LEFT ALONE, I'D GET LIKE...ACK!

Yes, we remembered those nasturtiums in the yard. My younger sister and I, in our junior high years, would sneak up on the rooftop with our guitar and ukulele and sing for hours, to those flowers.

At the end of January, when my sisters and I were all together again in Okinawa, we went back to the place where the old house used to be. It was difficult to even find the road that turned into the street the house was on. It's so narrow now. Before, there were two huge tombs on one side and a car wash on the other.

But now, one of the tombs is completely gone, and the other is so unkempt, it's apparent that the custodian found need himself for a tomb too.

All talking stopped when we saw the structures in front of us. There were no flowers brightening yards, but weeds fighting each other, and no rich, dark soil, but hard, dry concrete with sand and crumbling rock.

Now I see why Mommy spent hours weeding, trimming, fertilizing, caring for the yard. If she'd left it alone, it would've looked like what we were looking at.

Sometimes I wished God would leave me alone. I hope He never grants that kind of wish.