Births. Deaths. Certainly those.
Celebrations for birthdays, for weddings, for the end of a drought and good crops.
Tables in the yard, laden with food. Tantalizing smells wafting from the kitchen, promising more.
Heartache. Loved ones who went to war and never returned. Arguments and screen doors slamming.
Joyous reunions.
Neighbors helping put out a fire, build a rock fence, raise a windmill, plant a harvest, chase down a runaway cow.
Friends delivering a baby. Providing food and a silent shoulder in times of mourning.
Bicycles and toy wagons littering the yard. A beloved mutt curled up on the porch near the door or sprawled in a patch of sunlit dirt in the yard.
Young couples, just married, and older ones, helping each other up the steps.
The squeak of a porch swing on a summer evening. The smell of a bonfire on an autumn night.
Days when voices and laughter echoed from the windows, open to capture a cool breeze in a stifling Texas summer.
And days like these when silence is palpable...when only memories and shadows walk the worn wooden floors.
I pass this old farmhouse on my way to work and it always starts my mind wondering about its history. Finally, one day, I stopped with my camera...and that's when it spoke to me.
