Ten years.

April 19, 2025 marked a decade since Jamey died and somehow that number still doesn’t make sense. Not when I say it out loud. Not even when I write it.

This year, Caeley and I went to visit his grave, as we often do. For reference to HOTties who’ve been following since the beginning, she’s 21 now…entering into her final year of nursing school at the University of Rhode Island. Crazy!

As many of you know, Jamey is buried at Steelmantown Cemetery, a natural burial ground tucked into a quiet stretch of South Jersey forest. Some people buried there have traditional headstones; most don’t. For the most part the “newer” cemetery is just natural stones, trees, and whatever the landscape allows.

When Jamey was buried, his spot sat beneath a glorious old tree—tall and wide, with bark that seemed older than even memory itself. To be honest, due to the natural and ever-shifting landscape of his final resting place, this glorious old tree was always how we found his inconspicuous gravesite; how we oriented ourselves in the overgrown and ever-evolving landscape. That tree was his marker, even more than the small, smooth rock that officially marked his plot.

But this time, on the 10 year anniversary of his passing, the tree was gone. Entirely.

It wasn’t just heavily pruned—this stalwart of a massive landscape presence was gone entirely. All that remained were segments of its trunk, cut and stacked in a rough half-ring around the edge of his grave, almost like a handmade fence. It was as if someone had taken that tree that used to shelter Jamey from above and said, “Here—let it stand guard on the perimeter instead.”

No one told us his gravesite had been disturbed. We just arrived and saw that something that had seemed permanent: the solid, stable and predictable landmark of a tree–simply wasn’t anymore. Just like ten years ago. Our solid, stable and predictable landmark of a husband and father left us.

And… then we found the paper.

Tucked beneath Jamey’s chosen, bespoke and natural gravestone was a small, handmade scrap. Faded blue. The edges soft and curled like it had been weathering time.
On it: a drawing. A bird—quiet, dark, still—perched on the letter E.

I don’t believe in signs. I really don’t. But this one made it hard to keep saying that.

The bird looked like a cardinal. That black mask, the arched head. Not cartoon-bright, but familiar. Caeley and I have joked for years that cardinals follow her, and–if I’m being honest, us. In fact, there were two cardinals taking up residence at my father’s house last Christmas when we were all visiting—darting through, but never leaving the trees for hours. My mother, Elke, loved birds. Was the “E” in the faded blue scrap we found on Jamey’s impromptu headstone for Elke?
And Jamey’s high school mascot? A cardinal. This all seemed like too much of a bizarre, coincidental and cosmic coincidence.
So there we were:
Ten years to the day.
No tree. No marker, but a stone.
And this paper—fragile, personal, unexplainable—under the stone.

I don’t know who left it. Or why. And, to be honest, if there’s someone on here who knows how or why it was left behind, I am totally fine with never finding out. There is a delight and comfort in the mystery surrounding its presence that my jaded soul needs.

But I know what it felt like…like grief rearranged itself into a message; like something beyond logic reached through the brush and said:
Look…I’m(we’re) still here….and we always will be.

I don’t believe in signs.
But this one…
This one found us anyway.