Just one more day with Dad

I would love to be able to scroll back the years to spend just one more day with my dad. We would go mushrooming, look for fossils, dig for other treasures, and genuinely talk more about his life growing up. I’d also love to rummage through his old shed. Sadly I don’t even have a picture of it but I sure wish I did. It has long since been tore down, but the memory of what it looked like and what it meant to me is forever seared into my mind. 

The shed was in the back yard and didn’t sit too far back from our house. It didn’t resemble anything like the new sheds you can buy today. I loved how it smelled of old wood and oil! The shed had a high open ceiling with rafters and the inside walls were dark wood and unpainted. On the outside it had old wood siding dressed in peeling white paint, and it was adorned with single-paned wavy windows, and crowned with a green shingled roof. I remember a small concrete stoop gracing the front door entrance. 

I used to go out with Dad while he worked in his shed. There was an old wood workbench that he had attached a grinding wheel to. I’d watch him with wonder as he sat there under the window carefully sharpening everything from tools to lawn mower blades. He’d tinker with so my things while out there. He once made me a kaleidoscope. I have no idea what became of it but oh how I wish I still had it! It was amazing. He didn’t make it by using pieces of plastic, but shards of colored glass. Every color of the rainbow! Dad made the absolute best kites too. They had long flowing tails made and knotted together from old torn sheets. My dad could make and fix anything. 

A fenced-in pen also ran alongside the shed for our dachshund Gretchen to use. Dad had ingeniously made her a wood ramp along with a doggy door that came out from inside the enclosed back porch to the outside so she could gain access to the fenced in area. There was some bushes on the far side of the pen that I used as my secret hiding place. I’d burrow in there and think I was invisible from the entire world! I remember one time I sat in there for quite awhile in the company of a little screech owl. Mom didn’t like it much when she discovered a huge hole in the middle of those bushes! There was also a big redbud tree behind the pen. It was a lovely tree for climbing with low-hanging branches. Oh how I loved that tree! And how can I forget the neighbor’s persimmon tree that grew behind our redbud. The ripened fruit would fall into our yard and I’d relish the tasty morsels. 

I was blessed to have a large yard to play in and to have adventures. My folks had lovely flower beds all around the shed and yard area. Some of my favorites were a pussy willow shrub, bright orange poppies, elephant ear plants and purple irises. I used to squeeze the iris buds and a dark purple liquid would ooze out! My folks also grew lovely roses, dahlias, old-fashioned lilacs, ferns and many lovely annual flowers. My dad tended a nice vegetable garden and zinnias and gladiolus grew in straight lines beside the vegetables. It seems you don’t see many grasshoppers any more but when I was growing up, they flourished! I’d see grasshoppers “stuck together” and ask Dad what they were doing and he’d reply “They’re riding piggyback”.  

I could probably go on and on, but this is a good place to stop. So thankful I’ll see both my parents again in Heaven some day.