When I think of Rod’s property, I see my grandmother as a young woman driving a horse and carriage across acres of green farmland in Lithuania. This image may be the origin of the “Carriage House” of my dream. Rod told me about his property in a phone conversation we had in 1992. “Most of the buildings are over a hundred years old. Before the woods took over, the whole island had been farmland.”

My grandmother and her family came to the New World and were very disappointed.  They had heard that the streets were paved with gold. It’s just as well they left since the two sisters that stayed on were lost during the war along with their families. My grandmother kept the pictures of her two lost sisters in the bureau drawer. She would sometimes bring them out and wipe away a few tears with her handkerchief