The whirring of the chainsaw as it sliced through the center post made one thing clear: There was no turning back. 

The wooden beam crashing to the ground, swings and monkey bars clanking together as they settled against the grass, made it final. 

I remember distinctly the week that the swingset arrived. It was the kind of birthday gift particular to a certain period of childhood, the kind parents spend hours piecing together, knowing just one squeal of joy will make it all worth it. 

For hours two adults toiled in the June heat, our daughter circling, waiting for the moment they could climb up on a swing and scream “Push me, Mommy! Push me, Daddy!”

There were hours spent pushing those swings. All too quickly the need for a push faded away, those swings powered by little legs pumping their way to high flying freedom. 

Summer after summer, that swingset played host to hours of joy and laughter, standing strong as first toddlers and later elementary schoolers visiting for the day or the weekend clambered up its ladder and flew down the slide. 

It served its job as primary entertainment for countless kids at birthday parties, playdates, and cookouts. 

It provided a place to escape for the child of the house on hot summer nights, the tiny wooden clubhouse a spot to watch the fireflies, the swings a spot to sit and dream. 

It earned its place in dozens of family photographs – kids hanging upside down from the monkey bar, kids standing triumphant at the foot of the slide, kids barefoot and flying up, up, up toward the sky. 

And then it stopped. 

That circling toddler grew up, grew too tall for the tiny picnic station, too busy to while away an afternoon in the clubhouse. 

For years now that swingset has sat empty, and we’ve pondered what to do. Friends have vowed to swing by and take it off our hands, promised they’d take it apart in our yard only to piece it back together in their own. None have followed through. 

Lichen coats the rails now, moss carpeting the step ladder. A garden trowel abandoned in the clubhouse has begun to rust, and the tiny picnic spot has filled with overgrown weeds. 

It was time for it all to go … all except the memories.