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| The Lady With the White Paling |
She taught me to leave the gate to life open.
When my husband died of a brain tumor, I became very angry.
Life was not fair. I hated being alone. After three years as a
widow, I walked around with a face like a stiff mask.
One day, as I was driving down a busy street in town, I suddenly
noticed a new paling that was being erected around a house that I
had always admired. The more than 100-year-old house was a faded
color of white and had a large veranda. It once lay secluded from
the quiet road. But then the road was widened, traffic lights were
put up, and the small town began to resemble a large city. Now the
house had almost no front garden left.
But the garden down to the road was always neat and clean, and
the flowerbeds were teeming with flowers in all the
colors of the
rainbow.
I also noticed a little lady with an apron who raked, swept, and
mowed the lawn in there. She even picked up the litter people threw
out when they hurried by in their cars.
Every time I drove past the house, I watched the fast progress with
the paling. The elderly carpenter also made a trellis for the roses
and a small summerhouse. He painted it all bright white, and
afterwards he painted the house in the same color.
One day I pulled in to the side to really admire the paling. The
carpenter had done so well a job that my eyes almost welled up with
tears. I could not tear myself away. I stopped the engine and went
over and touched the paling. It still smelled of fresh paint. I
could hear the lady was trying to start the lawn mover in the back
garden.
"Hello!" I shouted and waved at her.
"Well, hello!" She stood up and wiped her hands in the apron.
"I -- I -- came to see the paling. It is beautiful."
She smiled. "Come and sit down on the veranda, and I will tell you
about it."
We went up the back stairs, and she opened the door; it squeaked
like the door in my home as a child did. In the kitchen were some
leftovers from a meal that had been cooked with fresh vegetables from
the garden. We walked across the worn linoleum and the wooden
floor to the veranda in front of the house.
"Sit down in the rocking chair," she said smilingly.
I was filled with joy from sitting here on the veranda, drinking ice
tea, with the beautiful white paling around me.
"The paling is not there for my sake," the lady explained me in a
matter-of-fact voice. "I live alone. But so many people drive by
every day, and I thought they might be glad to see something really
nice. People see my paling and wave. A few stop like you and come
up to the veranda to have a chat."
"But weren’t you sad when they expanded the road and everything
changed so much?"
"Change is a part of life and takes part in making us who we are.
When something we do not like happens to us, we have two options:
to become a bitter person or to become a better person."
When I said goodbye, she said, "Drop in again any time. And leave
the gate open. It looks more friendly."
I carefully left the gate open and drove on with a new sensation
inside me. I could not tell what it was, but I could feel the thick
stone wall around my angry heart crumbling away. And instead a pretty
white paling was built. I decided that I would keep the gate open for
everything and everyone that came my way.
-- Marion Bond West |
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