Just You Wait!

It was the end of another grey winter day, and I was staring gloomily out the window at the falling snow. I'd written a long list of things that needed doing, but instead I'd spent the day puttering and wandering from this to that. Another day gone, and what had I done? Nothing.

I'm useless, I grumbled as I made my way upstairs to bed. I'm an old woman with bad bones and a bad attitude, watching the world crumble into chaos, unable to do a thing to stop it. Even on my best days, all my good intentions never come to much. So here I am, lugging my old bones to bed at the end of another wasted day. Useless.

I tossed and turned for hours that night. But when I finally fell asleep I had a wonderful dream that took me back through time, to long ago when I was young. I dreamed of the morning I saw the grand old Lady make her last great voyage, rolling down Stevens Avenue.

I'd forgotten her, over all these years. It was back when I was in my twenties, living in Minneapolis. I worked downtown, and every day I walked or took the bus through a parade of neighborhoods. Some were prosperous, with lawns and trees, but most were crowded and noisy, with rundown apartment buildings and graffiti-covered walls.

One block, though, was different. There were four houses in a row, all built in the old Queen Anne style, with porches and bay windows. They were the last remnants of the old neighborhood, I suppose, when all the houses had lawns, and when old elm trees shaded the quiet streets. Three of the old houses were tired and shabby, with sagging porches and peeling paint, but the house on the corner was different. She reminded me of a prim, proud old lady, looking at the world over her glasses. So that's what I called her: The Lady.

The Lady was proud and tall, painted a crisp blue with white trim. There were curtains at every window, a flowerpot by the front door, and even an old wooden swing on the porch. Flowers nodded along the fence every summer, and the handkerchief-sized lawn was trim and neat. She was perfect, from the red knob on her turret to the brass letterbox on the door. Someone loved that house, and it showed. I passed it every day on my way to work, and I always mentally tipped my hat in tribute.

But behind her the skyscrapers loomed, and the politicians were making their plans. The crumbling old apartment buildings had to go, they thundered. A new convention center was in the works, and they called meetings and brandished drawings on easels of huge auditoriums and posh hotels. Slowly the demolition spread as the "upgrade" devoured one block after another.

It was only a matter of time. Still, when I read the announcement in the morning paper, it was a sad blow. What a loss, I thought.

As I walked to work that day, I slowed my steps as I approached her block. All four houses had bright yellow signs taped to the glass of each front door.

In front of the Lady, an old woman was working. She was digging up flower bulbs, angrily shoving the trowel into the dirt and tossing the bulbs into a basket. I paused, wanting to say something, anything.

"Good morning." She paused and peered up at me, pushing a lock of grey hair out of her eyes. "Good morning to you, too."

When I complimented her on her flowers, she stood slowly, grimacing, and thanked me. I introduced myself, and she shook my hand. "I'm Evelyn - Evelyn Chambers," she replied crisply. I took a deep breath and gestured to the sign on her door. "I'm so sorry about this."

Her response surprised me. She put her hands on her hips and glared at me.

"Those idiots! They think they can just throw their weight around and draw up their papers and take away people's homes. Well, I'll show them. No one's going to tear down this house. No, sir! My grandparents were married here. My parents grew up here. My husband proposed to me on that very porch swing!" She gestured to it with a flourish of her trowel, sending dirt flying. "No one - no one! is going to tear down that house! Just you wait - you'll see! I have plans!" And with that she knelt down again with a grunt and went back to her digging.

Well! I thought. I glanced up at those skyscrapers and thought, good luck with that.

Soon after that I left town for a while, back home and far from the city for a few months. But that old woman's words nagged at me, and I remembered them when I got back to town just a few days before the demolition. That Sunday morning I got up extra early. Just a short walk, I thought. I want to swing by the Lady one last time and say goodbye.

It's so sad, I mused. Such a pity. Then I turned the corner - and there she was.

The grand old Lady, hoisted onto rollers, pulled by a huge truck, was slowly making her way down the street, rumbling along, stately and dignified, as majestic as a royal ocean liner setting out for its last great voyage.

I stood and stared, and then - well, if there had been anyone around that morning they'd have thought I was crazy, because I waved and whistled and even wept, and as she passed, I snapped her a smart salute. There should have been a brass band, high-stepping in time, with a chorus of trumpets and twirling batons, but it didn't really matter. It was enough just to see that she was on her way. Evelyn had found a way to save her.

Where she got the money to move it and where the two of them ended up, I don't know, but I can picture her somewhere, on some quiet street, proud and strong and safe at last.

I woke up smiling, remembering that morning and the lesson I learned that day so long ago: the strength of the old, who know who they are and what matters and refuse to give up. Maybe it's time, now, all these years later, that I start living that lesson myself.

So I'll get up yet another day, haul these old bones out of bed and face an uncertain world with my hands on my hips and a glint in my eye. Maybe I can even do something important with the time I have left, and sail into my last days defying fate, making this last chapter the best of all.

Just you wait!