Reflections

Keys.
I just came across the keys from my Grandmother's house, which is no longer my Grandmother's house. Dad and his sisters sold the house to a new family last year. It's a double lot (the second lot used to be our family garden) with a big garage (that used to be a chicken coop with Gram was little), fruit trees, and shares a center driveway with our cousins. I'll never go there again. I'll never put in the keys to turn the lock, nor will I knock and wait for Gram's cute, smiling face to come open the door with the bell on it. I will no longer see her in her little house slippers, toes covered with either nude stockings or white athletic socks, depending on the season. I will never again enter that back entryway, staring at the recycle bins and laundry ladder, wanting to click open the window, feel the fresh air on my face, and roll in the clothesline to hear it squeak so familiarly. I will never again put my hands in the cool earth of that garden or pull in the driveway to see Gram bending over the rows doing her weeding and harvesting. I will never again stare up at the brown spotted pear tree and wonder how the view is from up top. I will never again sit on that back hill and daydream about the chickens that Gram used to feed as a little girl, or about the pig roasts we had when I was a little girl, all sides of our large family spending a summer afternoon together...eating, telling stories, laughing, and enjoying the slowness of summer while the kids played and, later, shot off bottle rockets and cherry bombs on that same back hill. Never again will I ride my bike down the road from our house to find Zia Linda lying out for a tan on a beach chair, nor will I spend time watching the boys play basketball while I sit admiring the rose bushes outside Zia Elsie's house.

I may never again do any of these things, but I will forever remember the sweetness of those times, the smells, the colors, the smiles, and the love...the deepest love one could have ever found. And all of that from a couple of keys.