Grandma's House

As the winter ends and summer begins, I always feel like I want to travel. So last year I decided that I would visit my Grandmother in Columbus, Ohio. While driving, I wondered what it would be like to visit my Grandmother's home again. After all, I was a little girl when I had been there last. As I drove, my thoughts drifted back to my childhood. And I remembered how lovely it was visiting …

…one of the remaining palm trees was my daughter's treasured wooden doll house, its furnishings as rent and crushed as their adult counterparts. Several sections of the Anderson's newly painted stockade fence floated in the swimming pool surrounded by shards of aluminum siding and broken glass. I watched as my neighbors now stood motionless and silent, some huddled in embraces which spoke a thanks for their survival and an anguish born of complete material loss.