Our First Date

Our first date was September 17. It was a Friday that year also. The weather was perfectly sunny and crisp. It was a day just like today.

I thought it would be fun to go out tonight and do something sort of special...just a way to kind of remember that evening so many years ago. But life and work adds demands and so we can reminisce in other ways.

I still love to be with him and do things together. It doesn't really matter what or where it is.

That year he had a light blue 1976 Cutlass Supreme. It was a sharp car I thought! Off we went. The sun was setting at a brilliant angle and the sun visors were of no use. I still remember both of us trying to see the road in front of us by shielding the sun with our hands.

He stole my heart and I never looked back! Fortunately he gave me his heart in return!

A few weeks ago one of my boxes of keepsake papers and cards and miscellaneous mementos were ruined by rain and I found them just as they were beginning to mold. There was a very random assortment of things in the box, like school papers written by little boyish hands and letters from family that I hold so dear and words written by special friends. There were cards from when our little girl was born and one of my baby pictures. The rainy wetness in the box had set into mold and my tears began to flow as I spread the papers on every flat surface I could find. I felt the brokenness of the passage of time and the sting of being so busy that I lack time for many things that matter to me. In those moments the essence of everything that the box held, felt dear to me.

The immediate "whys", like why did I move the box where it could be damaged and why didn't I get it sooner and why didn't I have all these things "scrapbooked" like so many of the beautiful ones I've seen, lead to deeper and more silent thoughts and questions of the "whys of life". Most of the "whys of life" can't be answered I suppose, but my box was ruined while I was doing my very very best taking care of the pressing immediate things that were my responsibility. Just like you, many times my time is not my own to do as I please or work on a project of my choice.

And so as I huddled on the floor with tears pooling in my eyes and running down my cheeks I was blinking and sniffing as I tried to see the photo I had just uncovered. In it I could see my husband (then my boyfriend) just as cute as could be and directly beside him was a smeared water stained blot. Below the blot I recognized one of the outfits that I wore back then. Gone were my brown curls and silly smile.

At that moment my husband walked in. Without speaking I handed him the photo. His immediate reply was, "That's our first date!" Apparently someone had snapped a photo of us that evening and then later gave it to us. I have no idea who took the photo. All I wanted to do was throw the picture in the trash and run down the street wailing to the top of my lungs. I didn't however! Instead I realized that with all of the smears and water blots, it's still a remnant of a special memory. So now the photo is dry and maybe in 28 years it will find its' way to a scrapbook and my greatgrandkids can wonder why greatgrandmomma's curly brown hair and silly smile is smeared from the photo.

If I'm around I will tell them the story of how the photo came to be smeared and what a wonderful man their greatgranddad is and that life is sometimes full of smears.

Yes, life is that way. There may be blots and smears and tons of unanswered whys along the way, but still life can be filled with special memories and fleeting moments to cherish.

My mother would often say, "Rachel always do YOUR best and if you've done YOUR best then that is all you can do. The rest will take care of itself." So whatever comes and goes if I know I've done MY best, then I leave God with the rest.

Each day I try to do MY best and let that be enough.

Sigh~it's a process.

Rachel