Just Beyond The White Picket Fence

Everyday for years, I would pass the light blue house ,with the white picket fence, on Baker Street

Everyday, the owner would open the window just enough to let the pie she had baked cool

I loved the smell of those pies, they smelled like home.

Everyday, she would take a pie down to the cemetery and give it to the Gravedigger

When I would ask her why, she said you will understand when you get older

The days and years came and went

I went off to college and the lady still lived in that house

Whe I would come back to visit my family, I would always make sure to stop by the old lady’s home.

I just had to know why she would bring him a pie everyday

Over some tea and cookies, she explained that her late husband was killed in a car accident and that old Gravedigger dug her husband’s grave

Before that, her husband dug the grave for the Gravedigger’s late wife

She continued, ” Everything in this world is interconnected. My late husband used to tell me stories of how the dead would speak to him and tell him about how they died. But, for whatever reason, when I would bake him a pie, the dead would become suddenly quiet...then they would cheer and be joyful. So giving the Gravedigger a pie makes the dead happy as well as everyone else.”

I learned so much from this old lady that lived down the street from my childhood home

She was about sixty or so at the time she explained the pie giving to me

I was just barely twenty years old and somehow speaking with this old lady, I felt as though I had lived for hundreds of years.

The old lady had many wrinkles, pale blue eyes, and white hair...

And yet, had the youngest and purest heart.

After I finished college, I moved next door to that old lady’s house.

And everyday, I would help her share the pie.

....Until one day...

I went to see the old lady, but she was gone...

She had passed away

She left me a notebook that told me all of the stories that she never got to tell me

There were also pie recipes in the book

Mrs. Fondran was a very nice old lady

She cared about others and she taught me a lot about life

She sent me a letter shortly before she died , I recieved it after her funeral, that stated how I was the only one who ever cared about her the way she cared about others

She thanked me for taking the time to help her help others

Somehow even in death, Mrs. Fondran knew just what to say to make everything better

In her will, she bequeathed her home and it’s belongings to me

As long as I continue to help others as she did in her lifetime

I moved into the light blue house ,with the white picket fence, on Baker Street

I turned my house into a sort of homeless shelter so that I could help even more people

Everyday, I make pies for the Gravedigger and the homeless shelter

Pies make people happy...

So I tell you this with my dying breath, ” Spread Happiness not hate.”

That was what Miss Weber told me as she died in the hospital bed

She spent most of her life helping people as did Mrs. Fondran

... And now, I shall Spread some joy to Earth’s population