been replaced with a fancy, lit, concrete floored shed.  Dad would have liked it well enough, but he would have ventilated it better and put in more shelves for stuff.  He likely would have it filled, too...

My mind still racing with the rough news of the past few weeks.  A blow in life that happens, and you just go through it and move along.  I had hoped it would be a staccato moment, but what I hope for and what I get so rarely coincide.  Waves had battered me over the span of three weeks.  My heart felt broken as I moved along without a thought about anything that was present.

And then there it was next to my hand as I pulled a weed from under his juice orange tree. I grabbed it and pushed off  of my heels to sit on a stone while jolts of emotion poured through me. That quarter sized plastic wheel that wouldn't let go of the shed.  Right there.  All of that dirt.  All of those trees.

I'm an atheist.  These moments don't make me believe in a god, they make me believe in a consciousness that doesn't stop when the body leaves.

Dad's OK with that.