A Picture in a Wallet

Today I was going through some old time-worn items stuffed away in the top drawer of a top-heavy oak bureau. I managed to throw out items that might have collected cobwebs had they not been enclosed in that drawer for so many years. So many now-worthless objects that I was caught between feelings of loss and self-congratulation for at last overcoming the hoarding instinct as I decisively de-cluttered my life, jettisoning item after useless item.

 Then I came upon my late wife Yvonne's wallet.

 "This shouldn't be too hard," I thought. "Just a bunch of expired credit cards and other meaningless memorabilia." I decided to shred the credit cards, and otherwise dispose of all but the last Driver's License Yvonne had posed for. I thought it would be a fitting way to hold on to her memory just a little tighter.

 But as I removed the license, I found, carefully protected behind it, an old picture of our grandchildren, Luc (or Lucas, as he's called today) and his sister Peyton, taken sometime around 2008.  It was then that I felt the loss again. Yvonne passed away almost eight years ago. These young faces are how she is remembering them beyond the veil of death. She was never given the gift of time to watch these precious young children grow into adulthood. The thought took me down a bit, and I felt like weeping, but managed not to.

 How melancholy we feel when confronted by the pain only love can bring. But the experience made me more resolute in seeing that all my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are looked after and cared for while they're here. We never know what tomorrow holds, but I believe it carries with its untold outcomes no reason to fear, only more hope in facing the future with faith, meekness, and the courage that God alone gives us.

 These kids remember and miss their doting Grandmother. I remember and miss my wife of thirty years. But comfort comes in the realization that she remembers and misses us as well. Sometime, on some future day we'll have the joy of seeing each other again. But until that day comes, the pain of loss, and the happy memories, will come and go.

 And we'll all hold on just a little tighter.

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