In return of the cool and autumn-change, Hannah made note of world around. Lawns and lanes of the park became as crowns of the trees above—open and empty, golden hintings in hold of way of before but nothing as summer’s fill and full.
She liked the quiet, when park fell empty. She liked the space, and in her mind and in her spirit—what others in world abandoned—she adopted and imagined as her own. And so, in ate-fall and winters, when she walked the empty lawns and lanes alone—and with new company she kept—for a season, park became her own.
So it was then, November sky of blue, afternoon sun in sharp-point light in illuminating pale boughs of maples and stand of sycamores where fenceline used to be—before the found of river, cow-town that as all the others, in time, modernized into more.
She loved the line of sycamores and always paused when passing by. They reminded her and affirmed belief that, even in modern’s rush and haste, roots and histories can be found—alive and doing well.
Life-stage and age, she thought more and more of roots these days.
Stopping, pausing, she grabbed a leaf from sycamore-fall and placed it in her daughter’s hand reclined in stroller rest: small hand to stem and leaf’s broad spread as tall and wide as she.
Hannah hoped she’d love the wilds and open spaces as she did.
Hannah said a prayer in way she knew—quiet in soul—that, if God were real, she believed He’d understand.
She never thought much on God, but a child changes that. To hold a living miracle, to be revealed a whole new Love, how can one not hope and desire to believe?
And the signs—like histories and roots encountered in the quiet places—that showed and spoke, perhaps He’s there, alive and doing well: loving, gifting, in spite of doubt and unknowing.
Sky blinked to her in her pause and quiet. Perhaps it was but bough in brief break before sun above. Maybe it was sign, speaking, affirming the quiet prayer she prayed; a hope and faith in grow and bloom that she evermore believed.
Hannah smiled on the sun. It flamed and flashed in blink again—sign-speaking to her spirit. Then, with child and miracle in stroll, she walked through park she made her own.
