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SUNDAY JOURNAL

Sunsets shouldn't depend on a mortgage

By NINI COVERT
Published September 24, 2006

I drove past another condominium development this summer. The half-finished buildings facing the street traffic are painted the colors of a brazen sunset, a harlot's version of a setting sun with exaggerated yellows and oranges.

The name of this development evokes a place on the other side of the world, far away from where I live. For six figures, one can live in this golden community, but only a select few can actually see the waterfront.

I turned around and parked on the other side of the road - the tug of something familiar warranted another look. I stared at the businesses bracketing the plot of land and blinked through the glare of my windshield. Then it clicked. These businesses once bordered a mobile home park. I knew someone who lived here. I can't recall her name. But I remember her face and her wounded legs. And now I remembered her home.

Years ago, this was a small mobile home park, thrown together when land here was not scarce. The homes, arranged haphazardly, were mercifully spaced yards apart. Asphalt mazes typically weave through most mobile home communities, but the road in this park was a simple loop. The entrance to the main street formed the top of the loop. The woman lived at the bottom of the loop. If she had been so inclined, she could have jumped a few yards from her front door into Florida water.

When I first met her, the harvest gold carpet and curtains in her home had already yellowed. The double-wide had seen better days and so had this woman. Her genes and her lifestyle condemned the skin of her legs to redden, swell, and, on occasion, burst. She lived alone and could not care for her own wounds, so her doctor would order a nurse to dress them. I was one of the nurses who bandaged her legs in her home.

I enjoyed her company. Sometimes, at the end of a visit, she would walk me to my car, and we would gaze at the water before our goodbyes. I remember the summer heat and the hypnotic lure of the waves, like a million coins dimpling in the light. It's really nice at sunset, she would tell me. The breeze comes in from the water. The lines in her face would lift as she shared this, one of the few pleasures she had. I would leave her home smiling as she waited for the sun's descent.

There is now no physical reminder left of the mobile home park. I sat in my car that day remembering someone who lived there once. Blinking through the glare of memories, I wondered where she views the sunsets now.

Nini Covert, a registered nurse, lives in Largo.

[Last modified September 22, 2006, 09:38:25]