Family Photo Mystery-Three Rakes-Part 2

I posted the rake story earlier, but here's a Cliff Notes version:

My paternal grandfathered died of a stroke at age 72. I was in fourth or fifth grade at the time.

I came home from goofing around outside to find my dad sitting in a chair in the den, with his head hung low. He'd just gotten the phone call about his dad.

So for some reason, he decided we needed to go rake the front yard. There weren't any leaves or anything, but we raked anyway, piling up just enough dead grass and pine needles to fill one bag.

We didn't say much during the raking. I offered to go with him to New York to help with funeral arrangements, and he told me I needed to stay behind and take care of the family.

I'll never forget that day.

In January, on the day we buried my dad in Houston, I grabbed two old beat-up rakes out of the garage and brought them back to Beaumont. That afternoon, I grabbed my own rake and handed the old rakes to my boys.

Despite the fact that the big Moon Bounce had arrived for my son's birthday party the next day, the boys ignored it and instead joined me in raking up massive leaf piles in our back yard.

We had a blast.

Yesterday, I got a picture in the mail. My mom sent it to me. I'd never seen it before. My sister, while going through a draw in my dad's closet last weekend, found that photo.

My grandfather was born in 1900, I believe. The photo is dated July 1972.

I've got my mom doing some digging to find out when my grandfather died.

If that photo is of THE day that my grandfather died, I'm going to lose it, because that meant that this whole raking thing held as much meaning for Dad as it did for me - and he never said a word about it or showed me that picture.

Even if it wasn't taken on that day, there had to be some reason why, in all the photos taken of the family over the years, this one held a special enough meaning for it to get tucked away in a closet drawer, hidden for almost 35 years.