by the late Phalma Hobbs, my mother.

There is a house that stands alone upon a hill.  Its roof outlines the horizon, its walls stand straight and still.  How I loved that house; it was my childhood home.  That house once knew happiness, love and laughter, the patter of children’s feet, the knowing smiles of parents long gone.

As I stand in an empty room, gazing through dusty cobwebbed windows.  I see again my mother’s flower garden, my father’s potato patch, and then I blink, the creaky floors, the rusting locks, a piece of loose clapboard flapping in the wind is a reminder we are both in our graying years.