thrill me.

In wake of my death there will be no statue, no book to recall the life I lead or collection of sonnets to share my beliefs. There will be no crowds of candles or expensive bouquets in effort to weakly demonstrate affection for me or the radiance of my presence. Days will pass, close relatives and friends will move on. No one will sit idly by in green fields of sunflowers and think of my brown hair in the wind, nor my tongue upon the tip of my own nose in an effort to catch a snow flake. Life will continue with no more than the faintest of ripples for a minimal crowd, and I will face my fate and deeds with a full heart and the simplest of legacies.

But I know there's a boy who's in love with a sand box that has my name carved in to the side. I know that when he sits upon his swing set and stares at his mother watering daisies, the only time he can get her outside, he thinks of me and his yellow room and being an air plane for the first and likely only time ever. He will remember learning to use a paint brush, and having kisses to his cheek when his knee was skinned. He will remember someone who reminded him to wash his hands before eating and was so excited to see him that she twirled him in the air. He will know, for once in his life, that he was the most exciting thing about someone else's whole summer - that he is an important memory to a girl who will forever feel blessed to have met him despite his bitter shyness. He'll grow up, and either become or reject the life he was brought in to. He will leave his own, likely minuscule, legacy to leave behind one day - more than a decade after myself. I hope he knows how it feels to change someone's summer, to let someone be an air plane. I hope he knows we talk of him often. When we visit this summer to check up on him, he won't remember us exactly. He won't run to us, hugging us and screaming for joy the way we know he will secretly want to. He will smile shyly, wave politely, and go to his sand box. He will remember when the sand was fresh and we took our shoes off despite hating how it felt between our toes just so his sand could stay clean, and he will remember the wind upon his face the only time he could fly. That's enough. The day that I die, that will still be enough.