Tending the Yard.

Dear Widowed Me,

“Community CC&Rs require that each owner shall maintain his or her lot in a manner consistent with the Community-Wide Standard. The Perfect-Families-Community homeowners association has been noted your yard as inconsistent with the CC&Rs. If you do not bring your yard into compliance within 30 days, a fine will be applied to your account.”

Sincerely, People Who Aren’t Me

I admit, my yard is … er … a little unkempt these days. And frankly, I expected this little love note from my HOA months ago.

Perhaps they thought they’d be mailing a “you-cannot-run-down-the-street-naked-and-screaming-no-matter-how-much-your-life-falls-apart” notice first. If I was in their stealthy shoes, I would have waited, too. And considering the mental picture of my unrestrained parts – and after watching the naked man on the hood of a truck on the news – I am eternally grateful that my descent into grief-induced catatonia managed to evade the point of no return.   

I live in a comfortable house on a comfortable corner lot in a sleepy neighborhood. And because I have a corner lot I am required to have more plants, trees and shrubs than the comfortable lots that are not on corners in my sleepy neighborhood. And the list of approved and acceptable vegetation is surprisingly lush and hardy.

Despite the fact that my comfortable corner lot is in the middle of the desert. And an irrigation system that hasn’t worked in a year.   

In four years, my yard has been trimmed exactly six times. The first was the week our world stopped turning. For an entire week their assignment was us, their squadmate’s family. Like silent sentinels they were there, running errands, gathering belongings, cleaning work lockers and sharing memories. And I watched them descend on the yard like an army of Edward Scissorhands.

A year later, worn down by the weight of help asked for, I fought to bring the plants I told him I did not want under control. Two days, one plane trip and severe allergic regret later, my head spun in the dark as my kids bounced on the guest room bed in excitement and my friend’s humor floated through the air in an offer of coffee.   

Another year. Conversations over hedgetrimmers and leafblowers about the neglect of my yard, both figurative and literal. Six months. A young man motivated by good and the vigor of youth led the effort to replace the leafiest offenders with new life and laughter. A business card in the doorframe before Christmas. Another business card in the doorframe.

And with each tending I see that the yard that I have been left to tend is resilient and eager to bloom, despite the drought and neglect it has endured.

Dear People Who Aren’t Me,

As a follow up to the notice I received regarding the non-compliance of my yard, this letter is to confirm that it is now in compliance and no fee should be applied to my account. I assure you that my yard will be in compliance -- just as soon as I find the right caretaker for the job.

Sincerely, Single Me

Things That Go Bump in the Night.

“I don’t ever want to lose you.”

It’s the witching hours when her words cut deepest, a soft whisper against my neck while tiny arms hug me tightly in a silent defiance of all things cruel and unusual. Night after night, I answer the call of her voice as it floats uneasily down the hallway, crawling under the covers to wrap my arms around her as she fights to stay awake.

Of all the ties that bind it is this bond that should never have been forged – a childish fear of the dark that death brought to life – that holds us closest.

Ever the contrarian, my daughter plays quietly night after night in a mound of covers, soft pillows and stuffed animals while my son greets the sandman before I cross back over the threshold of his room. Hours after the lights are dimmed and flecks of light begin to dance across her walls, her whispers float down the hallway as bunnies and peacocks and kittens and puppies band together in familial threesomes.

A mommy. A girl. A brother. Never a daddy.

She knows that a daddy is warm and safe and happy. But what memories remain – distant embers that burn brightly for brief moments triggered by the way light falls in the hallway, the way an ordinary object sits on a shelf, a story long forgotten remembered in laughter – are indelibly linked to the pain and confusion of loss.

For weeks afterward she drew pictures of the man that had vanished without warning, as though the carefully drawn images would change time and space. And then the man grew smaller and less colorful before taking his perch in the clouds before vanishing altogether, an image that faded into the background along with the pain. She questioned why she could not float to him with the balloons that disappeared into the vast sky above, and why he could not slide down just for a moment. As time passed she let his image return, on her terms and on occasion, in vivid color and warm context.

But with age comes understanding and the realization that childhood fantasies often remain unrealized while fears do not. She knows that there are gaps in the childhood that is shaping her, but does not understand who or what they are. Her days are filled with laughter and contentment, interrupted by what is missing when it erupts like a festering sore accidentally scratched. The world that stopped turning now spins on a new axis.

But it is the dead of night when things that can go bump do. And it is at night when things disappear into the dark. Because when daylight broke they had.

And tonight sleep has abandoned us both, because as darkness settles tomorrow I will disappear into it far away from her and from him. I cannot promise her the one thing she needs, but of this I am certain. When daylight breaks tomorrow she will be sleeping peacefully under the covers.

In my room.

The Sound of Silence.

I had never heard anything so loud. 

Standing in that dark night, I suddenly understood the sound of silence. It wasn’t the calm of a stolen afternoon. It wasn’t the cozy quiet of an evening alone. It wasn’t the airy rush in my ears as my shoes counted miles in the dark. 

It was the sound of 3,000 voices being silenced.  

Ten years later, we are all remembering where we were when the world stopped turning. We were making breakfast and settling into the school day. We were in hospitals waiting for our first to be born, and sitting around polished mahogany tables planning product launches and negotiating takeovers. We were buckled in on runways and soaring above the ground that was shaking 30,000 feet below. We were on our bicycles and in our running shoes. We were walking down sidewalks and sitting on freeways. We were in newsrooms reporting on images beyond belief, and we were watching as bodies fell from the sky and darkness shrouded the city that never sleeps.

We were living. And then in one collective gasp, our voices went silent with theirs.  

Thousands of miles away, we were not among those who lost someone that day. I had yet to discover the searing pain of loss, but I imagined how those who lost loved ones that day felt as they watched the towers burn and fall. The frantic phone calls that went unanswered, the tears that began and would not stop, and the desperate search for hope that the ones they loved would emerge from the darkness.

But of all the voices stilled that day, I wondered most about those who stood behind the 343 firefighters and 72 police officers who died fighting for others’ lives that morning. Men and women who believed in something far greater than themselves. Men and women with families. Men and women who, but for a difference of geography, were like my husband. I woke him that morning, mere hours after he had come home exhausted from patrolling the streets in the dead of night. He was gone before I got home and I stood alone in the dark listening. Listening for what we had lost and for what we feared might come. Listening for him to come home.

Standing in the darkness I listened for sounds that were not there, waiting for the chill of despair and death that had settled in the air above us all.

But in place of the morning’s violent embrace, quiet warmth wrapped its soothing arms around me. In that dark night, from sea to shining sea we answered the call that came from a lonely Pennsylvania field, an American fortress and towering beacons of prosperity and promise. One by one, we vowed to stand strong for everything that had been lost and for the voices that went silent that day. With each unspoken vow to remember and to rebuild, a spark emerged until the horizon was aflame with a new day and and we emerged from the ashes. We are living again because we have vowed never to be silenced again.

Because their voices are alive within us all.