Which Comes First?

Looking out my dining-room window on the barren March backyard, I saw the string hammock we purchased some 20 years ago, swinging forlornly between the two trees to which it is attached. Through the decades it has gone grey, but today I thought, Oh, I should really get a new hammock. That one looks pretty used.

Believe me, it has been used. Nine grandchildren, the oldest of whom is now 21 and the youngest of whom is now six months, have all swung to and fro in the hammock in the backyard.

I didn’t think about it any more. Come summer when the trees, bushes, grass and flowering plants are all green, when the four bright-blue pillows are bouncing on the string hammock, I’ll forget how forlorn and worn it looked in March. Because notes in my own grandmother’s hand, written to record some of the history of her family, indicated that her mother—my great-grandmother—had died after a fall from a hammock, I always check to make sure the hammock is solid. This grey hammock is sturdily attached to the two trees that guard it; not a string is frayed, not a knot untied.

It would probably serve us well for the next decade.

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