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Here are a few thoughts about my father and what he will leave behind.
When this house I am in was built, before I was born, it was provided with a bituman driveway and a narrow concrete footpath running alongside and down the side of the house. It forked off at a right-angle at the front to lead to the front steps.
There was also a narrow concrete path leading from the back-porch steps in a straight line to the door of the garden shed, no further. It also diverged at a right-angle just at the end of the back-porch, and paralelled the back of the porch and laundry to connect with the end of the straight line of the footpath coming from the front driveway.
Dad has added much since then: Two big square slabs at the back of the house, with a cover over it; He widened the path leading down the back of the laundry by more than its original width; He continued the driveway with a slab for a carport; the garage slab was laid by the garage builders, but Dad laid the slab between the garage and the carport; He laid a footpath leading from the front entrance of the garage up to meet with the one leading to the shed. On one side of this path, between the shed and the garage, are two slabs - one against the shed wall, the other against the garage, for a guinea pig cage and an aviary (both now gone), and later another slab covering the space between.
On the other side of this same path are another two slabs running along the length of the path for another two aviaries (also both gone); The path leading to the shed now extends at an angle to the clothes-line, with a triangular offshoot to signify where to stand when hanging clothes; Also from the door of the shed the path leads along the side of the shed and around in an angular arc to the back of the garage, down a couple of concrete steps and to the backdoor of the garage. On the side of this path is another, much larger cement slab, marking the place where the plant shadehouse once stood.
There is, finally, another path leading along the back of the house in the other direction and ending just short of the fence. There are also odd spots that have been filled in between intersecting slabs and paths, and all this activity has only taken place in the privacy of the backyard.
Dad doesn't have his name carved in stone, but he has left it in concrete.
© Lynette
F. Watters
To contact me, my email address is "lunetta777" followed by "@bigpond.com",
less the quotation marks (of course)
