Yellow House and Yellow Flowers

Lately I've been thinking of houses and so perhaps that's why I started thinking about the house Kevin lived in. I don't think so, though, since I do go by it every day. There are different owners now but I'll always consider it to be Kevin's house. The house is yellow. I don't know whether Kevin's father had it painted or the previous owners had painted it yellow. At one point I couldn't understand the color as it really isn't "Sherman Hill" color, in my opinion, from what I've seen of the houses that have been restored. But that's okay. I was told that the color yellow was or meant joy. Whether or not that is true or not, I don't know, but it certainly seems that yellow is a bright sunny joyfull color. It has always been a favorite color anyway so it brings me joy to go by the yellow house on the top of the hill. Sometimes anyway. Other times it brings sadness as my first visit out to see Kevin was spent at that house.

I can hear Kevin telling someone, I forget who, about how I was paranoid about being in bed at 7:00 p.m., and this is true thanks to my bus driving and early hours, but yet I drove straight through from Schenectady, N.Y., to Des moines and got here at about 7:00 a.m. the next morning. The door was open and so I went in, scolded Kevin for leaving the door open while waking him up, I'm sure way too early, and then settled in for a few days visit with Kevin and Des Moines. Kevin had told me about the house and what they had done in their few years there. I stayed in the room facing East, as I mentioned, and got to see a beautiful view of the Capital in the evening as well as the morning. Kevin, at that time stayed in the back room facing West. All in all my trip toward the end of April, Spring break for the N.Y. schools, was really neat as Kevin showed me around and I got to see a little bit of Des Moines before my move out here.

Last Fall while taking my walk and thinking about Kevin I spotted some beautiful yellow flowers. Ever since Kevin's memorial service I've been more aware of flowers and colors. That morning my remembrances of Kevin were particularly strong as I've mentioned they are sometimes more so than at other times, I don't know why. This was one of those mornings where it just seemed like something came over me. I was kind of gloomy and then, all of a sudden, felt elated. Afew minutes after that I spotted the flowers which I found out later were Dahlias. Hugh yellow Dahlias. I thought they were the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen! Seriously. The color, the size, I don't know why but they were unbelievable. It was like I fell in love with these flowers for some reason. I don't know what they had to do with Kevin but they were connected in some way to a very wonderful, warm, memory of him. I don't know whether he liked flowers, although I do know that he gave some to a very special young lady in his life, at one point, and she has not forgotten it, but I think, being an artist he would appreciate beautiful, vivid, colors flowers or not.

So once again I have this memory which at least for today has become very intense where I have connected two very special things - Kevin's yellow house on the top of the hill and the beautiful yellow dahlias down the street in a neighbor's yard, but both bringing me a little bit of joy concerning him...