By Mack Williams
For the Salisbury Post
There was a certain place of business I always passed on my walk, which became a place of business no more. The building’s owner faced foreclosure, so the renters, who ran a business in the building were evicted as a result of the foreclosure. The renters’ artistic signs advertising lessons in yoga were replaced with a sign much less esoteric, stating simply: “For Sale.” The only part of the previous sign that remained was the street address number.
I passed by one day and saw the renters packing up their belongings. A portion of the yoga business’ signs, somewhat transcendental in nature, had been removed, as if what had once been “holistic” was fragmenting.
Not long after, I heard the renters, who were still several weeks away from their last day, were allowing a temporarily homeless woman to stay in the space.
In their charity toward her, they were evidencing more of the New Testament teachings than was the bank that was foreclosing on the landlord. They were keeping the letter of the Scriptures in not doing unto others as had been done to them.
That was some time ago, and when I pass by now, I see no lights inside. Hopefully, the homeless lady has found a home, and the business that was once there has found a home as well.
The building is all but abandoned and the curtains and blinds are gone. No grass is being mowed and no leaves have been raked or blown. The color of the grass is quickly approaching the same shade of brown as the dead leaves.
I saw something alive as I walked past the site a few days ago. Pushing up from the ground and through the leaves was a great number of lilac-colored flowers that evidently bloom in the fall. The structure had once been a house and, judging by the flowers’ placement, they were probably planted some time ago by residents, not tenants.
Those residents, owners and tenants have all left, but the bulbs remain.
The life within seems to have been more easily uprooted than the life without.