Some mornings the Coffee Cup is louder than a freight train.

Other mornings, you can hear your own memories. This was one of those mornings. I was looking out the front window when Hattie came by with the coffee pot.

“What’re you lookin’ at?”

I nodded toward the little white house across Centre Avenue. “That swing.”

She followed my eyes. An old wooden porch swing was moving just a little. Not enough to squeak. Just enough to remind you the breeze hadn’t forgotten it.

“You know the folks that live there?” she asked.

“I knew the folks that used to.”

She poured my coffee. “They moved?”

I smiled. “No. They finished.”

For a little while, neither of us said anything. Curtis Pope looked over the top of his newspaper. “I remember him.”

“So do I. He sat out there every evenin’. Without fail. Rain? He’d move a little closer to the wall. Heat? He’d wave a fan. Cold? He’d wrap up in that old Army blanket. But he was always there.”

Hattie looked back out the window. “I don’t think I ever saw that swing empty.”

“You probably didn’t.”

Funny thing about porch swings. You don’t really notice them while somebody’s sittin’ there. It’s after they’re gone that the swing gets heavy. I remembered drivin’ by that house a hundred times. Sometimes he’d wave. Sometimes he’d just nod. Sometimes we’d never say a word. But somehow, the day felt more normal because he was there.

Hattie asked quietly, “What happened to him?”

“He got old.”

She smiled. “That happens.”

“It surely does.”

“And then one day, the swing kept movin’. “But he didn’t.”

The three of us sat quietly for a minute. Outside, a young mother pushed a stroller past the house. She never looked at the porch. I wondered if she’d ever know somebody had spent twenty years waving from that swing. Probably not. That’s how time works. It keeps moving. Even when we’d rather it waited a spell.

Curtis finally folded his newspaper. “You know what I miss?”

“What?”

“People sittin’ on porches.”

I nodded. “We used to know our neighbors by the sound of their laughter. Now we know ’em by the sound of their garage door.”

Hattie smiled a little. “I still sit on my porch.”

Curtis looked surprised. “You do?”

“‘Bout every evenin’.”

“What do you do?”

“Mostly… I wait.”

“For what?”

She shrugged. “Somebody to walk by.”

I smiled. “Do they?”

“Sometimes. And if they don’t, I still get to watch the sunset.”

Funny thing about an empty swing. It isn’t really empty. It’s full. Full of conversations. Full of grandchildren. Full of sweet tea on summer evenings. Full of dogs sleeping underneath. Full of stories nobody ever thought to write down.

Outside, the breeze picked up again. The swing moved once. Forward. Back. Forward. Back. Just enough to make me smile.

Hattie followed my eyes. “What?”

“I don’t reckon that old swing’s lonely.”

“No?”

“No. It’s still doing what it’s always done.”

“What’s that?”

“Waiting for somebody to come sit a spell.”

She smiled. “I reckon that’s what porches are for.”

I looked back toward the little house. Maybe she was right. Maybe old porch swings don’t miss the people who used to sit in them. Maybe they simply keep rocking. Believing somebody else will need a place to rest before long.

And if that’s true, I reckon they’ve understood hope all along.