I like soda pop. People used to tease me for calling it that and thought I was stuck in some old century or something. I call soda “soda pop” cause that’s what Grandy always called it. The best time to have soda pop is in summer. Right smack in the middle of a warm summer day. Where it's humid enough so that your hair kind of stands up and dances in the soft wind, but not so humid that it looks like you've just been electrocuted. The kind of summer day where there is enough breeze to rock in that old rocking chair on the porch of Grandy's house. The kind of day where you can listen to the faint chirps of birds in the daytime and in the evening, to the sound the crickets make in the grass that needs trimming. Where everyone is just lazy and content to be lazy. Sometimes the old dog is so lazy he collapses right in his water bowl. Grandy sure did get a kick out of that.

You know when it's not the best time for soda pop?

Funerals. Well, at least that shouldn't be on the mind of anyone at a regular funeral, but at Grandy’s that’s all I could think about. Cherry flavored. That's me and Grandy's favorite kind. I'm not going to say it was Grandy's favorite. Because it is. It just is. Right after Grandy's funeral, where we all went and placed freshly cut flowers from Grandy's garden on top of his wooden coffin, I bolted to the old 99 cent store on the edge of the town. Using the last of my allowance, I bought two cans of cherry soda pop. Then, I walked back to Grandy's house while sipping my pop, in the middle of that hot summer day. By the time I got to his house, I was finished with mine. Rambling up the rickety porch steps, I popped open the other tab and heard the crisp click, and then the buzz of carbonation. I poured pop all over Grandy's rocking chair so we could have one last pop there together. It was hotter than usual. The pop can emptied faster than I thought it would. I thought I would stand there, emptying the can for ages and ages. Pouring soda while all my memories of Grandy poured from my mind and then, everything would be done. But the can emptied in maybe two minutes and that didn’t seem fitting.

When the can was completely empty, every last drop, so that you would look in the can and see only black, I crumpled it all up and hurled it in the river across from Grandy’s house.
I started to walk home, but then I felt bad, because what if some poor helpless animal ate the metal and died? So I spent the rest of the night trying to catch the can, but it was all swept up in the river and I would lose it over and over.

My parents found me by a bush with scrapes and bruises and a waterfall of tears pouring out of my eyes, because everything was wrong. I needed to get back that last soda pop can.

When that summer started, I only had Grandy. Grandy was old, but boy, he loved to dream.
On those early summer afternoons, we would sit on the porch, him in the rocking chair, me on the steps. And he would tell me stories and we would make believe we were the characters in the story. Sometimes our soda pop cans held poison and if you drank, you died. Other times the pop would be the only cure in all the land to heal the fairy princess. Sometimes our pop was just pop.

When Grandy ran out of stories, every now and again, we would garden. Grandy's garden was beautiful. Full of sunny marigolds and red roses. We would just sit and plant more and more. For most of the summer, Grandy was my best friend. When we gardened, I remember he would tell me: “You are like these flowers. So beautiful. Never let anyone too close. Your thorns are your only protection.” I would laugh, and say “Grandy, look how close we are!” And then he would shake his head and smile.

July 21, I hadn’t gone to his house because I slept in and was tired and didn't feel like walking to his house.

“Emily, come here.”

I remember leaving my room. At the time I wasn't nervous, but looking back I think I knew the whole time.
Grandy was dead.

After the funeral, four summers ago, sitting by that bush, rocking back and forth like I was back on his porch in the white rocking chair, listening to the rumble of the river and snapping of sticks in the tiny forest,

I felt my thorns get sharper.