They say the only thing constant in life is change.  I guess I never really thought about that until recently.  As I sit here on the porch listening to the rain, I look around and I realize just how much my life has changed over the past two years or so.  My home has changed, my family has changed, my friendships have changed.  They also say change is good...but damn, is it hard.

I walk out the edge of the deck and look out into the yard.  It's quiet, peaceful...maybe a little too quiet.  In my mind's eye I see the past...the way things used to be here at the Crick (yes, crick...not creek.)  I see the old house in the yard.  I see Uncle Andy washing his car and tending to his gardens.  I see Earl puttering around in the sheds along the crick bank and LaRue and her owls.  I look down further and I see Anna Mae sitting on the porch of her little house.  I walk down past Anna Mae's and come to Pap & Tine's house...and I go in and "steal" an iced oatmeal cookie from the green cookie jar that Tine always had filled on the table.  Mom is out back hanging clothes telling my brother to be careful on the swinging bridge.  Dad is sitting at the kitchen table having coffee with Uncle Louie while Crystal and I are riding our Big Wheels around lane chasing after Virginia on her big bike while Daisy is calling after us, telling us not to dare go out that lane!  I see Julie, Randy, AriElle, Candy and Brandon visiting Earl & LaRue.

For awhile life is as it was and then all is quiet again.  I look around and it's just me.  The houses are gone, and those who once lived here are now just a memory.  All that's left of those days is Uncle Andy's house, remains of the crumbled root cellar and an old dog box at the edge of the woods were Hound Dog once lived...and then there's me, one of the last few things that remain here.  Like the old wishing well in Uncle Andy's yard, I stand alone.  I never knew it was possible for a place once filled with so much love to feel so empty.  It's an emptiness that I can't explain

Then I hear the crick rolling by, the wind blowing through the trees and the rain on the porch roof and I'm reminded that I'm not alone.  Mom is in the wind that brushes my face.  I hear Dad's voice in the babbling of the crick.  All those that have gone before me from this place are still here.  They are here in my heart and as long as I'm here, they will be too and just like the crick, I'll keep rolling along.