Perhaps not many of us have a literal front porch, yet don’t we all sense some kind of yearning for one? Front-porch experience is
way of being reborn by being present with yourself or someone else. My granddaughter clamors onto my lap, puts her chubby dimpled hands in my hair, and looks curiously at me with huge moonlit eyes. I want to move slowly and giggle loudly and hold her every minute I can. She carries within her this hankering for front-porch time as the day creeps to its close. She knows the front porch is all about letting go of things: the day’s business, emotional burdens, unresolved family issues. It’s about saying nothing, saying everything.
“Oh, look at all the beautiftil flowers.” That’s what my mom’s elderly father said just before he passed away on his Missouri front porch. Was he speaking of my grandmother’s garden or of far more beautiful flowers that no one else could see?
When I pass away, I would like it to be like my grandfather, surrounded by beautiful flowers of my life—Tirza, Leyah, Lissa, and Mira—and I hope it will be on my own front porch.