I'm not sure how to write this. Someone who reads it will
think it ridiculous. I can't help that.
It's about the line of nine lanterns along the outer wall of
the garage at the front of the house. Between the wall and along the concrete
walkway that leads to the front door is a two-foot space. When we first built
the house, we had flowers there against that wall. I had zinnias and marigolds
and columbine that climbed high on the wall. I liked the color and the evidence
the flowers gave that I actually cared about flowers and about the outside of
my house. This lasted about three years.
The neighbor across the street had a cat. The cat would come
over, dig in the dirt and use my flower area as a toilet. The digging was bad
enough, but the smell was awful. I wasn't happy. I sprayed stuff that was
supposed to deter animals, and I poured Clorox around the area. Nothing worked.
So I gave up on having flowers. Wayne covered the ground with plastic and
gravel and installed the lanterns.
It was a good thing, although after the neighbor moved and
took the cat with them, I wanted to tear out the lanterns and plant something
alive again. But I didn't do it. I got so I counted on the lanterns to come on
every night--as the timer bid them to do--and go off in the morning. It was
automatic, a nice line of small lights every night. Wayne set the timer. If a
light occasionally burned out, I replaced it with the tiny bulbs I bought at
Home Depot.
When Wayne died, my first thoughts were not of the lanterns.
But I did still count on their light.
I figured out how to set the timer--I'm not helpless. But
this summer something happened. I don't know what. The lights stopped coming
on. I fiddled with the timer, thought I had it fixed, but no. A time or two the
lanterns would come on as they should, but not always. A few times they came on
in the morning and went off at night. Not hard to fix, you would think. But
over a period of several weeks, nothing seemed to work automatically. I would
manually turn the lights on in the evening and off next morning. Sometimes I
didn't want to bother with it. So the place was just dark. And I was very
frustrated.
Then one night a few weeks ago the lights came on at around
7 o'clock. They went off again at 7 the next morning. A fluke, I thought. I
hadn't turned them on or off, and I hadn't touched the timer in more than a
week, so I figured it was some little happy accident. Next night at 7, the
lights came on, off in the morning. Hmmm. Well, it can't last. But it has.
Those lanterns come on every night at 7 and go off every morning at 7. I still check
every night, just to make sure, and because I enjoy what seems to me a small
miracle. Maybe even a tiny miracle.
And that's the part someone will find ridiculous, but I say,
"Think what you want." For my part, I believe Wayne stopped by and
fixed the thing. For me he did that. I can get rational and say it couldn't be,
not possible, and I certainly don't know how such a thing could happen, but
still, I believe it. They were his lights, and I was pretty unhappy that I
couldn't make them work. So he fixed them. Why not?
And what will I say if they stop working? I don't know. I'll
deal with that if it happens. In the
meantime, I'll tell those Rake-up Boise folks who are coming in two weeks,
bless them, not to touch my lanterns.
