May 24, 2024

Milestone

Friday morning was finally here. I woke up at 5:30, excited about the day. Today, my wife had a rotation exam in Durham and a few meetings to attend. After, she would come home from her last extended absence. It was a landmark day we had awaited for almost two years. On top of this, it was Memorial Day weekend, so we would have three days off together.

I got busy cleaning the house and doing my chores. This morning, the rain was pouring down. The sky was dark, and the wind was blowing the treetops around. Although it kept me inside the house, I enjoyed the sense of calm it brought. I loved storms and, this morning, I sat down at the dining room table to watch it while writing.

My wife called me a few times. Once when she woke up, another time from breakfast, and again when she arrived at her school for her exam. I was always a little nervous for her on test days. Over the past two years, she had taken over fifty major exams, and each one of them was unquestionably difficult. Her daily discipline to sit down and do hard things impressed me.

I took a shower and got ready for work. At 10:45 AM, my wife texted me. She was done with her exam and she felt good about it. We decided it was a great night to go to Wilson for brinner. Breakfast for dinner was the best.

A few minutes before my wife drove up, I went outside to sit on the front stoop to wait for her. I always wanted her to feel welcomed when she arrived home. I sat down, feeling a little impatient. The sun popped out, and its heat bared down as I intently watched the app on my phone. Then, like clockwork, I saw her black SUV pull up the dirt road. She smiled big and waved as she drove up to the house.

When she stepped out of her vehicle, her appearance took me aback. She was wearing a new dress with her hair pulled back in braids. I wondered how I ended up with this beautiful woman. We embraced in a long kiss. She was home; for good.

While catching up outside on the deck, we smelled something sweet in the air. The floral scent piqued our interest. The chinaberry and Chinese privet blossoms had all died out. What was this fresh and familiar smell? After a few minutes, we realized some of the mimosa trees on the property had bloomed. The mimosa flower was pink, delicate, and looked exotic; it was my wife’s favorite tree flower, and they smelled amazing.

We walked to the front of the house to go see the flowers and my wife brushed the delicate petals against her face. Life was feeling pretty good, and even the property seemed to welcome back the queen of the house. Underneath the mimosas, another small white flower was growing on short, brushy trees. They smelled great, too.

During my lunch break, we walked into the secret entrance into the forest to check the feeding area and pull the SD card from the trail camera. We took the memory card back inside the house and connected it to my tablet. There were fifty or sixty videos, mostly of squirrels and one giant raccoon rummaging through the food. There was also a lone doe munching on the watermelon. Then, we found three videos that were recorded on May 20th.

The first video captured a clear shot of a small fawn with its deep red coat covered in white spots. It was poking around the food, seeing things for the first time. Its little legs were still shaking. We had a new fawn on the property.

The other two videos showed a fawn together with its mother. The two fed in the area cautiously. I later determined the fawn from the three videos was the same one by matching a pattern of white spots on its shoulder that looked like the number six written in Japanese. I called the fawn Roku, the Japanese pronunciation for the number. The single fawn meant it was likely the mother’s first pregnancy, as deer will commonly have twins and sometimes triplets on subsequent deliveries. The baby deer was so small and cute.

Since I was off on Monday, I worked hard to get as much done as possible before the workday was over. After, we left the house to drop off the trash and then headed to dinner at the Wilson Cracker Barrel. It was time to celebrate. My wife found out she passed her exam. With her 3.9 GPA in medical school, it was not surprising, but it was always a relief to receive the test results. We ate a hearty dinner and caught up on our time apart.

When we got home, I cut some wood and built a fire in the Solo Stove. It had been a long time since I sat out by the fire. Winter was long gone, but tonight, we relaxed together and celebrated the passing of a special milestone.

The night felt just like old times. We had festive music and an ice cold IPA. The dogs were busy chewing away on firewood, and we talked excitedly while I sat in a chair and my wife rocked in the hammock. It was a perfect homecoming and all of nature welcomed back the rejoining of a happy household. The mimosa flowers scented the air while a small fawn grew strong in the forest. The cicadas made their first appearance, and the fireflies flashed randomly across the night.