End of a Lovely Day

It was a lovely day. The sky was blue with great white clouds. The temperatures were right around 70 with a gentle breeze. Mike came and cut the yard and David worked outside the fence clearing the area next to the tracks. It is so bad there but he cleared enough for me to cut and I don't care about there debris. Becca helped too until she sprained her ankle. She stepped in a hole that was dug by a dog they had when they lived with us. I keep forgetting to buy some dirt and fill it. There are several of these holes and now that there is grass we have trouble avoiding them.

Sarah ran and played all over the yard and we hid behind the trunk of her daddy's tulip tree. She likes our yard. I understand it. I love it, too. Our patch of ground with twenty years of roots, now Sarah's roots, too. I wonder about leaving here. I can't. My heart is in every blade of grass and every board foot of building. It is in the tulip tree standing tall and scrubbing the clouds in my patch of sky. It is in the small plot of ground three blocks away. I mourn the dead mimosa trees. I will never plant them again. Maybe we'll plant a tulip tree for Sarah.

When the yard was done I walked across the yard and realized how very empty it is without my tall husband striding across it. He would have been out helping us had he been able. And we would have talked about what we would like to do in the yard and what we'd like to do to the house. We'd laugh at Sarah and we'd play chase or ball with her, all of us together.

But as the day slid into evening and the sky darkened so too did my thoughts. He isn't here. He can't plan with me. He won't smile at me across the yard or yell at Mike because he missed a that strip of grass near the drive. Sarah will never know PawPaw chasing her across the lawn. He won't sit on the patio in the dark with me with the candles burning.

I hate it. And a lovely shinning day ended, sliding into darkness.