What the Sphinx Knows

The sphinx has guarded my garden for forty-two years, its limestone face weathering as gracefully as I have. My grandchildren think it's magical, and perhaps they're right. This morning, I watched seven-year-old Emma crouch behind its wingy bulk, playing spy with fierce determination.

"Nana doesn't see me," she whispered, unaware that I've spotted every game of hide-and-seek since her mother was small enough to tuck inside the rhododendrons.

I let her win, of course. That's what grandmothers do.

Barnaby, our golden retriever, flopped beside my bench with a heavy sigh. He's the third Barnaby we've welcomed into this family—each one steady as sunlight, each one teaching the children something about loyalty before leaving us too soon. The current Barnaby rested his chin on my slippered foot, and I thought about how creatures enter our lives, love us without reservation, and depart having taught us everything important about presence.

The goldfish pond shimmered nearby. Comet, Butterfly, and Moon glided through water lilies like living memories. They'd outlasted hurricanes, herons, and three different filters. "Old souls," my husband used to say, watching them float through the decades while children grew tall and left, while marriages formed and sometimes dissolved, while the world changed in ways we never imagined. But the fish kept swimming, carrying on.

Emma abandoned her spy mission and joined me at the pond. "Tell me about when you were little, Nana."

I smiled. What could I tell her? That I once played spy behind this very same sphinx? That my father threw pennies in this pond and wished me courage? That some afternoons, the weight of accumulated love and loss settles in your chest like comfortable old furniture?

Instead, I pointed to the sphinx. "That old statue knows all our secrets, you know. It watched me play spy just like you. It watched your mother learn to walk. And now it watches you."

Emma considered this, then patted Barnaby's head solemnly. "Do you think it will remember me when I'm old?"

"Already does," I said, and she nodded, satisfied, as if this were the natural order of things—as if wisdom were something that gathers like morning dew, available to anyone still enough to receive it.