He watched a spider in its web up in a corner, something he would never have seen without it being there. He watched as bits of dust were blown off a table as a springtime wind came through the window. He never would have seen it if he hadn't been looking out at the rain shower. He heard a cricket somewhere in the house and a frog out in the pond. He never would have heard them if not for the early hour when traffic was all but none.
He smelled the fresh-cut grass and the pasture full of wildflowers and windswept scents of a nearby woods that he never would have smelled living in the city. He heard the little things, like the buzzing of a single bee that had gotten lost and the cry of a baby bird high up in a tree calling for its mother.
He reached his golden years, which meant becoming a wise man with stories to tell to wide-eyed children and postcard memories he would have forgotten about if not for a youngster's voice asking to see what was in the old trunk sitting in a corner. His old Navy blues, some vinyl records of his youth, and sheets of yellowed paper with handwritten poems. His baseball glove and a box of checkers with a red one missing replaced with a red button. His high school yearbook with pictures he had circled for one reason or another, and a stack of postcards from his travels as a sailor, he sent home.
His life was one he was proud of, and although it was nearing an end, he still watched and listened, laughed and cried, sat and read, and wrote about everything he found interesting. He traveled the globe and walked in the footsteps of the ancients. He saw great monuments to heroes and colosseums still intact, as thousands of pictures were taken by those passing by. He saw a bull fight in Madrid and the Rock of Gibraltar. He sat at a French cafe wishing she could have been there with him, but a postcard would have to do. His heart was full of love for his family, their faces seared into his mind forever and a day.
Now it's just a waiting game to see when he'll leave this amazing place, and feel somewhat certain his next journey will be humbling, with a thousand questions finally answered.
He reached his golden years, which meant becoming a wise man with stories to tell to wide-eyed children and postcard memories he would have forgotten about if not for a youngster's voice asking to see what was in the old trunk sitting in a corner. His old Navy blues, some vinyl records of his youth, and sheets of yellowed paper with handwritten poems. His baseball glove and a box of checkers with a red one missing replaced with a red button. His high school yearbook with pictures he had circled for one reason or another, and a stack of postcards from his travels as a sailor, he sent home.
His life was one he was proud of, and although it was nearing an end, he still watched and listened, laughed and cried, sat and read, and wrote about everything he found interesting. He traveled the globe and walked in the footsteps of the ancients. He saw great monuments to heroes and colosseums still intact, as thousands of pictures were taken by those passing by. He saw a bull fight in Madrid and the Rock of Gibraltar. He sat at a French cafe wishing she could have been there with him, but a postcard would have to do. His heart was full of love for his family, their faces seared into his mind forever and a day.
Now it's just a waiting game to see when he'll leave this amazing place, and feel somewhat certain his next journey will be humbling, with a thousand questions finally answered.
Mike 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment