This, That, and the Other

“To say that my father was quirky is an understatement,” Joan said.

“How so?” Neil, Joan’s boyfriend, asked.

“Well,” Joan said, “his profession was accountant, and he was a very reserved, buttoned up man. But come the weekend, he fancied himself to be a woodsman.”

“A woodsman?”

“Yes,” Joan said. “Our home was on about five acres and the land behind the house was very wooded. He would spend most of his Saturdays and Sundays tending to the trees and bushes and plants. From sunrise to sunset, actually.”

“Well, he certainly looked more like an accountant than a woodsman to me,” Neil said, chuckling.

“Before he died two years ago, though, he left precise instructions in his will to be cremated,” Joan said. “But then it got weird. He wanted to have his ashes put inside his favorite yardwork boots, top off his ashes with top soil, plant ferns in each boot, and affix his boots to a tree stump. He insisted that there be no gravestone or other marker at the site. Just his boots as planters on a tree stump.”

“So it seems that in death he has chosen to be remembered as a weekend woodsman and not as the buttoned up accountant he was during the workweek,” Neil said. “Good for your dad.”

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Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Yana Tes @ Unsplash. Also for Fandango’s One Word Prompt (reserved).