Debra Lejeune

The Eyes of Love

As the dust rose from the tires of the departing hearse from Whitman’s funeral home as it headed down the drive, I stumbled away from the big house with its wrap-around porch and the swing where my grandmother had spent hours telling me about her life growing up on the farm as we shelled peas and strung beans. With eyes blinded by tears and the bright sunlight, I picked my way across the yard to the old barn. The animals had long been moved to the big new barn and the place where Grandma had taught me to milk a cow while the barn cat wove in and around our legs was empty now, except for the mice who nested in the hay bales that had remained, serving as a reminder of the activity that had once imbued the place with life.