Forever Free

How can non-living objects capture pieces of our mind and place anchors in our hearts? I have been wrestling with this question all weekend as one item on our long weekend agenda was to “destroy” (Lexi’s terminology-she has had a strong desire to break/destroy something for the last three years…wonder why??) the playset that has occupied a space in our backyard for over nine years. 

Nine years…that is a longer time than Zach had on this earth. How can that be? The reason it was time for this destruction was the dreaded home owner’s association police discovered our secret after nine years -we had never asked permission to place this playset in our backyard - the crime of all crimes! According to our neighborhood rules and regulations not only can the structure not be seen from the front of the house, BUT it also cannot be seen by our neighbors - something I can tell after nine years they have had trouble dealing with…NOT.  Our options - take down the playset or plant very tall bushes around it to take away the eyesore from our neighbor’s view.

We knew the day would eventually come the playset would be taken down, but I guess we would have preferred to pick the time ourselves. So, not wanting to become known as deed restriction violators, we marched to the back yard under Hurricane Gustav overcast, cloudy skies, armed with hammers, sledgehammers and saws to begin the destruction. 

I could not help but replay the day Dirk proudly completed building this playset - Zach, (almost two) and Lexi (almost five) could hardly contain their excitement as they climbed the ladder to the play house, slid down the slide and sat in the swings ready to be pushed to the moon! The hours we spent sitting in the sand box with neighborhood friends and taking turns swinging high enough to touch the tree leaves were priceless. 

I climbed into the play house for one last look around. Seeing all the kids names…seeing Zach’s name I thought of the last time he came out to play. It was after many months of treatment, he was weak and very skinny, but wanted to join the kids on the swings. I remember being so excited seeing him reach his left had up and grab the chain as I started to push him since he did not often use his left hand after his tumor diagnosis. The tears stung my eyes as I climbed down with a heavy heart.

All these thoughts chased themselves through my mind as Lexi began to swing the slegehammer against each board and they fell, one by one to the damp, muddy ground. I snapped pictures of all the pieces of board that Zach had etched his name or initials on…not wanting to let them go, but knowing holding on to them would really make no difference. It would not bring him back to me or hold the memories any tighter in my mind. We worked all afternoon tearing down a playset that could have easily stood ten more years. Occasionally it would rain, but we kept going. Dirk asked if I thought the rain might be Zach telling us he was sad we were tearing the playset down. I said no, hoping he was off doing something unbelievably exciting instead of watching our sad destruction progress. 

Finally, we succeeded in our mission - after one skinned finger for Lexi and a busted blood vessel in Dirk’s hand - the playset was now a meaningless pile of boards. I wonder if the laughter of nine years will echo from them as they lay in a trash pile somewhere? If it does, I know Zach’s will be the loudest…he was always the best belly laugher of the bunch. Oh, how I miss him…Nine years should not be longer than a lifetime.