They’d sold Sugarbridge right after I was born, the farm in Pennsylvania where my grandparents lived for 30 years. Where my father ran the wooded trails with Duke, the family’s great Dane. Decades later, we went there, my father and I. Emboldened by relentless memories of his youth, he knocked on the door.
“I used to live here,” he told the woman who opened the door, her mouth a surprised “O,” eyebrows raised, as if this fact gained him automatic entry, and she showed us around: kitchen remodeled, barn long gone, my father’s dismay upon everything he remembered now changed.
Just as your grandfather did not omit the weathervane from atop the barn, your essay included vital details of your family…and Duke. Thanks, Amie.
A lovely drawing as the perfect companion to your words.