It was time for a new set of flowers at Angi’s grave. I brought a yellow rose (her favorite) each for Matt, Laura and her mom, Harriette. The little white silk flowers are from me. They remind me of the baby’s breath in her wedding bouquet.

I’ll take back with me the sun-faded yellow roses Matt first placed there, the hydrangea (another of her favorites, and mine) that someone else brought, and the two bright purple blossoms (WCU purple!) that another kind soul added.

I don’t visit long there. It doesn’t feel like that’s where she is. When the kids and I were in Eureka Springs Saturday through yesterday, it felt more like she was there. I could see her smile in all our old favorite places.

Some of them are gone or going. Both Christmas stores are gone now, and the toy store where we used to take our children is going out of business. Things change. Things pass. But some never really change … like the feel of the town itself; the unique personalities of the residents; the heritage it tries to maintain.

I realized this weekend that I first visited Eureka Springs thirty years ago. Steam engines were still running on the railroad. The tourism boom was just beginning its resurgence. Bed and breakfast homes were opening like the flowers in the homes’ gardens come springtime.

I’d like to retire there someday. I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least three or four more years of career work left in me, and it makes more economic sense to retire then than now. I really enjoyed cruising and walking the streets, looking at the houses for sale, getting a sense of the land and the market.

If it’s possible — as John Denver’s song phrases it — to go home to a place you’ve never been before, I think it will be one of the homes in Eureka Springs.

Somewhere I can plant real flowers in a garden.

Angi loved them so much.