First in a Series of “Answers to Your Prayers”

It’s mid-November in Frederick County, Maryland. It’s your birthday, and here you are riding in the death seat with your son in his 4-wheel drive monster on the way to work on Connecticut Avenue in DC. He forgot your birthday, sure, but that’s OK, for it was the first “early for the season” snow and it was bound to be a killer of a commuting day, so forget the birthday stuff already. You’d been sick enough of taking the train from Brunswick….the Metro from Gaithersburg….the bus from Mt. Airy….and even driving your own little Honda station wagon, that you agreed weeks ago to accept your well-meaning son’s offer to share the commute. How much worse could it be? So you close your eyes (this helps when your bumper is kissing the tailpipe in front of you) and blessedly doze off……to a reverie of when Junior was a kid pedaling his souped-up Schwinn down the bike path, under the banyans, on his way home from school for an afternoon of fishing in Coconut Grove, Florida.

And the rest is history.

Fourteen years later, all that now seems like a different type of dream, one you left behind, with nary a regret. Your first drive into a little enclave in Osprey, just south of Sarasota, totally lost, where the incredibly lush vegetation—so much like “the Grove” and equally close to saltwater—provided the real clue—you knew you’d found your spot. It didn’t matter that you were not to actually live in that setting for another two years—you knew you’d be back. It took you a long time to find where to plant your roots. But they’re there to stay.

Posted by:Carolyn Kenney