The grand oak tree stood behind me. I sat at the base of the thick trunk with the bark pressed gently into my back. This tree was a marker of my mother. She died when I was young. Everyday back then she’d always read stories of Sherlock and Watson to me. Now, I read to myself; and everyday, rain or shine, I read by the tree. It meant the world to me. And I would never leave this town. Never leave her.

I had just finished reading a chapter of Sherlock Holmes and stood up and was about to go back home. I closed the book and looked up through the tree branches. A squirrel jumped from branch to branch. I smiled, yet a tear ran down my face. I fell back onto my knees in front of my mothers lifelong memorial. I longed to see her again. Its been twelve years now. I still remember her last words to me. “It’s okay, Pumpkin. Mommy has to go. I love you.” Then she was put into the back of an ambulance and driven away. I only saw her once after that, in the hospital. I held her hand as she breathed her last breath. Doctors swarmed into her room and told me and my father to wait outside in the waiting room. She was hit by a drunk driver just a few blocks away from home. When I heard the news, I didn’t fully understand. But, as I grew up, I learned. A few days after she died we planted a tree in a clearing in the woods behind our house. My father and I would always check on it together everyday until it got big enough to survive on its own.

Now, here I sit. Alone. Crying into my gloved hands. I pushed myself back against the tree and felt the bark biting into my back. I leaned my head against the tree and looked up at the gray sky. It began to snow again. Only around the tree. The first snowflake that caught my eye, I followed it down as it fell onto the very tip of my nose and stayed before blowing away out of sight. I smiled again. This time, I kept smiling.

I pulled my jacket tighter around me, opened up my Sherlock Holmes, and continued reading. I smiled the whole time.