Those worn out jeans.
Torn from weeds,
and messy from mud.
They sat in the dirt
and rested in the trees.
But when that fateful day came,
the jeans were left to sleep
in my grandparent’s garage.

On the day he passed,
I visited my grandma.
I found the jeans thrown into a pile.
He looked sad and alone.
No legs to hold,
and no trees to climb.
No plants to dig,
and no boxes to carry.

I watched that day
as the Goodwill truck arrived.
Seeing the jeans disappear
was like having the rug
slipped out from beneath your feet.
It took the breath right out of my lungs.
I couldn’t bear to hear
that someone else would own these jeans.
But I had to face the truth.

Three years later,
I’m helping out at a quaint, quiet,
quirky nursing home.
The man I am assigned to
lives in a room at the very end
of the first hallway on the right.
I greet him that afternoon,
and help him down to the dining room
where lunch is about to begin.
I glance at the man,
and smile politely.
He tells me my smile
could light up a lamp.
Hearing that makes my eyes tear up,
and at the sight of his worn out,
torn up jeans,
the tears trickle faster.

I ask the man where he got his jeans.
Looking out the window at the Goodwill truck,
he answers with a sigh,
“I just knew they were from you.”
My smile peeking through my tears
was a rainbow on a stormy day.
“Well I just knew they were for you,”
I answer.
We hug as if grandfather and granddaughter,
and the jeans no longer seem distant
and gone
but near and present.