“I won’t be able to feel her feet anymore!” – Donna Sansbury

Dancing Into the Future

There was a pool of water held in place, behind her eyes as she tried to speak.  She was doing everything she could do to keep that water dammed up, from trickling down the gentle slope of her cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” Donna choked out between halting breathes. “I don’t like to cry in front of people.”

She went on explain that she’d just put her home, of more than twenty-five years, under contract for a sale.  During all of those years, Donna and Larry Sansbury have loved their cottage which is located on a large, tree and grass filled piece of land in the high south.

“I’m filled with memories.”  She continued.  “We had our horses there and we’d ride the trails which crisscrossed our property.  We loved gathering the fresh eggs.”

She stopped abruptly.  Her voice hitched again.  What was once a trickle, soon became a torrent, rushing down her face, toward her feet.

“It’s the garden I don’t know if I can live without.”  She cried.  “I won’t be able to feel her feet anymore!”

Donna and Larry Sansbury’s adult daughter created this particular garden.  She put and left her heart and soul into that, more than simple, vegetable garden.  She surrounded it with beautifully stacked and artfully positioned stones.  So, it’s now Donna and Larry’s garden of memories; holding the precious reminiscence of their now passed beloved.  Donna’s tears were showing her understandable distress of moving away from the physical representations of her daughter.  Yet, her tears also appeared to be tracing a new, flowing path of joy, hope and love across Donna’s face, toward her carefully selected future.

This tracing of memory toward a bright future quickly tickled her mood into brightness.

“Our new place has a wonderful deck.”  She breathed. “It’s looks out to the tops of beautiful hardwood trees.  I love to watch the leaves dance on the wind.”

“That’s good,” I thought.  Because Donna had just told me that Larry wasn’t able to dance anymore.

“I stood behind Larry the other day and watched him labor to walk across the way to his shop.”  She explained.  “He just can’t do it anymore.  It’s too painful for him.  When we’re in our new place we’ll be able to sit together and watch the trees dancing, from our new perch in the midst the trees.”

The pool of water, that had been held in place, behind her eyes as she tried to speak, was gone, because her eyes were now dancing and sparkling.  Just like the tall, beautiful trees she was describing.  This, just commingled remembrance, had led her away from the worry of soon not being to feel her daughter’s feet beneath her own.

No, she won’t be able to feel her daughter’s feet on those same garden stones any longer, but she’s already recognizing the spirit of her daughter dancing in the trees. Because, Donna and Larry have discovered how to interlace their fondest, loved memories into the new branches of their future.