The Little Things
I got a dashcam for Christmas, but that’s not the story, just the beginning. It was too complicated for me to install. I had to hire an expert at one of the big box stores. The first appointment I could get was yesterday afternoon. I made the appointment and waited. When the time came, I drove over, dropped off my car and had time to kill. This is where the story starts.
The big box store was a ways away, in what used to be called a strip mall, in Bee Caves on the side of highway 71. To kill my time, I went for a walk and as is the case in a lot of Texas, there was undeveloped land behind the mall. That’s where I headed, the backside of the mall. As I walked, I made a discovery, which is what happens when you walk. You see things. The thing I saw yesterday was a sculpture park for the citizens of Bee Caves, behind a strip mall, on a hillside. It was wonderfully bucolic, with heavy woods and a pond, mothers and children, and a nice selection of art. It was peaceful.
Finding this new sculpture park was the sort of discovery I would have told my wife about when I got home. I would have made a point of returning with her to see it. We would have talked about the sculpture garden at the MFA in Houston. The new discovery would have made our lives richer. Time together, well spent. But that was then, and this is now. And it’s just me and my solitary memory crowded in with all those other memories, which is fine, I guess, another thread in the tapestry of my life. But I sure do miss my wife and having someone with whom I could share a discovery that happened because I got a dashcam for Christmas.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodby: A Caregiver’s Tale