Across the main highway from our church lives a somewhat elderly lady. She lives alone since the passing of her husband a few years back. I was in past years acquainted with them both but have lost personal contact even though she’s still there - only across the highway. I see her from time to time working in the yard (though nothing strenuous anymore), crossing the road to getting her mail, or pulling out of the driveway in her husbands older, but well preserved, Cady. This evening, as I was closing up my office and drawing the blinds, I was taken in by what she was doing. She must have been waiting on a ride, perhaps to her church or to shop. She had her purse and trusty handkerchief in her hands but seemed to have grown tired of standing after a couple of moments. She walked over to the set of brick steps that come down from her small front porch and took a seat – a seat on the middle step. This in and of itself holds no meaning except for the fact that she sat on one side of the step, not in the middle but far, far to one side, up against the rail. If another person had been so inclined, they could have walked right up and had just enough room to sit right down, snuggled up close to her side. Now, I doubt that she was aware of what she had done, leaving room for someone to take a place by her side; no more aware than at dinner time when she leaves the old familiar chair that matches hers slid only part way underneath the aging kitchen table; no more aware than when she leaves empty that same old space in the holder next to where she hangs her toothbrush; or, no more aware than when, though finally having an entire bed to herself, she sleeps on the same side that she has always slept on; just as though another person, a person loved, no cherished, for so many decades, could take his place right beside her, snuggled up close to her side. How, after all, could any of those spaces ever be really filled; especially if, at least to her, they aren’t really empty. Maybe her ride will come soon.