One summer when I was growing up, we had a severe thunderstorm every Thursday for six or so weeks.  We were in some kind of cycle and we appear to be doing that again this fall. I say fall because it won’t be officially winter yet for another few days. 

The cycle we are in now is freezing rain, then snow.  I don’t mind the snow.  I hate the freezing rain.  Beautiful though it may be when the sun comes back out and shines on the encased branches and icicles hanging off gutters, it causes too much damage. 

I live on one of the busiest streets in my city, but even with all the traffic, I am one house away from a sprawling cemetery and kitty-cornered from a public golf course.  Two things that always bring silence to mind to me. 

Both places are heavily wooded and there are prey birds such as owls and hawks along with foxes, raccoons and even a few deer that have managed to make it through the traffic.  It is an odd combination of rural and urban at the cross roads in front of my house. 

I don’t mind the snow because it adds to the silence, dampening the sound of traffic and at night when I am driving home, the trees seem to crowd in and shield my car as though I were driving through a tunnel rather than a city street.

To my left out the car window is the plot of land of the cemetery getting the most action these days.  I will see the backhoe in place having dug a fresh grave, the mounded dirt covered with Astroturf.  During in climate weather such as we are having these days, they will put up an awning.  It is not a tent.  It has no sides.

It, like the Astroturf, seem to be an inside joke for the cemetery folk.  Fake grass, garishly green in the dead of winter, and a structure erected to give shelter that does not spare the mourners from the harsh winter winds. 

I used to wonder about the deceased.  If there was a large group of people I would wonder what made him so popular.  Did he have money?  Was a he just a genuinely nice person?  Did he have a huge family?  Were most of them showing up just to be sure he was truly dead?

When the crowd was sparse, I would wonder if he had outlived everyone he knew.  Was he a mean old bastard that no one wanted anything to do with?  Was he a kindly soul who just kept to himself and whose passing made only the tiniest of ripples?

I haven’t wonder about anyone in a long time until a week ago.  I am not sure how long it had been there, I only noticed it on the night of the first ice storm.  It shined out like a cheerily little beacon and I was not sure I had really seen it.  By it I mean a tiny little Christmas tree set up on an unmarked grave. 

I have looked for it every night since then, and sure enough, there it sits.  Red, green, and blue lights glowing in the darkness.  Now I wonder whose grave it marks.  It seems like a child-like thing to do.  A gesture so pure and innocent. 

It makes me wonder.  I wonder if a child resides in that grave, the tree marking the first Christmas he will not be anxiously awaiting Santa. Or may be a child wanted it put there to mark someone else who would not be there for this holiday season.