But sometimes.
And this was one of those times.
I bought a small house on a quiet street in Sarasota in the spring of my 78th year. It had a garden somewhat overgrown and a screened porch where the evenings were long and the light came through the trees in a way that reminded me unexpectedly, the first time I noticed it, of the old maple on Birchwood Lane.
I planted a tree in the corner of the garden. Nothing so ambitious as a maple. A citrus. A Meyer lemon, which blooms in late winter and fills the whole yard with a fragrance that is among the best things I have ever encountered.
I sat on my porch on a Tuesday evening in March with a glass of iced tea and a book I had been meaning to read for years, and I thought:
This is mine.
All of it.
The difficulty that produced it and the peace that followed.
All mine.
That was enough.
More than enough.
Here is what I know now that I did not know at 76.
Age is not weakness.
Grief is not the end of strategy.
And the people who count on your silence are almost always undone by your voice.
I am not a remarkable woman. I am a woman who decided, when it mattered most, to pay attention.
What would you have done in my place?
Would you have taken the $800,000 and been done with it?
I’ve wondered.
I don’t judge the answer.
If this story stayed with you, leave a comment, subscribe, and thank you, truly, for listening.
