Perched

My home is up the hill, behind the trees on the far side of this road.This is the duck pond where I watch the sun rise, & which feeds our waterfall. As soon as my baby knew how to throw, we walked this road to the pond every day for him to throw stones. Years later, as my preschooler & I went to feed the ducks, a man & his young daughter were out fishing near the swing. “Why don’t you get some rods & fish with us”... & so a friendship was born. In recent months, I have written about friendships & the difficulties I have had letting people in...but his family, especially his wife, breached the wall. Our families gathered together for campfires & Bible studies. We wrestled with "righteous anger" together in God’s Word. We gardened together, shared coffee & goodies on the bench, swam, picked blackberries, entertained bored, neighborhood children, chased ducks in the paddleboat... & we became friends.
It seems as though their house has been for sale for years. The signs had become but lawn ornaments to me, though I rarely noticed them anymore. Driving passed a couple of weeks ago I thought, "I should just take them down myself..." & I knew then, as though it had been uttered, I knew...The phone call came but hours later. The house had sold, they would be out in 2 weeks. We will love the new people. She even said, they “couldn’t have hand-picked better people. They mirror us in so many ways...”


The house is all but empty now. The swing is still & all is strangely quiet. The boat has been dry-docked, upside down, as my world seems to be. The patio that once held a wicker world of comfort, is but a concrete pad. The bench where we of whispered & laughed together is now bare of the potted dogwoods. The concrete pelican guarding over the lake awaits a third family. The fallen wisteria arbor on the island will have to be righted by it's new owners. I adjusted the camera exposure in these shots to represent my melancholy...I sit perched, awaiting a new chapter in my life....