Summer

I watched her pull up to the house in her 1967 red oldsmobile cutlass, I could hear the supremes coming through the radio.

She preferred the oldies station to the one telling us we’re going to hell. Hell isn’t some unseen place down underground, it’s right on up the porch and through the screen door.  She took my hand and adjusted the bag of groceries on her arm as we ventured inside.

The front yard was littered with dandelions, yellow crowns popped against the verdant landscape.

Autumn

I watched her through the bedroom window.

One at a time she removed shiny bobby pins from her hair, allowing curly salt and pepper tresses to roam free.Arthritic fingers unfastened her nametag and placed it on the vanity. She stared into the mirror.. She was proud once. Long before crows feet and c-sections, drugstore nail polish, home haircuts and overtime shifts.

Behind me the maple trees gave a burlesque show.

Winter

I watched her through the cracked kitchen door.

She was chain smoking virginia slims and circling classified ads. Her oversized t-shirt slid off her shoulder revealing an angular collar bone, bruised with the blue and purple hues of a night sky. 

Outside snow collected on the ground, muting the sounds of the city.

Spring

I watch her unpack ceramic doves from a shoebox.

She once told me that they were all that is left of her grandmother. We carefully remove tissue paper and place the birds on the mantle. Even though we’re tripping over cardboard boxes and haphazardly placed furniture, she wants to start with this offering. “This is so that they can watch over us,” she says, while meticulously positioning each dove so that their little beaks point out into the room.

A cleansing rain taps gently on the window, and once again, we begin.