A few weeks back, my family arrived back home after a long week of travel hither and yon. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that my whole preconceptions about my neighborhood had changed while we were away.
It’s amazing how quickly I’ve become used to this place. My mother, on one particular visit, once exclaimed to me that she half expected the cast of the Andy Griffith Show
Shortly after our trip, I was walking the dogs down their usual route, when I happened to look over, and saw that one of the houses just two blocks down the street had been gutted by a fire.
I was floored. Windows were knocked out and plywood had been posted over the gaping holes. Black scorch marks crawled up the walls. Apparently it had been an electrical fire, and fortunately no one was hurt. But it’s the kind of thing that you just don’t expect to see on your street. And certainly not on mine.
I thought about taking pictures of the house for this site, but it seemed too glaring…too personal. They still had police tape up to warn people away.
My surprise continued a few days later. Again, I was walking the dogs. By that point, the wreckage had become almost normal. I’d often see the owners sifting through this and that in the house, trying to reestablish their shattered lives.
And then one day, the house was gone.
Gone, completely. A huge crater stood in the middle of the lot, with construction equipment looming over it. I never heard it happen. Never noticed anything unusual the day that they did it. A house that had stood in the neighborhood for who knows how long was gone.
It felt less wrong to take pictures of the site at that point, but laziness won out, and I delayed.
And then the crater was filled in. Now there’s just black dirt covering the site of the former home. Trees still ring the site. A swing still sways gently in the breezes. There’s just a house-shaped hole in the horizon.
It’s sad and frightening. That’s why I’m closing with this picture on the left. I didn’t find the flowers in that particular lot, but some day that scar in the neighborhood will be healed, and flowers such as these might bloom.
Life goes on. And even the timeless change.
