Matthew Lyle Landsman

Hi Boo…I just went to the bank and got out a few of the dollars the job put there. I noticed the avenue by my house was full of cars and folks walking to an unknown destination.  It had to be more than just a yard sale as the volume of the pilgrimage was too large. I saw an estate sale sign as I rounded the corner and headed to the bank.

I walked over there after I got home…to a place a half a block away at the end of a cul-de-sac, nestled among tall trees and rounded drives. I have lived in the neighborhood for eleven years and had never ventured, nor even really looked down that drive. I figure these folks had wanted and earned their privacy. Yet
I ventured down the drive today, curious…

I’m sorry I went.

I feel as though I violated sacred ground…felt my skin crawl a little.  I saw the books and tools, the diversity of life…the places traveled, the art, the worn pan in which she cooked his eggs…the coffee cup over which a soul
pondered the morning and day ahead…the sources of music that may have
accompanied private dances.  I trod upon worn floors that kids, and likely grandkids, had learned to crawl, then walk upon.  I saw a corner with an easy chair and a desk where a lifetime of bills were paid…a collection of ancient tools and instruments with which a living was made.

I saw a house…a beautiful home…a place where lives and loves had grown.  I saw a collection of dusty testimonials to the wondrous circle of life which we are all in the midst of…and I felt both full and empty. I tiptoed through the rooms, aware I was practically treading upon a grave…or an impromptu shrine that was being looted by bargain hunters…

And I thought of my own family…the great house and home my parents shared and cared in…and I thought of you too…then I kept my money where it belonged, tucked away…and instead said a prayer that in the end, my parents’ lives are honored and validated with a little more dignity…

I walked away from that house a slightly shaken and wiser man…and finished the coffee with which this whole journey began.

Matthew Lyle Landsman

August 22, 2008