Reconstructing Life in the Shadow of Grief
It feels like I’m at the start of an epic quest, but I can’t quite get moving.
This morning I thought about how much a person’s life can change in fifteen years, while a yard stays very much the same. Take the snow, for example. I was outside slogging through it to get to the bird feeders. I was the first to disturb it (unless you count the birds).
Fifteen years ago, a perfect expanse of snow-covered yard didn’t last long. It was almost instantly trampled by countless bootprints from my girls as they made snowmen, built snow forts, and stayed outside long enough for their noses and cheeks to turn pink.
I don’t ache for those days the same way I once did. Now, I feel like an archeologist as I think about the longevity of a yard — and a life — while carefully brushing snow from the bird feeders.
I’ve grown used to feeding birds while the echo of past mornings tickles the edge of my memory. I think about the objects that were here before the feeders — the old swingset, the tetherball pole, the decrepit picnic table, the red sandbox shaped like a crab. All of that, the stuff of my kids’ childhood, is gone.
I wonder what was here a century ago. This house is 120 years old. The yard, of course, is ancient. My family’s…
