This warm summer evening
I walk with my aging father.
Along the cottages in the lane
where he has spent his whole life.

We pass the door of what
was once his mothers house.
The one where he spent his childhood.
There sitting in a chair on the stoop
is an old lady her ankles
covered in her thick stockings.

She looked so much like grandma
The veins showing through them
earned from countless years stood
in the kitchen preparing food
and sustenance for her ten children.

I remember her only briefly now.
she has been gone for so long.
But as I look at my father
his eyes mist
as I can almost feel the need
for him to run to her.
To kiss her creased face
and run his fingers
through her silvery hair.
To hug her tiny frame and say
Oh Mom I loved you so much.

Instead as he looks wistfully
into the old familiar doorway
he tips his cap and smiles softly
almost whispering
Good Evening Mrs Turner.