She stood looking out the window each day as the children next door came home from school. The house was old, left to her by her parents. She had no siblings so the children in the yard became hers in her mind. She loved them from afar but I think by gesture and word, they knew it, even though she never said the words. She had a good vantage point from the second floor window. Most days the four of them never knew she was there watching over them. Oh she was persnickety for sure and sometimes if they banged the gate going into her yard for their ball, that went over the fence, she would come out, and with a stern face, she would remind them to be gentle with the gate. This is the way it went all the years they were growing up.
She doesn't live there anymore, in fact she doesn't live anywhere. She passed on a few years back. Some one else has the house now. They are not as attentive to it as she was. The lace curtains are gone and sadly, so is the crocheted shade pull. That era has passed. The kids are all grown now and on their own. They don't live in the house next door anymore either..but each time they pass her house and look up to the window, they think of her and smile.