Home Again

Home Again

We sat on our swing seat in the side yard and talked.  I’ve been away for a week, visiting family and a new grandchild.  My husband stayed at home, caught a cold and flu.  While I was laughing and enjoying my grandsons, daughter and son-in-law, he was home sneezing, coughing with headache and sore muscles.

He is getting better so we sat outside yesterday and soaked up sunshine, the breeze and each other’s company.  We breathed the warm air, heard birdsong and chipmunk chatter, noticed the smell of grass, the shades of green and rose on the apple tree leaves, watched towels flapping on the line, saw falcons soaring high in search of a meal and heard leaves turning inside-out warning of rain to come.

We sipped wine, rocked slowly and noted the calm and green of our yard.  We avoided discussing all the work that needed care, chatted only about what we had each done over the week we’d been apart.   We talked.  We caught up.

I shared stories of being away, of a neighbour using a leaf blower to clean his deck four times a day, of another sharing his bagpipe lessons with the whole block, of geese crossing the main road to get from the harbour to the duck pond, of walks with family and of the pleasure of grandchildren.   He shared stories of driving new Canadians to the Legislature in Fredericton, of driving students to Safe Grad, of taking my mother on errands, of mowing lawns, then of becoming ill and of spending days and nights sweating and coughing…energy-less.

I told him about two hundred-foot Black Oaks and waking to nothing but sky and leaves outside the windows.  He told me about staring at the ceiling waiting for the next coughing attack.

We both shared stories of sudden rainstorms on sunny days—rain plummeting, bouncing up again from the ground, and of wind-driven rain in slanting sheets, then as sudden, sunshine glittering in the drops, and the light, the light fresh-washed and glowing.

We talked about missing each other.  We talked about love and about how much we need each other.  We talked about how we are grateful for each other.

We snuggled on the swing seat in our side yard and talked, happy to be home together again.

Photos are mine.