At The End Of The Porch

With that, he began to hunch his shoulders, and his chest heaved, and I could see tears running down the creases in his face. That wasn't our last time together—nothing so dramatic as that. Sammie got older and frailer, and in his time he passed away. But that occasion was maybe his final great gift to me, for he showed me that even after a long full life there are still losses to be reckoned with, and yet often something gained in exchange. In losing my father, I had gained Sammie, and I hope to think that while losing the time and people of his youth, he had gained me. He once revealed to me that he was mostly illiterate, and while it hindered him in the world some, he counted it overall as an asset, because reading and writing had a way of coming between a man's mind and his feelings for the world. And that's how it was with his music and his life. It seemed to spring unstudied from the woods and the fields and the creatures of the earth into him and through him, and so, perhaps, into me. At The End Of The Porch The radio says there will be a hard freeze tonight. In the twenties. Pink and white and lavender blossoms wave in the petunia basket at the end of the porch, looking like the scalloped edges of little girls' Sunday dresses. They've had a hard summer. I've moved them three times, trying to find a place they like. In August I even cut them back to ground level when nothing seemed to help. Now in the warm days of late October they are singing their happiness, a dozen blooms bobbing in the wind. —Virginia Redfield 47 ...