Dusty Roads to the Heart

The sun was bright in the eastern skies. Overhead the sky was a slate blue...only a light feather thin white here and there.  It appeared like a painter's brush swept lightly over the blue...here and there...with white. All was calm. All was at peace. Not a leaf moved on the cottonwood trees. Not a blade of brome grass stirred there in the grader ditch. All you could hear was the gravel beneath my tennis shoes as I walked there alone on the old country road. A meadowlark sang to me from his perch there on the electrical line, then took wing and flew away over the green pasture grass and beyond. Clear in the distance, somewhere among the golden/brown wheat field, I could faintly make out the sound of the cricket, or maybe it was a frog....I really don't know. On I walked down that country road, past the wheat fields, the pasture, the cottonwoods, until I turned the corner and walked north. The sun made little yellow spots on the road as it shined through the hedge row ...

For both Kate and I, this new school year brought changes. Kate would be giving up cross country for good. Her leg just couldn't take the constant running. She really missed the meets and practices but resigned herself to the fact and was looking forward to other things. I missed tearing all over those green grassy hills on the golf courses, but I had decided that if Kate couldn't go, I wouldn't. As for me, I had to say goodbye to my Tommy. Yes, they decided that it would be best for both Tommy and myself if someone new would come into his little life. The principal asked me to stay on as a teachers aid in both first grade classes and I agreed to do so. So as Kate and I prepared ourselves for the first day back to school, my mind went to that hot day in May of last year when Tommy and I said our good bye's. The grade school had their "fun day" the last day of school. All the students went out to the track and there was a full day of track and fun. It was h...

A note from the author: Through sickness...When Mark and I stood before the judge that cold February morning, we never dreamed that life would take us down a path of darkness. This isn't going to be an easy chapter to write and it will even be harder to push the publish button because I vowed that I would only write positive things. But we are all human. We all face dark times. I have reconsidered, and I want to write this chapter. I want to because I want to let my grandchildren know that someday they may be called upon to be a caregiver. Someday it may be their lot to walk beside someone who cannot love, who forgot how to hug, who forgot how to see life in its glory. I want to let them know how important their compassion, their laughter, their quiet voice can be to someone who is in a hopeless state. I feel free to write this because I was that person. I was that person who had forgot what it was like to love,  I was the one who lived for a year in darkness. I am not writing this...