Sad Little House

Across Orchard Street from the library sits an empty house. The blue siding is faded, the grass overgrown, the windows vacant. It has sat thus for some time and I have often wondered to whom the house belonged and where they have gone. How sad to confront abandoned dreams and memories of someone's life now left to the imagination of the uninterested and uncaring.

Today I noticed a couple of men circling the property, chatting to each other. Perhaps they have purchased the property! But no. Their pickup truck tells me they are workmen come to begin the process of dismantling the poor little place. They begin with the faded blue siding. How easily the house sheds its cover, giving it over without protest. Beneath the shiny aluminum lies brown shingles, an immediate flashback to the fifties.


I suppose over the course of the next few weeks more of the structure will disappear as they remove all traces of what once may have been a happy life. I will be the first to admit that we need more parking space on this campus, but this feels too high a price to pay. I want to capture the value of those who once were there loving, living, caring, doing, being. I cannot. I cannot even name their names or conjure up their visage.

I can almost see the leveled ground already despite the building remnant still standing. It is almost as if they are taking me apart, removing my protection, dismantling my own dreams and security. I take a moment to acknowledge the fleeting nature of life, to think about how quickly the mindless grass will cover any awareness of our time on this earth. Who will remember after I am gone? Who will care that once I was here, that I did things, that I loved people?

Good thing there is an eternity of otherness that will more than compensate for our brief if somewhat frenzied life here. I touch my heart, making sure my ticket is secure just as the workmen throw a pile of siding into the back of their truck.