The magenta of the redbud trees has finally given way to their spring cloak of green. The apple blossoms have faded and yellow roses are blooming. The azaleas dripping with flowers appear to have had bright pink paint poured on them.

Our home nestled in its little crook in the road has once again become a hidden sanctuary. The trees that surround us and leave us naked in winter have now blossomed out and hidden us with their bounty. We can’t see another home or weekend cabin. We feel as though we are here alone. Early on a Saturday or Sunday morning before the sun has broken the sky, it is so quiet you can hear the water softly lapping at the lakeshore. No one moves about just yet.

We sit in the patio sipping steaming hot coffee awaiting the first signs of life other than our own.

This is the Plum Point we love. This is the place we came to 20 years ago and made home.

The myriad colors of spring are so spectacular that they overload the senses. We planted forsythia, magnolia, crepe myrtle and rosebushes. We planted Jasmine, Confederate and Carolina. We planted azalea and Japanese maple. We have an apple tree that produced fruit its first year. We have moved and mowed and raked and mulched until we have become satisfied to just enjoy.

My parents built this home at a time in their lives when the future was uncertain. My father was sick and could not work at his normal physically demanding job anymore.

He came here because of his love of this lake. My mother did not share his love for Plum Point but she loved him. They sold their home in Memphis and bought and moved the house we are in now to this location.

My father toiled almost single-handedly to make it a home. He cleared out the inside to just a shell and started from scratch. He built more on to the house and changed the floor plan. It cost them more to move the house 2 ½ miles than it did to buy it.

My father was a skilled man. He seemed instinctively to know how to do anything. But he was a sick man crippled by a disease that had no cure. He was in constant pain and the medications that he was forced to take to just make the day were slowly eating away at his insides. He would eventually need kidney dialysis to stay alive.

At times his pain made him hard to live with but he forged on with a desire to finish the house debt free. He accomplished that goal and lived less than ten years more. Less than ten years to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

He wouldn’t landscape because he found it too difficult to take care of a yard that was full of flora.  But I think he would love what we have done, the changes we have made inside and out. I didn’t inherit his knowledge and skills and we have had to hire out most of the labor inside. But we couldn’t love it any more. The ideas were our own.

Every week as I trim and mow I wonder if my Dad and Mom are looking down at us and smiling. I hope so because we love our home here. Just like Daddy did.

You get the picture.

(Contact Sherry at swhcsc@wildblue.net)