The Sundial

The little boy loved his grandpa’s garden. It had the most beautiful plants and blossoms all year round, and was chock full of the best hiding places. On a lucky day, the boy could catch several toads and caterpillars, and still have time to fill his pockets to the brim with “special” rocks and acorns before lunch. He loved quizzing his grandpa about all the flowers and trees and pollinators buzzing around - what their names were, and why they grew that way, and how come they bloomed at different times. He hadn’t found one yet his grandpa didn’t know, though sometimes it took him a minute to think about it before he would answer.

But the boy’s favorite part of his grandpa’s garden was off in the corner, past the little pond, behind the shed. It was a beautiful, hefty-looking sundial, a deep greenish-turquoise color like ancient copper. It sat horizontally on a vine-choked concrete pedestal whose base had long since disappeared under years of leaf litter decomposing around it. The sundial was the one thing in the garden the boy had never asked his grandpa about, because it was so tucked away and hidden that it felt like his own private place, sacred with it’s stillness and majesty. The air around the sundial was filled with secrets, and the boy didn’t want to disturb that by filling it with answers. The sundial had numerals and words on it that the little boy couldn’t read, adding to it’s mystery.

He often pretended the sundial was an altar or shrine, and he would take the rocks out of his pockets and spend untold amounts of time arranging them perfectly around the sundial, painstakingly lining up the pebbles (and sometimes leaves and twigs) with the markings on the disk. But before he left, he would always clear the pedestal, allowing the sundial to stand on it’s own, the way it should be. When the sun shone, the boy would often lovingly trace the outlines of the numerals and symbols with his fingers, feeling the warmth of the faded metal on his skin. It was easy to imagine, in those times, that the sundial was a living thing, emitting its own warmth, rather than simply radiating the heat from the sun.

Years later, when his grandpa passed away, the young man returned to his grandpa’s garden and walked through it’s winding pathways to a little corner, past the pond, behind the shed. He feet drew him there without thinking, his muscle memory pushing through the wispy cobwebs of time. To his surprise, the sundial was gone. The concrete pedestal remained, with a large circular imprint in the middle where the sundial had been set. Like a reverse shadow, the concrete under the former sundial was so fresh it looked nearly white, while the border was stained dark and weathered from time, partially covered in patches of lichen.

Upon returning to the house, the young man asked, “Grandma, whatever happened to that old sundial behind the shed?”

His grandma looked weary and heartsick, but a bit of twinkle returned to her eyes when he asked. “Your Grandpa told me you’d want to have it. He said it would never leave the property so long as he was alive, but as soon as that wasn’t the case, it belonged to you. So I had the neighbor over a few days back now to help me retrieve it. It’s waiting for you in the guest bedroom.”

The young man’s eyes began to water and he reached out and held his grandma’s hands gently and felt her soft, leathery skin. “How did he know?”

His grandma chuckled. “He always knew the important stuff, didn’t he?”