ON THOSE STEPS

"There's something about sitting alone in the dark that reminds you of how big the world really is..." 

-Kami Garcia

If those steps could talk.  Not forgotten. Just far away. Hopefully those steps will remember us……... 

I was told my grandmother liked to pick Roses of Sharon on hot August days. She’d toss them into canning jars filled with water, and my mother placed them around the old house. 

My grandmother was blind by this time, I heard. Totally blind. But she could feel the flowers. Trace their petals.

She liked to sit on the steps before sunset. They all stayed long after, into the night when fireflies twinkled.

My mother said the fireflies stopped coming years later.  But there was a year they danced for them .  

My mother  loved those late summer nights on the steps. When there would be a chill and she’d have to get blankets for everyone. And hot tea all round.

The year of the fireflies, was the year ivy dripped like an umbrella, over the windows. My father always meant to cut it down. He never did. Long after he died, years later, my mother finally had it cut down. We missed it.  Like the fireflies.

On those steps, they sat and talked of the day.   My Parents liked to pull the old radio to the open door, and crank it up to hear music.

They’d sit on the cement steps,  tapping their toes.  Talking about this and that. Or that and this. 

My grandfather, apparently, was fond of talking about the farm days.  My mother and grandmother discussed canning recipes. My father  smoked. Sometimes the dog sat next to him and he’d say “ Good dog. Good boy…”

If those steps could talk, they would have spoken of wise and wonderful things.  

Some nights, my parents  brought  out the rocking chair,  a small chair, and  blankets for my grandparents.

My grandmother loved to be bundled up , in the old red maple rocking chair, at the bottom of the stairs. My mother’s  dog cradled at her feet. She couldn’t see him, but she’d touch him and whisper “Good dog. Good boy….” 

My father sometimes read to her, sometimes with a flashlight,depending on how dark it got.   My grandfather sat near her, instead of on the steps. He’d hold her hand in his and smoke his pipe into the night. 

At one point, my father tried to fry an egg on the steps. It ended up being a gooey mess. Everyone laughed. The dog cleaned it up. “Good dog. Good boy…” my mother said to him.

I don’t think those steps realized  how important they were. To listen to stories. To hear  crickets sing with the fireflies. To be together.

My mother said, in later years, how they liked to just sit  in silence. They’d watch my  father try to catch fireflies.

Those days now gone. The steps belong to someone else. I hope in the expanse of their lifetime, they take the time ….. 

On those steps. Those lovely gentle  steps. Maybe the fireflies will return....  

Photographs 2022