Today has been a big day around here. A place where it’s normally really quiet and not much goes on.
I saw my two grand kids for the first time in a long, long time. They acted like they’d just been here yesterday. They toted and carried the dogs around, and now the dogs are plumb wore out. They didn’t like it one bit, but seemed befuddled about it all.
These two photos were taken before they arrived. Just around the time Miss Abi decided to go on an adventure. Yes, she managed to get past me at the front door and off she went like a rocket.
My word, that dog can run fast. I got in the car and started looking for her. Charlie was very upset and worriedly watching from the storm door. Chris next door got in his pickup to help.
Various neighbors I didn’t know saw her hurtling down the street like a locomotive and were looking for her. Finally I got her. Then I was worn out from nerves.
Got a bit of bad news. Chris, the Navy medic, is having to postpone medical school. He has been deployed and will leave the country in September. I will be so sad to see him go. He’s such a good neighbor. Said he found out right after he moved in.
Oh, I had such high hopes for him living in that house that had been treated so badly. I could tell he was someone who would take care of it.
My daughter and I walked down to the demolished house a bit later. So sad to see a house that’s stood for so many years reduced to a mass of debris in about 30 minutes time. Kind of amazing, isn’t it?
The neighbor next door to it came out and said the elderly woman who had lived there has been in a nursing home about four years. And she had about 20 cats. She said the city or someone closed it up. She didn’t know if all the cats got out or not. Oh, I hate to hear stories like that.
She said someone had bought the lot and had the house torn down. I just hope whoever bought it will build a house in keeping with this very old neighborhood. My house was built in 1934.
There’s still a wooden shed and part of the foundation to go. The bulldozer sits ready to start in the morning. It’s quiet there now. Just a lot full of broken concrete and shattered boards and bricks, and a bright yellow door peeking from underneath some of it.
I wondered if the woman liked yellow, a cheerful color, and maybe painted her door that color to express welcome to whoever came to see her. Before she became frail and sick and could no longer care for herself or her house.
So that’s been my Mother’s Day. A good one, except for hearing about Chris and chasing Abi all over and scaring me half to death.
I can’t stop thinking about the woman that once lived in the demolished house. Probably lived there much of her life. What memories she must have had there. Walls that held a family inside. Doors slamming with children running in and out. A typical family.
Then as she got older, she took in all those cats. Perhaps she was just lonely and didn’t want the strays to go hungry. I wonder why it is we hear so many stories of old women and lots of cats living together?
I look at the life teeming in my backyard. All the plants that have come back from last year, despite the long, long winter of cold. Colors and textures and blooms, all so happy.
Then I think about that house, empty for years. Shut up tight and the grass grown high, with no one to love it.
And that just makes me feel sad.
