They sat hand in hand in front of the local ice cream parlor, the girls long red hair contrasting with her grandpas sparse gray hairs. Hair that thinning along with his increasingly frail body. Though only a nine year old, the thought quickly was replaced by her the crisis that was her melting cone. The vanilla soft serve had slid off her cone and on to the ground.

“Lily we’ll just have to wait until next spring to get another cone.” her grandpa sighed.

The parlor closed for the winter and her grandpa visited less and less.

Thanksgiving came and her mother told her Grandpa Ted wouldn't be able to make it. Christmas came and her dad told her Grandpa Ted was taking a trip to see his sister. Weekends passed, Sundays were lost, and Lily wondered if her grandpa had found a new granddaughter to love.  She was showered with attention from her parents, but nothing made up for the lack of her best friend in her life.

It wasn't until early spring that she heard the faint rumble of her grandfathers truck again. She ran outside only to be met with a bald head and a body that looked to be only bones. A man stood in the sun that she didn't recognize.

Little did she know she had taken the last trip to the ice cream parlor, that the last holiday with him had already taken place, and that the light would swallow him up along with all things.