You have to go out of your way to see the Arabian oryxes at the Phoenix Zoo.

The paved loop that circles the zoo splits slightly after you leave the giraffes behind. If you go straight, you go by the lions and tigers, the zebras and cheetahs. This is what most people come to the zoo for, and this is the path that most people take.

If you walk off to the left, on the dusty trail that has only three animal enclosures on it, you can find the oryxes. They’re a type of desert antelope, off-white with humped backs and long, straight horns.

The oryx was my grandfather’s favorite animal at the zoo. I don’t know why; I never thought to ask. I only know that it was. It was a given: favorite color, fire engine red; favorite ice cream flavor, black raspberry; favorite animal, oryx.

In my bag, in its own pocket alongside the camera gear and the water bottle and the journal, was a small glass jar, and in that jar were the ashes of my grandfather, who died two years ago this February.

We went to the zoo and to the oryxes when I was eight, and again when I was 10, and 12, 13, and 22. Once or maybe twice, my aunt and my toddler cousin came too. Mostly it was just me and my Papa.

When I was 23, the raw bewilderment and twisting pain of loss confronted me for the first time. I told myself that I was lucky to have lived so long without experiencing it, and I believed this. I told myself that I was lucky to have a grandfather like him, and I knew that this was true, too. He was 71.

For months, when I talked about it, I told people that he passed away, even though that was a lie. Passing away implies a slowness, something gradual. There is no due process when the heart fails; you are there, and then you are not. But when I tried to say “Papa died,” I could never get the words out. I choked on them every time.

The oryxes looked the same. There were five in the enclosure, lying under the shade of sparse trees and nibbling at piles of green hay. I sat cross-legged on a concrete bench and watched as people, sometimes in groups and sometimes in pairs, but never alone, came down the path. They paused at the enclosure, took a photograph next to a life-size oryx statue. I waited for them to leave.

One person wore a Bruins shirt that said Lucic on the back. Papa was born in Boston, saw Bobby Orr play in his prime, knew more about sports than anybody I’d ever met except perhaps his son in law, my dad. He would have liked to see a fellow Bruins fan in Arizona.

We use that phrase a lot, my family and I. He would have done this, would have said that. It’s certainly not blind speculation, but it frustrates me; it’s a reminder that we can’t know anymore.

A low barrier and a rock-and-cactus-filled gully separated the path from the enclosure fence. When, after what seemed an eternity but was no more than 20 minutes, the trail emptied, I slipped down into the gully, opening the jar and carefully shaking its contents onto the sand within the fence. The ashes stood in stark contrast against the paler ground, and I wondered briefly how many other people had ever noticed the same thing. The oryxes didn’t; they hardly glanced my way.

When I stood up and returned to the path, I realized that my jar wasn’t even close to a quarter empty. Well, that wouldn’t work.

After he died, I told myself that I would go back some day. It just made sense, even though I wasn’t sure what to expect. The rather obvious fact that the ashes were, in fact, my grandfather and not just some gray particles, occurred to me only after I walked through the zoo gates, bringing that choking feeling to the surface again and making me extraordinarily grateful for dark sunglasses.

This is Papa. You have to do this right.

So I waited again, hopped the barrier again, and shook more ashes into the pen. This time, a breeze picked them up and they disappeared.