My mom never saw this house.
She never walked the meadow garden, sat by the river, or collected eggs from our chickens.
But when I sliced the first cantaloupe from this year’s garden, she was here.
She never walked the meadow or sat in the screened in porch. She never met Appa or Bailey. She never watched the bluebirds raise another brood.
And yet… She’s here.
She’s in the bluebird house where I like to imagine she stops by to visit.
She’s in the swing overlooking the river. (Though I suspect she’d be disappointed I never added the cigarette ashtray she would have insisted belonged beside it.)
She’s in the first cantaloupe of summer, reminding me to cut every last bit of fruit from the rind because wasting good fruit simply wasn’t an option.
She’s in every project that starts with, “I wonder if I could…”
As I’ve worked my way around my forever home building gardens, planting trees, repairing fences, chasing squirrels out of tomatoes, dreaming up a pond where an old fire pit used to be … I realize I’m not working alone.
I’m carrying forward a way of seeing the world that she taught me.
Not through lectures. Through example.
Our relationship was complicated like many families. But I remember how she approached life.
She noticed things.
She made something useful out of what she had. She found joy in simple things.
Midnight Lane is becoming home.
And in ways I never expected, my mom is helping me build it.