A Proposal to Remember

Imagine a young man inviting a young lady out to dinner.  After dinner he suggests they go for a walk. As they walk, they come upon a small park with a bubbling fountain, a white gazebo, park benches, and flowers all around.  

In the gazebo a string quintet begins to play as the young couple approaches.

The young man leads his lady over to a bench in the corner of the tiny park.  As she sits down, he bends down on one knee in front of her and reaches in his pocket to take out a small box.

The music from the string quintet continues softly in the background as the gentleman asks the lady for her hand in marriage.

The lady is surprised and delighted and gives the gentleman the answer he is hoping for, a resounding yes.  He places a ring upon her finger.

Sounds quite romantic, don't you think?  And romantic it was.  This proposal took place in this small park in my town last night. I know this is true because my son is a member of the quintet that was hired to perform the background music during the proposal.  He said it was the best gig they've had yet, and he came home wearing a big grin.  What fun it must have been to be a part of, and a witness to, such a happy event.

This little park was created on what was once an empty, weed-covered corner lot.  The city officials decided to buy the lot and turn it into a quaint, picturesque little park to add some beauty to our town for all to enjoy.  

The landscaping of the park was paid for in part by donations from businesses, families, and individuals.  Those who donated to the cause were able to have their name or business name engraved on one of the bricks used in the pathway that winds through the park.  Some who donated had their brick engraved in memory of a loved one who had died.  Others had it engraved in honor of someone celebrating a birthday or anniversary. 

Since the park was created, it has been the site where prom couples have gathered to have their photos taken while dressed in their fancy prom dresses and tuxedos.  It has also been the site for numerous wedding ceremonies where vows were spoken among the flowers with the sound of the water fountain bubbling behind them.  It has become a spot where memories are made.  I'm quite sure the proposal for marriage that happened here last night is one that will be long remembered, not only by the now newly-engaged couple, but also by those in the quintet who played music to accompany this turning point in their lives.

Albuquerque?! ALBUQUERQUE!!??

Most of the people, who know me well, know that it takes quite a lot to get me angry.  They also know that when I do get angry--they don't want to be around!  I've got a rant on my mind today, so if you're here looking for one of my usually cheerful posts, I'm afraid you will be disappointed.  I'm sorry about that.  If you're not up for a rant, go ahead and skip to the next blog on your list to read.  I will understand.  I just hope you come back again later when I'm in a better mood.

My husband often says that his biggest pet peeve is people not doing their jobs.  So often, it seems, the reason things aren't going the way they should in our little world, is that someone didn't do his or her job properly (or at all) in their little world.  Because of the things that have happened in the last few months, more and more, I find myself agreeing  with his pet peeve as being a number one complaint.  Sit back, and I will tell you my tale of woe.  It really has become a sort of comedy of errors that seems to have no end.  If you find yourself chuckling along the way, that's OK, because it really is a most ridiculous story.  

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that my mother passed away at the end of January this year.  She was in a nursing home for the last two years of her life, and I was in charge of paying her bills and handling her finances.  When she passed in January, I had already paid the bill for her health insurance coverage for the month of February.  

I called the insurance company to notify them of my mother's death and request the refund for the coverage for the month of February that I had paid for.  I am the executrix in charge of my mother's estate so I am in charge of getting all the loose ends tied up.  They told me that they usually have to wait to be notified by Medicare of someone's death before they can send a refund, but that if I wanted to, I could mail them a copy of the death certificate to speed things along.  I sent the death certificate off to them in the mail right away.

A couple of weeks later, I hadn't heard anything from the insurance company, so I gave them another call.  They said that they had received the certificate I had sent, but they couldn't issue a refund until they got official word from Medicare through the Social Security Office.  Apparently, it made not one bit of difference that I had sent the death certificate to them.  They weren't going to do anything until they heard from Medicare through the Social Security Office.  So the first person that I talked to at the insurance company was the first person on my list of "people not doing their jobs," because she had told me that sending in the death certificate would be sufficient notice to allow them to issue the refund.

After a couple more weeks went by, I decided to contact the Social Security Office myself.  The funeral home had told me when I made the arrangements with them that they would notify the Social Security Office of my mother's death.  However, when I contacted the Social Security Office, they had not yet been notified!  The funeral home had not notified the Social Security Office of my mother's passing.  The people at the funeral home became the next ones added to my list of "people not doing their jobs."

Social Security told me that I could send THEM a copy of the death certificate, and then they would notify Medicare who would notify the insurance company of my mother's death. (Remember, the insurance company already has a copy of this certificate that I sent to them directly.)  I'm not very happy with the way things are going at this point, but I've been tangled up in red tape in these sorts of situations before, and I know that it is best not to get upset, but to just focus on the job at hand that needs to be done.  So, I dutifully sent off another copy of the death certificate, this time to the Social Security Office.  I waited and waited.  And then I waited some more.  Still, I heard nothing from the insurance company.  

I called the insurance company again.  (Let me just interject here that I think I called the insurance company about eight times overall in the last few months, and every single time I got a different person on the other end!  Every single time!!)  I told the person on the line my story.  The person said that they had not yet gotten word from Medicare.  I waited some more.

Finally on May 3, I received a letter from the insurance company saying that they had been notified by Medicare of my mother's death. So it took three months for them to be notified. The letter I received said that if the estate was due a refund that they would send the check out, and I would receive it within two weeks after the date on the letter.

Of course, two weeks came and went and I didn't receive the refund.  Apparently "someone else wasn't doing his or her job."  When I called again, I was told that the check had been sent on May 13 and that I would receive it soon.  I went back and forth with the insurance company calling them and telling them I had not yet received the check.  Their reply was always the same.  The check had been sent and I would receive it soon.

In the meantime, I got all the other loose ends connected with my mother's estate tied up.  I had told my lawyer (and the court) that I was still waiting on the refund.  Time passed and it was July and the end of the six months waiting period (the time required by the court before I would be allowed to close out the estate checking account) was quickly approaching.  

In yet another phone call with the insurance company, I was told that the check had been issued on July 11 and I should be receiving it soon.  Say what?!  What happened to the check that was supposedly issued and sent out in May?  No one was able to answer that question.  It certainly seemed to me that "someone was NOT doing his job!"  I was told to wait two weeks after the July 11 date, and surely I would receive the check by then.

Let me interject here and say that the offices of the insurance company that I had been calling are in San Antonio, Texas.  I live in Ohio.  I asked them if the check was being sent out of San Antonio, Texas. They said, "No, it will be mailed to you from Mason, Ohio."  I have no idea why it should take two weeks for a check to reach me from Mason, Ohio.  I could drive to Mason, Ohio myself in about three and a half hours, but I digress.

Two weeks came and went again.  I called again.  This time when I called, as soon as I got someone on the line, I  said, "I'd like to talk to a supervisor, please."  I did this without explaining my situation. I wanted to talk to someone IN CHARGE.  The person on the other end of the line hesitated but finally said, "OK, I'll let you talk to a supervisor," and then she promptly hung up on me.  Obviously, she didn't want to be the one to refer me to a supervisor. ("Another person not doing her job!!")  That, my friends, was the proverbial straw that broke Daisy's back.  

Of course, I immediately redialed the number. (Side note: at this point steam is coming out of Daisy's ears.) A different person picked up the phone.  Once again I requested a supervisor.  This person wouldn't allow me to talk to a supervisor unless I told her what I was calling about first.  So, I explained my whole sad story to her.  I went through the whole rigmarole with her, giving all the verifying information about my mother's account number and date of birth and yada, yada, yada as I had had to do every single time I had called.  She listened to all that I had to say and then gave me the same response that everyone else had.  She said the check had been mailed, and I should be getting it any day now.  I once again asked to talk to her supervisor.  She put the supervisor on the line.

Naturally, I had to explain the entire story ONCE AGAIN to the supervisor.  She clucked, clucked about how she didn't understand why it was taking so long, but that if I could be patient and just wait a few more days, I would surely receive the check in the mail.  I was not amused with her patronizing attitude.  I think if  I had been sitting in front of her instead of talking to her on the phone that she would have actually reached over and patted me on the head.

I asked her just how long I was supposed to wait before calling again.  She told me to wait until a month had gone by from when the check was issued to make sure it had time to reach me.  I asked her why it would take a month to mail a check to me from a place that was a three and a half hour drive from my home.  She mumbled something about processing time, but couldn't give me an acceptable answer.  I talked to this supervisor (another "person not doing her job") on August 3rd.  I was supposed to have closed out the estate account on July 31, but obviously that didn't happen.

I waited until a month had passed since the check (remember this is actually the second check--I don't know what ever happened to that first one) had been sent out as the supervisor had suggested.  Still no check arrived.  I called the insurance company again.  

This time I talked to a gentleman named Chris.  Chris, amazingly enough, was finally able to shed some light on what had happened to the check that I was waiting for.  Although he kept me on hold for 20 minutes while he searched the files, he did pop  back in twice during that 20 minutes to tell me that he was still working on my case and for me to please continue to hold.  

When he returned, he told me that the check had been sent not to my address as it was intended, but instead was sent to the nursing home!  Why would they send the check that was to be made out to my mother's estate to the nursing home?  The insurance company had my mailing address listed as the one to use for all correspondence.  They had, in fact, had it from the very beginning.  I was the one who had been receiving and paying her bills, not the nursing home.  Additionally, at least three different times during my previous calls requesting the refund, they had supposedly checked my address against the one they had in their files to verify that it was the one they had used to mail the check.  So here we have another three or four people, at least, who had "not done their job!"

But wait, there's more!  Yes, really there is!  Not only did the insurance company mail the check made out to my mother's estate to the nursing home, but the nursing home cashed it!!!  This is what the gentleman named Chris was able to discover for me.  Say WHAT!?  How could the nursing home think they were entitled to cash a check made out to my mother's estate, and what's even worse, what bank allowed this transaction?  Here were at least two more people who "DID NOT DO THEIR JOB!"  

Oh, and here's one more little tidbit that the very competent and helpful Chris found out for me.  The check was cashed by the nursing home on July 19!!  Remember that supervisor from a couple of paragraphs ago?  I had talked to her on August 3.  Surely if the check had been cashed on July 19th, she would  have seen it in the records on August 3rd.  That is, she would have seen it if she had bothered to look in the files, which she DID NOT.  She simply did not want to be bothered to have to take the time to "DO HER JOB!!"

I was reeling a bit at learning all of this information.  I asked the very helpful Chris what I was supposed to do now.  He said I should contact the nursing home and try to get the money back from them.  I pointed out to him that his company was the one who had mistakenly mailed the check to them.  I asked what should I do if the nursing home refuses to give me back the refund.  He said that if that happened to call the insurance company back, and they would take care of it.  So the very helpful Chris was only helpful up to a point.

I called the nursing home.  I was told that the person who handles these things was on vacation and wouldn't be back for a few more days (Well, of course!).  I explained the situation to the vacationing person's underling and asked if she would pass the message on to her superior.  I called again on the day the superior was to return from vacation only to find out that the UNDERLING was now on vacation so my message had not been passed along after all. Add one more to the list of "people not doing their jobs!"  Honestly, how difficult would it have been for her to send an email to her supervisor and explain the situation?"

Anyway, I thought that finally I had found the person in charge who could help me!  Since this person was a local person and someone I knew, I thought that perhaps I had finally found the light at the end of this very long and very dark tunnel.

No such luck, of course.  This person explained to me that she couldn't refund the money to me because all checks from the nursing h0me were issued by their corporate offices in Albuquerque.   ALBUQUERQUE?!!  Oh for the love of Pete!  It has been a week today since I talked to the person at the nursing home.  No check has arrived, so I called her again today.  She told me that it takes time to get the checks sent out and that I should just keep waiting and I would get it eventually.   Can you say, "Deja vu"?  

So, let's see.  How many people not doing their jobs does it take for a person to receive a refund check from an insurance company?  Well, so far, it has taken at least 12 people not doing their jobs, by my count, to make this refund happen (or not happen, obviously).  I haven't yet received the check so who knows how many more will need to be involved.  I'm sure the folks in Albuquerque will want their turn at "not doing their job" too.  Doesn't anyone have a work ethic anymore?  Doesn't anyone feel a sense of responsibility for the work they do?

I really don't care about the money.  It is an insignificant amount that will be split between my brother and I.  It is my job to settle all matters with the estate, and this must be taken care of before I can finish things with my lawyer and the courts.  I certainly didn't expect this situation to domino into the ordeal that it has become.  I do hope that I am finally close to putting this matter to rest.

Now if you have read this entire outrageously long diatribe of mine, bless your dear heart, and please forgive me for this rant.  I appreciate the fact that you took the time to read this.  Even if no one reads it at all, I feel better having written it all down.  Even if you skimmed over this post to get the highlights and then dropped down to read this paragraph (which is probably what I would have done in your shoes), I still thank you for caring.  I'm starting to feel better already just getting these thoughts written down and out of my head.  I promise the next post I make here will be a cheerier one.  I hope you will return.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

"For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. "   ~ John F. Kennedy


The end of August is drawing near and the beginning of September will soon be here.  This time of year has always been a time of change for me and this year is proving no different.


My older son has moved to Florida to attend graduate school there.  After a very stressful week of living in temporary housing, he moved into an apartment down there today.  Next week he will have orientation meetings for his new school.  He is also busy chasing down leads and looking for a job there.

My younger son's girlfriend will be leaving on Friday this week to move an hour away from here to the university where she will be taking classes on her way to becoming an accountant.  I'm not sure who will miss her more, my son or me!

My younger son went today to the high school to pay workbook fees and pick up a parking pass and get his locker number assignment and turn in the required beginning-of-the-school-year forms.  He will be a junior in high school this year and his classes begin next week.

I will be facing some changes soon too.  Our local Chamber of Commerce offers a nine month Leadership class which I will be taking starting in September.  The library is paying my tuition for me to take this class.  It meets once a month, and I will be learning more about various aspects of our county's history, government, educational system, and legal system, among other things.  With this class I will also be attending a two-day retreat, a city council meeting, and a school board meeting and working with others in the class to do some type of community service project after the class is over.  I'm excited and a little nervous too about taking this class.  


I have no picture to show you of the Leadership class, but here's a picture of a little tiny change in my life from this week that I can show you.  I was given a gift certificate for a manicure at a local salon recently and last night I went and had my nails done. I thought they turned out pretty well.  (The daisy was not part of the manicure.  I just held it for the picture since it was going to be for my blog.)   :-D

We are changing all the time and so is the world around us.  My younger son wanted to try growing watermelons this summer.  Since we don't have a garden, I told him he could plant watermelon seeds in my flower bed.  The vine has grown so much that it has nearly taken over the flower bed and is now growing over the edge of the driveway.  It changes some every day, or so it seems.  


There are several little watermelons growing on the vine.  I hope the growing season will last long enough that they can mature and get big enough and ripe enough to eat.  The watermelons right now range in  size from about as big as a marble to one that is about twice the size of a softball.  The squirrels (darn tree rats!) have gnawed off a few of the little ones, but we put pepper and bone meal around the plants trying to deter them from getting the rest of them.

These last two photos are of the same melon taken just three days apart.  Can you see how much it has grown?  This is the one that is now about twice the size of a softball. We had a couple of days of heavy rain which gave it an extra boost.

Change isn't always easy and sometimes it can be quite difficult, but it is necessary and will happen whether we like it or not.  Change is usually a good thing.  Without change, we would be standing still and becoming stagnant instead of growing and improving.  Without change, how would we ever know what a juicy, red, ripe watermelon tastes like?  Without change, we can't learn new things and expand our horizons.  Without change, there is no future as pointed out in the quotation by John F. Kennedy in the beginning of this post.  Without change in the clouds and the sky, we would never get to see a beautiful sunset like this one.

Beating the Heat in the Basement

We've had cooler temperatures recently, but earlier in the summer we had many days in a row of record-breaking heat.  I'm not sure how we would have managed without having air conditioning to escape into.  The house I grew up in when I was a child did not have any air conditioning.  We had fans, and we could open the windows to try to catch a breeze, but that was it.  I don't think we ever had any long spells of heat like what we have experienced this summer, but we did have some pretty hot days.

So what did we do back then when there were hot days and no air conditioning?  We spent a lot of time in our basement!  Our basement had two sides that were connected with doorways at either end so that the floor plan was in a big loop.  The temperature down there stayed a nearly constant 68 degrees year around no matter how hot or cold it got outside.  In the summer that 68 degrees was cool and welcoming.  In the winter it  felt chilly and dank.

One side of the basement was more utilitarian in nature than the other and wasn't of much interest to my brother, sister, and me.  This practical side of the basement included the laundry area, the sump pump, the chest freezer, and a long row of shelves which held big jars of canned tomato juice, applesauce, and pickles and smaller jars of  homemade strawberry or raspberry jam or cherry jelly that my mother put up every summer.  

The sump pump which was basically a hole in the floor with a motor in it and a wooden cover over it scared me a little because I was always afraid I might fall into it if someone were to take the cover off of it.  Ours didn't look quite this messy, but it was similar to this one. 

The chest freezer was of interest to us on hot days because my mother sometimes bought  frozen treats that she stored in that freezer.  It might be orange creamsicles, fruity popsicles, fudgsicles, or ice cream bars or sandwiches that we would find stashed in there.  Sometimes we made our own popsicles with fruit juice or Kool-aid or chocolate-peanut butter fudgsicles using molds that looked something like this.

The other side of the basement was where we spent all of our time, though.  It held a pool table that converted into a ping pong table (some people called it table tennis).  We had two large panels that were placed over the top of the pool table to change it into a ping pong table. It was similar to the one pictured below except that ours had green panels instead of blue.  A green net was tightened on at the sides of the table with screws in the middle of the two boards.  Small round paddles, two red and two blue, along with some white ping pong balls completed the necessary equipment.  My brother and I played match after match.

I can also remember spending what seemed like countless hours playing games of eight ball or stripes and solids on the pool table. Stripes and solids is what we called it. There is probably a more proper name for it.  We'd chalk our cues and aim for the side pocket and try not to scratch on the eight ball talking big as if we were sharks in a pool hall.  We thought we were pretty cool. (We weren't really, of course, but we thought we were!)  There was an old radio down there that we would turn on and turn up really loud to listen to while we played.


In high school years we also had a plastic pinball machine on legs that my brother got for Christmas one year added to our basement entertainment.  In younger years I can remember my brother kept many of his toys in the basement.  Well, I guess you would call them "toys."  They were mostly guy type creative things like a rock tumbler and a wood burning set. I seem to remember him having some kind of leather crafts kit too that he used to make a pair of moccasins and a belt, I think.   I didn't play with those things, but I did like playing with his Creepy Crawlers bug making set.

You squeezed plastic goop in the molds and then put the molds in the bug maker oven to make little bugs that looked like this.  I can clearly remember sitting and carefully removing the plastic centipedes with all those little legs out of the molds.  There were spiders and scorpions too.  If you weren't careful, the legs would get left behind in the mold breaking off from the body of the bug.

There was a tiny black and white TV down in the basement too, but we very rarely watched it.  It had been relegated to the basement when a newer, bigger more modern color set was purchased for the living room.  We only had four channels--the three big networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC, and then PBS, the public broadcasting channel was the fourth.  None of these came in clearly in the basement.  Even on good days on the color set upstairs, the reception wasn't the best.  We lived out in the country and had a tall TV antennae tower attached to the back of the house.  There was no cable or satellite TV.  As a result, the picture on the little set in the basement was generally nothing but a lot of fuzz.  The sound would usually come in, but not the picture.  So if we had that TV on in the basement at all, it was to listen to it more than to watch it.


Another way I passed time in the basement was to roller skate.  I'd clamp on metal skates over my tennis shoes and go round and round the loop of the basement from one side to the other on the concrete floor.  We didn't have any sidewalks where we lived in the country, the road in front of our house was a highway much too busy to skate on and the roads behind us in the housing development were too bumpy with gravel so skating in the basement was the only real choice we had.

The fun side of the basement also had two small nooks and a small room coming off of it.  The small room was the furnace room.  I didn't like the furnace room.  It was dark and scary.  There was one lone light bulb that hung down and had one of those beaded metal pull chains on it to turn it on.  In the summer the furnace sat quiet, kind of like a big metal sleeping monster.  In the winter, you could open a little sliding door on the front to see the fire inside of it.  I used to imagine that hell would be like the inside of that furnace, so it was no wonder I was afraid to go into that room.    There was also a tunnel-like hole in one wall where the ashes from the fireplace in the living room in the floor above us fell down into a metal box that Dad would have to clean out in the winter time.  I was always afraid that bats might find their way down the chimney and come out of that hole.  I kept the door to the furnace room shut tight when I was in the basement!

The two small nooks on the fun side of the basement were much friendlier spots than the furnace room.  One was a kind of cubby hole room where my Dad had his drafting table. My Dad was a draftsman/tool design engineer.  He worked at a factory where he drew the blueprints and designed tools and machine parts.  I never really understood when I was younger what he did, but I was fascinated by the drafting table and his special drawing and measuring tools and the blueprints that were spread across that slanted table.  There was a long, horizontal lamp above the table and a tall stool in front of it.  My Dad was tall, about 6' 2" and he sometimes stood at the table to work and sometimes sat on the metal stool.  His drafting table looked somewhat similar to this one.

The other nook had a trestle-type wooden table flanked by two wooden booth-style benches in it.  They were painted a very cheery yellow color.  They looked something like this except the benches had no padding or cushions.  They were all wood.

We used to sit at those benches to make pictures with a Spirograph or to play cards or other board games. 

When we were quite small, we had pulled the table and benches out from the nook and had used chalk to draw on the wall behind them.  We played "grocery store" there, of all things and had drawn shelves of canned goods on that back wall with the chalk.  Years later those chalk drawings of cans of corn and peas were still on that wall!

We had a lot of ways to entertain ourselves in that basement all those years ago, and it was a great place to go on summer days when it was too hot to go outside.  What about you?  What did you do to beat the heat and what did you do for fun on hot summer days when you  were a child?

Homeless

Homeless

Riding an adult size trike

with the basket on the back,

he pedals past.

"There goes the homeless guy,"

someone says.

Not many even notice him.

No one really keeps track.

I'm not sure what he eats.

I suspect he goes dumpster diving,

scrounging for discarded sandwiches,

fast food trash

washed down with water from a public fountain,

outdated bakery goods and produce

 retrieved from the local grocery bin.

He gets by, but I wouldn't call it thriving.

I guess it's one way of surviving.

He's  unpleasant to be around.

He grunts and sneers and swears.

His teeth and nails are nasty and gnarly.

He smells.

He's intentionally rude and obnoxious,

frightening little children and old ladies.

He has chosen his path.

He wants to be there--

alone in his world where nobody wants him,

where nobody cares.

                                    

Some have tried to help:

steering him to shelters, churches, and food banks.

He bluntly refuses all offers;

preferring his solitude,

going his own way, following his own rules.

He pushes their kindness away

with a loud and resounding,

"No thanks."

No one seems to know

how he came to be this way,

how his life became the twisted way it is.

"There but for the grace of God go I,"

is the thought that comes to me.

Thank the Lord for me and mine

that our lives are not like his.

Making It Back Home

Three Rose of Sharon shrubs stood in a line,

deep pink, lavender, and frilly white with delicate pink edges.

They were a ribbon of softness

between the prison-like, wire batting cage

where the Little Leaguers practiced their swings

and the whirling dust of the ball field where they played their games.

Younger brothers and sisters of the players

liked to smell and pick the blooms

while waiting for the games to end.

Small bouquets of flowers were left discarded and forgotten

on the grass under the pine trees when the last out was called.

Mothers came early to set their folding chairs next to the shrubs.

The prime spot that they all wanted.

For shade?   A little, yes, but it was something more.

They wanted to be in their midst, 

to embrace their muted pastel colors 

to revel in their frills and blatant femininity,

while sipping iced tea or diet Pepsi

and shading their eyes to watch the flight 

of a ball smacked high and long.

The shrubs were a sanctuary next to the ball field.

A safe haven, a retreat, a place that breathed peace into the air.

In the midst of the over-exuberant Dads yelling at the umpire,

and boys with uniforms stained with sweat and the dust of the slide

from trying to make it back home, 

(Isn't that what we all want to do?

Make it back home again?)

There among the disappointment and sad faces of little boys

who missed the ball with every swing of their bats

or who couldn't catch a pop-up to save their lives

let alone help out their team,

In the midst of all this, the flower-covered shrubs

were like a promise that life would not always be hard.

Sometimes there will be whirls of color to cheer us

fans of green to cool us--soft ruffles and flounces

to buffer us, shelter us, comfort us, give us peace.

Perhaps they will even take us back home again.

(Isn't that what we all want to do?

Make it back home again?)

Home, back to the Rose of Sharon of our youth--

the one next to Grandma's front porch with the swing on it.

The one where you sat next to her and listened to her stories

while the two of you shelled peas,

scooping the long line of little green spheres 

into the stainless steel mixing bowl

and the peas rained into it,

ping, ping, ping, ping, and you loved the sound of it.

It made music with the creak of the swing

and the sweet lull of the music in Grandma's voice

even though she wasn't singing, just talking.

And you knew she would always love you

and she always did.

Three Rose of Sharon bushes stood in a line

a ribbon of softness taking me home.