I look out the window at a maple tree. Some of its red leaves are falling gently to earth; others are landing on the greenhouse roof. The maple shares the backyard with a number of overgrown bushes, fruit of my father’s retirement.

Dad relished his final years. He built a small gazebo in the backyard, a lean-to shed with lattice-work on the sides. He crowned it with a homemade Cassidy coat of arms that I rescued later and is now safely stored with other family treasures under my bed.

He surrounded the gazebo with shrubs I don’t recognize. Are they spirea? viburnum? laurel?

Years later, it’s obvious that Dad didn’t understand (or care to learn?) how tall and wide these shrubs would grow. They’ve now subsumed a quarter of the ample yard — a rookie gardening error he didn’t have time to correct.

Places shape people, and people shape places. Years after his passing, I see Dad in these overgrown bushes: his enthusiasm, his lack of planning, his bounteous love for us all.