When Painted Wings and Giant Rings ... and Swing Sets ... Give Way

I noticed you were gone right away.

Although it was dark when we pulled into the drive way, you were immediately conspicuous in your absence.

“Look there, Doodle” I said to the girl who prompted your very existence in our lives.

“Nooooo!” she cried. “How could Dad do this while I was gone? I didn’t even get a picture.”

(That tendency to the dramatic and to hoarding would be the Roberts and the Morey in her.)

Fourteen years ago, the same girl – then a curly-headed toddler - sat in a child-sized chair eating grapes as her dad reconstructed you in your new home.

Fourteen and a half years ago, you –  a broken down version of yourself - made the move from suburban life to a farm home.

Nearly 15 years ago, you were a hotly debated point in negotiations of a home sale.

Sixteen years ago, you were lifted over a fence as a gift from neighbors we didn’t really know but whose own children no longer needed you.

Before that?

Well, who really knows for sure? You’d been a hand-me-down even to the unknown neighbors.

What I do know is this:

Your value can never truly be measured. The hours of enjoyment you provided over the years are nothing short of countless.  The children who climbed you, swung on you and leaped from  you with peals of laughter number in the dozens. 

Your demise marks a turning point in our lives.  Your little curly-headed girl graduates high school in just days. Your absence now in our backyard is a harbinger of the hole in our lives coming soon when that girl goes to college, never to ever truly return home again.

Your life has paralleled our own for years. Yard toys have given way to car keys and high heels. While your journey is done, ours is not … but it won’t ever be the same.

Your job here is done.  God speed, old friend.