To the young man who ripped a lovely tall perennial crowned with little bells (I don’t even know its name; I called it “Bella,” Italian for beautiful) from my front yard on Leschi Drive Monday, June 9 at about 5:15 pm:

I just happened to be looking out my front window when you, who I’d never seen before, about 13 or so, with curly light brown hair and freckles, wearing a denim and tan jacket stopped at one of the corner flowerbeds, leaned over from your bike, and snapped the solitary nearly four-foot tall Bella at the base!

Perhaps it was so unique-looking you wanted to have it, and when I rapped on the window you threw the evidence on the ground and took off up the hill.

I followed you on foot and saw you hiding in a driveway behind bushes. As you walked your bike further up the street, perhaps thinking I didn’t get a good look at you, I called out to you, “You know why I’m following you. Why did you do this?”

You responded “What, are you into nature?”

When I replied, “Would you like me to tear something out of YOUR yard?”

You then said, “My yard is a mess.”

As angry as I was, I felt a twinge of sadness for you. And when I said I needed to speak to your parents, you said OK, and then sped down the street away from me.

And now as I write this, the rain, like teardrops, fall where Bella used to be.

Jo Hellmann

Oak Harbor