It’s late. Everyone’s gone off to bed, but I’m still here. Everyone else gets to relax, but I remain standing. I’ve stood in this same place since the sixties. Other walls in this house have come and gone, but I am the front wall. I see the street outside. I see the lamp posts and the bats. I see the wind, I see the rain. I see all of nature. I see the front room inside as well. I see a glimpse of the kitchen. I see the closet. I see the first several steps. I have a limited view, but a great one. I can’t see many entire rooms, but I can see parts of every section of the house. I see all I need to see. I go so unrecognized, but I hear everything anyone says in this house. I’ve watched two generations grow up in this house. In the sixties, I was nothing more than a lonley pile of bricks and sheetrock. But one day, a young Couple decided to build the house of their dreams. I was delivered to an empty lot and put together. I watched many other walls go up. I watched the ceiling be built. I watched the floors be installed. I watched the happiness of progression and the frustration of setbacks disappear and reappear on the faces of that Couple. Finally, they gave me a lovely pale brown coat of paint. I was finished. After months of chaos, this house was built. The Couple was nice. The Couple was great in fact. I loved them. I loved protecting them. I loved watching their lives change. There was one change that I did not like. One day the Couple came home. They had been gone a few days and I missed them. I was glad when I saw their little yellow car pull into my driveway. But something was different. Something had changed. They carried this noisy bundle of blankets into the house. It screamed. It cried. It woke me up in the night. I couldn’t stand the Thing, but for some strange reason, the Couple loved it with every last ounce of their hearts. They were always gentle with it and gave it lots of love and affection. They never yelled at it or slapped it like I wanted to most of the time. The Thing was so annoying! If I had ears, I would have plugged them up. The whole house agreed with me, except for the Crib. The Crib tried to convince us all that the Thing was darling, precious, and oh so cute. The only element even sort of cute about the Thing, was its laugh. When it laughed I smiled on the inside. The whole house was obviously smiling at the joy of the Thing, but we tried to hide it from the Crib. We couldn’t let the Crib know that it was even partially right. Over time, the Thing grew. It learned to move on its own. That was a fiasco, especially for the floor and stairs. I felt sorry for them, but I got the worst of it all! One fateful day, the Thing grabbed a marker and colored on my beautiful coat of paint. Oh, I was so mad! I could have fallen over and killed the Thing just then, but the Woman came into the room, and I didn’t want to harm the person who brought me into this world, so I stayed standing. The Woman was also very angry at the Thing. I believe that was the first time she had yelled at the Thing. It broke the Woman’s heart, which made me sad, I loved the Woman, and the Woman loved the Thing. That was the moment I realized I loved the Thing. The Thing grew and grew. I loved the Thing. I watched it laugh, I watched it cry. Before I knew it, the Thing had grown into a lovely young woman. I didn’t know what to think. One day she was this annoying little bundle of screams and slobber, the next she was graceful, kind, and thoughtful. Her every movement filled the room with love. Her soft words echoed through hearts as if they were as loud as trumpets playing a beautiful song. There was no silence when she was near, even if she didn’t speak. Her very presence radiated music into the ears of those close enough to hear. Everything from the way she spoke to the way she acted even to the way she looked was gentle like a soft breeze, yet as powerful as a mighty gust or tornado. How she did it, I still to this day do not know.

One day, she stopped coming home. She just stopped entering this house; stopped opening the door, stopped calling out to the Couple that she was home, stopped bringing joy into my life. When she was gone, I couldn’t bare it. I couldn’t stand not seeing her smile light up the room, even when the lights were off. It was a burden that I carried between my bricks. The misery of missing her filled every crack between my windows and the cement poured between my bricks. I could have fallen over from all of the extra weight of her absence, but I stood standing, holding on to the hope that one day, my beloved Thing would return. There were so many days I thought she never would, but finally, one day, one splendid, wonderful, joyous day, she did. Her laughter and tears of happiness flooded out of her. If I was an object with tears, I would have shed them, but cement is very hard to melt, and it was the one thing that had kept me standing during her absence. I was so happy when she came home, until I saw it, the person who had stolen my darling Thing from me. You see the problem with being a wall, is not being able to follow. If I was a tire, I could have rolled off and followed her to him. I could have ran him over and never had to worry about my Thing. If I was an animal I could have followed her to him and attacked him, but no. I am a wall.  I stay in one place and see only the happiness and the sadness of one place. I have no control over what happens in the outside world. The stuff that happens outside of this house, is the same stuff that makes me want to tear myself down and throw my bricks at people. She met him at a place that was very far far away from me, a place out of my control. He took her away and stole her heart, kicking me and the Couple out. He made her fall into a trap called love, the hardest trap to get out of. He ruined my life, and now she’s bringing him inside of this house? That made me mad. I didn’t like it. How could she? How could he? How? Why?

Eventually I got over it. He made her happy, and that’s what truly mattered to me. He cared about her and she cared about him. It made me happy to see her happy, so I became more merciful to him. Not too long after she had returned, she disappeared with her Lover again. The house felt so empty. Just the Couple, the other furnishings, and me, but even they seemed so far off and distant from me. I was lonely again. Years of loneliness and weather wore me down. I didn’t know how to react to the Couple’s sadness when I didn’t even know how to deal with my own. It seemed to rain more often than not when the Thing was gone, but maybe it was all just part of my imagination.

Years, many years later, changes happened again. Boxes were packed, many of my friends in the house were taken away from me. The Couple moved out. Did they not like me anymore? Why did they leave me? Why was everyone leaving me? First the Thing, then the Couple? I felt as if my world was ending. Strange men came in and took away the boxes. The Couple followed them. I didn’t know where they went, all I knew is that they were gone. The house was empty. It was quiet. It was dusty. It was all a little too much. Everything I knew had been taken away from me. I became a heartbroken mess. I didn’t like it. In fact, I hated it, but one day, things changed again. The door flew open. The smile beamed into the house. Everything was okay. I wasn’t sad or alone any more. There she was. There they were; the Thing and her Lover standing inside the front room, the giant truck outside. Boxes were brought in. The house was put back together, but not like before. I was given a new coat of paint, this time a soft, pea green that looked like the leaves on the trees outside. There was different furniture and different arrangements, but the same family I had loved. The Couple was nowhere to be found. I heard something about “a peaceful farm” for them, but I didn’t know what that meant. All I knew was that the Thing was back home and her Lover had made this place his home along with her. They brought more Things into this world. None exactly like their mother though. The first was a boy. He had his mother’s soft eyes and his father’s definite nose. He was rowdy, unlike the Thing, but he had her infinite compassion and endless love. Next came two Things. The Twins, as they were called, were silly and adorable and had their mother’s gentleness. They looked unlike either parent, but very similar to the woman in the Couple, their grandmother, with their fiery red hair. The last Thing was a Miracle. Her first days were spent far away from me. She needed oxygen that I, as a wall, could not replicate for her. If I was a plant, I would give her my life. Her lack of breath kept the Thing and the Lover at the hospital in hopes that she would survive. The Couple, my Couple, came back to visit. They took care of the other children in the Thing’s absence. Finally I got to see the Miracle. She was smaller than any of the other Things I had seen. The Lover could practically hold her in one hand. When she entered the house, everyone stood quietly, listening to her little heart beating. She was hooked up to monitors that screened her heartbeat and nasal tubes that maintained her life. She slept horribly, but rarely ever made a noise. The other Things had all been noisy. They cried and screamed and laughed. This Miracle only inhaled and exhaled. The breathes were often faulty and irregular, but they were there. The Thing and her Lover loved their children. Before, I never understood why anyone would love a noisy baby, but after seeing the Couple raise the Thing into such a beautiful and kind woman, I love this family and all of its noisy, but wonderful Things. I love the dog that the Thing and the Lover adopted and brought into this family. I love the Couple that moved back in with their daughter after retiring and gaining health problems in their eighties. I love the Boy. I love the Twins. I love the Miracle. I love the Lover. And I love the Thing. I love everything that the Thing has done for me. I love every odd gift and every sweet smile. It saddens me to think that one day, all I will have is the memories of the Thing and the many marks she has left on me and the rest of the world. She was once a sweet and innocent little girl. Now she is a lovely mother and wife, teaching her children to become good people in this world because someday, all that will be left of her will be her reflection through her children. She has taught them how to be great. Whenever I see them, I can’t help but remember when the Thing herself was one of them. Someday the children won’t even be here, but their reflections will, and then their reflections’ reflections. There will be many generations of grandchildren that the Thing will live through, but I won’t get her back once she is gone. I will love her as long as I have her, and then her children. I would die for this family. I am the Wall. It is my job to protect this family’s fragile bones and impenetrable hearts. Their love for one another is stronger than the concrete between my bricks. This family has put me together. This family has showed me love. This family has showed me how to love. This family is my family and I wouldn’t replace them for the world. I will try to protect them from every storm; weather, emotional, physical, and mental. I will take every storm; it’s what I do. I am the Wall. I protect.