A Summer Friend

When my new bride Karen was a child, she spent a summer with her grandparents in a quaint little cottage in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. She told me once that it had been the best summer of her life, and she had so many stories about the wonderful things she experienced during that time.

One of those stories had always stayed with me. It was one of the first she told me about that summer. She'd sit out on the porch every morning, and every morning a doe would come out of the woods and stand there looking at her. She'd just watch my wife as if she were contemplating approaching, and every day she would - a little at a time. Karen said she'd talk to the doe, telling her not to be afraid, that she wouldn't hurt her. The doe seemed to understand, and every day kept coming closer and closer while she spoke until she was close enough to touch, something that Karen never attempted for fear of scaring her off.

Then one day, the doe stopped coming. For a week, my wife would go out to the porch hoping to see her woodland friend, and every day of that week she sat there disappointed and afraid that something had happened.

The week passed, and it was time for the summer to end and for my wife to go back home to start school. As my grandparents were packing up the car, Karen walked around the perimeter of the yard, peering into the woods to see if she could see the doe one last time. After she had given up and was walking back to the car, she heard a rustle and there she was! Another rustle, and out came a small fawn taking its place alongside its mother. They both stood there at the edge of the woods and watched as my wife made her way back to the car.

"Goodbye," my wife said and waved. She got into the car, and both animals stood watching as the car pulled away as if they were saying goodbye as well.

Karen told me that she was certain that the doe had come to trust her, and that she knew that she was leaving and had wanted her to meet her fawn. She said that was the best memory of that summer and one of the happiest of her childhood.

That's why when I came across that painting in the antique shop, I knew I had to buy it for our new home. I mounted it on the wall in the breakfast nook of our kitchen, so that every day when my bride had her morning coffee her Adirondack friends would be there.