Swing

Sometimes you make a decision and at the time, it seems like the right decision but then afterwards, when it’s too late, you realize it was possibly a mistake.

We came home from Italy last night and while we were away, our gardener dismantled and took away the old swing set that has stood in our backyard for the last 22 years.  It was an old wooden swing set, with ladders, a slide and two swings.  The ladders were broken and truth be told, it was probably a hazard and had become somewhat of an eyesore…but we still swung on that thing!  Every summer I would still go into the backyard and take a seat on one of the swings and just swing.

Why do things like this make me cry?  My girls are gone, one married and living in California and the other away at college but I feel like I have just ripped a piece of their childhood from their hearts.  Could we have not just left it there?  Was it really that bad?  I briefly looked through my photos to find a picture of the swing set in its happier days but I am not finding one.  I mention this to my daughter and she tells that me she has one “because I knew this day was coming” she says.  She texts the photo to me and underneath it writes “R.I.P”. 

We have happy memories of that swing set.  In the summer time when the girls were little, my husband would place a wadding pool at the base of the slide and the swing set was magically transformed into a water park.  I remember at least one occasion in which I think every kid in our development was in our backyard enjoying our backyard water park.  Why does life have to change, why do we have to grow up?  Was there really anything wrong with having this beloved eyesore in the backyard?

The slide had not been used in years, the rungs that went across the top were splintered, the ladder was missing several rungs, long since weathered and broken and the climbing rope was tattered and frayed.

But we could still swing…