I stood beside Grandpa and watched him swirling the point of a long crooked tree limb through the waves of water in the creek. Ever motion made a ripple that melted into the surrounding flow and was washed away downstream.

     "What are you doing Grandpa?" I asked, watching the pattern in the ripples he created.

     "Living, child."

     "That’s not what I meant Grandpa," I said, frustrated at what seemed to be a vague reply, not realizing the truth in the answer he gave. "What are you doing with that stick?"

     "I’m reminding myself of something."

     "Of what?"

     Without hesitation, Grandpa lifted the thin piece of wood he had been stirring about in the water. His gaze remained fixed on the reflection in the stream, but his hand pushed the stick to me. I took hold of it just below his grip and it became my possession as he drew his arm back to his body.

     "What do I do with this?"

     "Write your name in the water there," he pointed his chin out to the creek in front of us.

     I dipped the end of the limb into the current and begin to scribble my name just as I had been taught in grade school. After the last t was crossed I asked him, "now what?"

     "Do it again," Grandpa said still entranced by the stream.

     I drew out my name a second time. This act must be what he had done only moments before, but I still did not understand what it could possibly remind him of besides spelling his name correctly. The tree limb between my fingers continued to draw out the pattern of my name. Grandpa spoke as he watched the water I had scratched upon run past him and over rocks, down the mountain, and out of our sight.

     "What do you see when you’re writing there?"

     "I see my name," I shrug and thought the answer was obvious enough, but then he continued.

     "You see your name, do you? Watch. Do the shapes you form in the water remain after you have drawn them?" We both watched the stick pushing silently through, leaving no trace of the letters I wrote as ink does on paper. Every form I carved was swept away the instant it was created. Only ripples of the water rushing past the branch remained. "What do you see?" he asked me again.

     "I see… I see water," I replied with the other obvious answer. With another stir an answer eased into my mind as smoothly as the water passing by our feet. "The letters are gone but I still see the water and the ripples." I was on the edge of understanding. Grandpa need only give me a small push.

     "When I write my name in the water," he closed his eyes like a storyteller dreaming a tale as he speaks it, "I remind myself that I am the letters that wash away. My actions are the ripples that are left and the water that carries the ripples from here is a world full of people."

     My hand had stopped the limb in the water. I looked further downstream as Grandpa continued, "I remind myself that when I am gone from this world, what I have done will still be a part of other people. Although I am no longer here, my actions will still be with them. I remind myself to live well in the meantime."

     I quietly lifted the branch and passed it back to Grandpa. As he continued spelling out his name in the stream, I watched each letter disappear and wondered what would remain of the ripples I had left.