Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Headstall's Reflections - 43. Chapter 43 Pieces Left Behind
Headstall’s Reflections
Chapter 43 Pieces Left Behind
There’s an old basketball hoop
Above the garage doors
With peeling orange paint
Bent from the weight
Of exuberant slam dunks
An old feed tub sits
In the corner of an unused stall
Holding up hockey sticks
Both tall and short and in between
Some broken, some whole
A piece of tattered green
From an ancient vinyl tarp
Still roped to a tree trunk
A fluttering remnant
Of a daughter’s magic fort
Four names carved
Into silvered barn board
Almost hidden by vines
Child-like scrawls
Two feet from the ground
Graves of favored pets
Cats, dogs, budgies, a turtle
Under the canopy of maples
A holy place to my children still
Its occupants treasured for all time
Everywhere—everywhere I gaze
Memories and scattered pictures
I can hear the laughter
The squeals and the barks
And peace washes over me
Children grow up
And they find their own ways
As it should be
They may disappear for a time
But they leave some pieces behind
I can be lonely, yes
But how can I truly be alone
When I can trace their lives and mine
From the old sneaker in the tree
To all the smiles bestowed upon my heart
- 14
Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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