I caught muted glimpses of my family’s estate through spacious openings in a mass of scraggly trees and bushes. My father had always kept a beautifully, well-maintained woods. Now it was an overgrown timber – branches, limbs and whole trees cluttered the ground. Many of the trees, once fully clothed in shades of green, had deteriorated with age. The wooded area was dense, dark and foreboding.

Then, as if the house knew I was returning, it appeared in a shroud of gray clouds. Through a clearing in the trees I caught the full, breathtaking view of the tall, ancient brick and stucco house. As the carriage turned down the long lane, now little more than a path of over-grown grasses and weeds, I could see that time and Mother Nature had taken its toll on the property. Many of the buildings on the estate were in rubble and the horse barn was missing its roof – the slate tile lay all around the weathered building in broken shards. The driver opened the door for me and I stepped out in front of the house. Before me stood the sad remains of my parents, Thomas and Agnes Grafton. And I, Catherine Grafton, their only surviving child, had returned to the home of my youth.

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