When my husband, Jerry, died of a brain tumor, I became angry. Life wasn't fair. I hated being alone. By my third year of widowhood, Mt face had become a stiff mask.

One day, driving down a busy road in my town, I noticed a new fence being built around a house I'd always admired. The house, well over a hundred years old, faded white with a large front porch, had once sat back from a quiet road. Then the road was widened, traffic lights went up, and the town began to look like a city. Now the house had hardly any front yard at all.

Still, that dirt yard was always swept clean, and flowers burst forth from the hard ground.

I began to notice a small, aproned woman raking, sweeping, tending the flowers, cutting the grass out back. She even picked up the litter thrown from the countless cars that whizzed by.

Each time I drove past the house, I watched the rapid progress of the picket fence. The elderly carpenter added an overhead rose trellis and a gazebo. He painter it all snow-white, and then the house to match!

One day I pulled off the road to stare long and hard at the fence. The carpenter had done such a magnificent job I blinked tears away. I couldn't bring myself to leave. I cut the engine, walked over and touched the fence. It still smelled of fresh paint. I heard the woman trying to crank a lawn mower out back.

"Hi!" I called, waving.

"Well hey, honey." She stood up straight an wiped her hands on her apron.

"I - I came to see - your fence. It's beautiful."

She smiled. "Come sit on the front porch, and I'll tell you about the fence."

We walked up the back steps, and she opened the screen door; it squeaked like the long-ago screen from my childhood. The kitchen was strewed with remains of a fresh garden-vegetable supper. We walked over worn linoleum, across wooden floors and out to the front porch.

"Have a rocker," she said, smiling.

I was suddenly overjoyed that I was on the porch drinking iced tea with the marvelous white picket fence surrounding me.

"The fence isn't for me," the woman explained matter-of-factly. "I live alone. But since so many people come by here, I thought they'd enjoy seeing something real pretty. People look at my fence and wave. A few, like you, even stop and sit on the porch to talk."

"But didn't you mind when this road was widened and there was so much changer?"

"Change is part of life and the making of character, hon. When things happen that you don't like, you have two choices: You get bitter or better."

When I left she called out: "Come back anytime. And leave the gate open. It looks more friendly."

I carefully left the gate ajar and drove off, feeling something deep inside me. I didn't know what call it, but I could picture the hard brick wall around my angry heart crumbling. And in its place this neat little white fence was being built. I planned on leaving the gate open for whatever or whoever might come my way.