AN OPEN GATE FOR 2016
mataxe
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"The Lady With the White Paling" taught me to leave the gate to life open... When my husband died of a brain tumor, I became very angry. Life was not fair. I hated being alone. After three years as a widow, I walked around with a face like a stiff mask. One day, as I was driving down a busy street in town, I suddenly noticed a new paling, or picket fence, that was being erected around a house that I had always admired. The more than 100-year-old house was a faded color of white and had a large veranda. It once lay secluded from the quiet road. But then the road was widened, traffic lights were put up, and the small town began to resemble a large city. Now the house had almost no front garden left. But the garden down to the road was always neat and clean, and the flower beds were teeming with flowers in all the colors of the rainbow. I also noticed a little lady with an apron who raked, swept, and mowed the lawn in there. She even picked up the litter people threw out when they hurried by in their cars. Every time I drove past the house, I watched the fast progress with the paling. The elderly carpenter also made a trellis for the roses and a small summerhouse. He painted it all bright white, and afterwards he painted the house in the same color. One day I pulled off to the side to really admire the paling. The carpenter had done such a good job that my eyes almost welled up with tears. I could not tear myself away. I stopped the engine and went over and touched the paling. It still smelled of fresh paint. I could hear the lady was trying to start the lawn mover in the back garden. “Hello!” I shouted and waved at her. “Well, hello!” She stood up and wiped her hands in the apron. “I — I — came to see the paling. It is beautiful.” She smiled. “Come and sit down on the veranda, and I will tell you about it.” We went up the back stairs, and she opened the door; it squeaked like the door in my childhood home. In the kitchen were some leftovers from a meal that had been cooked with fresh vegetables from the garden. We walked across the worn linoleum and the wooden floor to the veranda in front of the house. “Sit down in the rocking chair,” she said smilingly. I was filled with joy from sitting here on the veranda, drinking ice tea, with the beautiful white paling around me. “The paling is not there for my sake,” the lady explained me in a matter-of-fact voice. “I live alone. But so many people drive by every day, and I thought they might be glad to see something really nice. People see my paling and wave. A few stop like you and come up to the veranda to have a chat.” “But weren’t you sad when they expanded the road and everything changed so much?” I boldly asked. Her reply changed my life: “Change is a part of life and takes part in making us who we are. When something we do not like happens to us, we have two options: to become a bitter person or to become a better person.” When I said good-bye, she said, “Drop in again any time. And leave the gate open. It looks more friendly.” I carefully left the gate open and drove on with a new sensation inside me. I could not tell what it was, but I could feel the thick stone wall around my angry heart crumbling away. And instead a pretty white paling was built. I decided that I would keep the gate open for everything and everyone that came my way. ~ Marion Bond West, Motivational Author of:
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