Life On Our Street

Life has changed here on our street. He has gone and it’s so silent next door and it happened so quickly and quietly and just like that….everything has changed here on our street. I wonder if he knew what was happening. I wonder if he knew when he got up to tell his kids goodbye for school that it was the last time. I wonder if he can see me now wrestling with the passing of someone that wasn’t necessarily a friend and yet not a stranger. Days would go by without seeing him, but still I knew he was there, inside the brick house, he and his dog. Now it’s quiet. Now his beloved car sits in the same spot everyday and I wonder if anyone will ever drive it again. I wonder if his sons know how he beamed when he talked about them. I wonder if she knows how he often reminisced about their younger days together. I wonder how those young boys will grow up without a father. I wonder if she will ever smile again. I wonder how you get up and go on after something like this. He was always and ever present and now the absence is louder than anything I can ever remember about him. He made me laugh and he drove me nuts. He looked out for us and we talked a lot and he ticked me off more times than I can count. I wonder if we did all those things to him too. I wonder if maybe there was more to this dance, more than just habitual waves of greeting and departure, more than just customary pumpkin bread at holidays. I stare through the picket fence that separates us and I wonder if that dog over there even realizes his friend is gone forever. I think he is looking back and wondering the same thing about me. All I really know is that everything has changed here on our street.


Quote of the Day-“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away” Author unknown