These days, when I am toodling down Spain Road from Juan Tabo and my truck passes her old street, I often forget to look, like I used to.

Then, I would take a glance to see if her garage door was open, to see if her car was out in the driveway, to see if the sprinkler was sprinkling under the big tree in her front yard.

She liked doing things in her garage, and she liked keeping up her yards.

Now, I am not sure if the turquoise trim around the garage door that she added- a nod to Northern New Mexico stylings- remains, or if her once green front lawn is now brown and patchy, of if there is any life in the verdant backyard garden she had so carefully tended.

Someone younger is in the house now- someone who, when the home went up for sale in an overheated market, had some premium dollars ready to throw down quickly so that they could get into it.

After we had it cleaned and repainted and meticulously prepared for a new owner, the house was quickly bought, and just like that, her home was no longer in our hands.

We saw evidence that suggested its new occupant was younger, and a smoker, and we thought of what that probably meant for the freshly renewed house and its perennially lush backyard- and then we reminded ourselves. She didn’t live there any more.

Such is life. What was known is no longer. Time reshapes reality like waves scrubbing sand on a beach.

That was three years ago this month.

Three years after whatever happened to her in the house, and then the ensuing weeks of silence that punctuated an unsung exit.

I may not remember to eye her old house when I drive by its street, but that does not mean she is out of my mind.

I still have storage boxes of unsorted items of hers stacked in a short wall in my front room, waiting one day for review. I need to do that soon, I tell myself weekly, and then I go on to do whatever is more important at the time.

More importantly, I still have the Siamese, who has been a resident of my house for three years now. When I listen to him, and feed him, and chase him, and hold him, I am reminded that she chose him to be hers one day long ago, and that she fed him, and chased him, and listened to him, and held him too.

And talked to him also, just like I do.

Hi, Buggy. Just thinking of you more lately.