I heard the old man’s steps shuffle into my garage, slowly, cautiously. “Are you okay, Ma’am?” I was sitting in a laundry basket, legs draped over the sides.
On my face, a pair of spectacles that were not mine, through which blurred sight but not memory. In my hands an Oregon driver’s license, my thumb tenderly tracing over his faded picture, his military ID balancing on my knee. His wallet and keys beside me on the cement floor, washing machine swishing in the background like the memories in my head.
I’d been looking for a box of pictures and instead, opened a storage tote with a Ziplock bag, gallon-sized, still holding his personals from the hospital that day, everything he had set aside for me to hold during his surgery.
Whatever pictures I had been searching for. Whatever schedule or task list I’d been working my way through. Whatever sun was shining or glorious day – it was instantly gone, and I was somewhere else, 22 years of core memories microfiching through my frontal lobe.
Even now on the cusp of seven years grieving. Even now with so much of God’s favor over my life, providing for me in ways I’d all but lost hope.
Even though I woke up feeling blessed – something I have not been able to feel, much less utter, since my husband left this planet.
Even though life is good, and my days begin with thank yous to God.
Thank you, Lord, for everything you are doing inside my personal world. For the signs, for the confirmations, for the peace, for the river made flow in my desert, for the path you have formed in my wilderness.
Thank you for everything you are doing behind the scenes to prepare a way, to mend my broken heart, and to restore this life of mine. Thank you for things returned – for once more feeling joy, for discovering love when I thought it not possible, for comfort gifted and purpose reassigned, for the grace of provision, for still waters and green pastures that fill my canvas of life.
Even in all my blessings – my world fades when I run into your belongings, once-mundane artifacts turned precious.
Even the old man who shuffled into my garage concerned for the woman sitting on the floor, recognized my state of grief intertwined with nostalgia in those small relics that now represent a man loved, lost, and mourned.
I never acknowledged the old man. And he quietly shuffled on.
Grief waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows.
I am blessed yet cursed. Overcome with joy and burdened by sorrow.
I am falling in love. I am afraid. I am ready, and not ready.
I am God’s.
I am a hundred pieces that belong to a hundred things. I am scattered yet collected. I am beautiful. I am old.
I am the ocean tides. I am everything the full moon beckons. I am all the wonder of the enchanting night sky.
I am sitting on the floor wearing your spectacles.
I am falling in love.
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