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“I do love this house! Look
the daisies in the back yard are all in bloom!” Rodney and I were
preparing ourselves to leave.
“You have worked awfully
hard to get everything this nice,” he told me and I knew how true it was.
“There’s all the
refinishing furniture for a two-story house and that was a job. You sewed
all those drapes of material from a fire sale. Even those upholstered
chairs are very nice.” Rodney was testing my resolve to move.
“I know.” I agreed with him
as I shrugged my shoulders. “Fabric, furniture, things can be replaced. We
have time. I’m sure it is necessary to do what has to be done for our
baby.”
Gradually, as carefully as
we had begun to put plans and our lives together in this town these were
being unwound as easily as anyone could unwind a ball of yarn simply by
dropping it and watching it roll. The hours spent with new friends would
never be lost in our hearts. The dancing, the laughter and the good times
had on the big old back porch was a memory sealed in our hearts. Besides,
if boards could talk the floor would forever be able to tell its own
story. From time to time over the years, though, what is called the
pipeline of friends, one story after another would come to me. The friend
whose husband owned an equipment company had made me a small pin cushion I
always cherished. It was a vividly bright color of burnt red and only
someone with Native American blood would truly appreciate it’s design.
There were two small stuffed squares sewn at one corner to a length of
ribbon so it could be thrown over a hook. I saved it and kept it tucked
away in a secure place. On the day and hour she died it was raining in our
part of the world. One of the children evidently must have filched the pin
cushion from its hiding place and dropped it in the walk way which went
around the side of our house. Of course, it was soaked through and
through. I didn’t know of her death at the time but picked the keepsake up
and dried it off while I was thinking of my friend from so long ago.
Imagine how I felt when I realized she was gone and at the same time I had
found her memory gift to me.
But this was to happen so
far in the future. At the present the decision was made, for sure, we
would be moving on to what we believed would be a solution to the problem
with our child. If I could walk away from the plains of the Osage,
fragrant meadows, spacious uncluttered grounds and magnificent skies
surely I would be able to leave this.
“Will you watch Rhonda for
a bit? I want to drive out to the country to say good-bye to some of our
friends.
“Will do. Do you want me to
go with you?” Rodney offered.
I knew his introvert self
was just being courteous and was sure he really didn’t want to go, so I
told him I would go alone.
One by one, I visited the
families I had grown to love in that short time. We said our good-byes and
it was as if we knew this was not the ending of our acquaintance but was
only for now. Over the years we were destined to see each other for brief
visits at the huge conventions all about the country. And though these
were to be fleeting it was a way to pick up on unknown happenings in each
of our lives. As Al-Anon and AA speak of a God thing it was is as if we
were fated to have our lives meshed together forever and so we parted with
smiles, hugs, and sweet sorrow, to use the phrase another writer has
already penned. |
