Powerful Memories

My husband and I lay in bed this cold Saturday morning and reminisced about our childhoods.  Our laughter soon brought our children who wanted to be included in this mornings celebration of the past.  Their childhood is so different from ours just as our childhood differed from our parents and grandparents.

Both my grandmothers told stories of horse and buggy rides.  I remember how interested I was in the story of how my Grandma Laux (I called her, Gram) took the long buggy ride up to Jordan, (a settlement at some distance from home especially by horse and buggy).  It was there, at a dance, she knew that my grandfather would be a permanent part of her life.  He marched through WWI and 5 children up to the winter of 1929.    He died that winter from complications from pneumonia.  In her story, he was young and handsome and life stretched out before them in a straight line. 

Once, my life stretched out before me in a straight line.  Now,  it throbs like an EKG, jagged and severe but  still it throbs. I am alive and I can still steal moments like this morning, where past and present merge and memories are shared.  Happy memories that provide a warm barrier from the yawning darkness that swims the grid behind the jagged line of life.

We lie there with our warm, happy memories.   The people that we once knew and loved were alive with us in that moment.  I tried to indulge myself in the sweet misery of longing but the memories pushed it back.  All was right with a world in which so much was still so wrong.

A sweet day began.  Breakfast tasted better than usual, the coffee more satisfying.  I went through mundane tasks quickly and efficiently.  In a room, that I have been avoiding, piles awaited dispensation.  I have not wanted to let the things go.  This morning for the first time in a long time, I made progress.  I tidied up the chaos, putting things in boxes to be sold.  My attachment to the things had made this task a dreaded chore.  This morning, I was able to see that it was not the things themselves but the experiences and the memories that those things point to.  All things must pass.  I knew this to be true.

The past serves us best when it lights the way to tomorrow.  All the disappointments, the crises, the failures can serve me well if I let them.  This morning, they taught me how precious the people in my life are and have been.  They taught me that I am a survivor and often a clever one. It taught me that I stand on the shoulders of clever survivors. They taught me that my life has been filled with a wealth of experiences.  They taught me that people are always more important than things.

This morning, I gave the finger to poverty.  Money, I have little but life has made me rich.