Sunday Evening

"I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety." — Psalm 4:8

It is Sunday evening and the week is done and it was a good week, which is a thing I do not say lightly because this was the anniversary week and the anniversary weeks have not always been good.

The roses are still on the table, lower now, starting to drop their petals on the wood. I will leave them until they are done. There is no reason to throw away flowers that still have something to give.

The anniversary itself was quiet. I sat at the table Monday morning with the roses and the coffee and I thought about Earl and I did not cry, which is not a victory and not a defeat. It is where I am with it. Seven years from the loss and fifty-two from the beginning, and the beginning is what I think about now more than the ending, which is its own kind of mercy.

Becca called this week. She does not call on the anniversary because she and I agreed years ago that the day does not need to be a day everyone remembers at me. She called Thursday, about something else, and we talked for a while and neither of us mentioned Monday and that was right.

The fireflies came Saturday night. The garden needs rain. The children are off for summer and the fellowship hall is clean and waiting for September. Father's Day is next week and I am not going to think about it tonight. Tonight is for the porch and the dark and the sound of the creek and the end of a week that asked something of me and found me able.

Lord, the week was enough. Goodnight.

Goodnight.