Baby Thoughts

The old lady who lived in the house across the street appears to have died. Appears?

Yes, appears.

She did not come over and tell us she was dying. She was 100, so we knew. And we'd see her soft living room light come on, then later go off, a definitive sign that the woman who had been a girl during World War I was still hanging out, night after night.

The caretakers would sit outside and smoke. There was a rock at the end of the old woman's driveway, and the caretakers would sit, always at 8am or 8pm, and smoke. The shift would change.

The smoking stopped a few weeks ago. Before Christmas? Now there is a green sign planted in the snow: "For Sale".

Soon new neighbors will move in, perhaps another couple with children, a couple like we are about to become. Their children will dance on the lawn, they will decorate the house. Perhaps we'll become friends and step inside for dinner?

But I won't forget the lady, living alone at the end of her life, sometimes slowly answering the door, the light usually on in the evening.