My nose is running and my cheeks are wet with tears…no, I haven’t the beginnings of a cold, I have the beginnings of revisited grief.
My grandson is visiting. He’s with his Mom right now but somehow a bag of his stuff got left yesterday at my house.
“It’s my dirty laundry,” he advises, “Can you throw it in the washer for me?”
Of course, I do and then the tears start. It is six long years since there has been “men’s” clothing in my washing machine. I still recall my last load of Harry’s clothes …some underwear and pajamas. He would never wear them again and I knew I would never wash a man’s clothes in the washer again.
It is really strange how it is the little things in life that you take for granted that add a dimension you had never realized before. Fifty four years of washing his clothes had been as ordinary as serving him suppers, yet that last load of clothes has left a memory that still shatters me.
So, I can hear the washer, chug, chug, chugging away…it is less than ten feet from my computer…and I again remember the man I said goodbye to six years ago.
Taking things for granted is a failing of most of us…although not maybe so much so for those raised during the “Depression” years in Canada. I still seldom leave a light bulb burning that isn’t being used and left-overs are never throw out…but recycled into soups and medleys of meals that are often mysteries, but edible.
It is a busy world out there and sometimes we forget to really sit and watch our children play, to see the beauty in our surroundings or to lift our voice to the Lord and give him thanks.
Sometime in our busyness we forget what this is all about and who arranged the opportunity to live in this beautiful world. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to remind us of the good gifts of God.
I can hear the washer spinning out and it is time to get the dryer running. I have dried my tears and laughed at my sentimentality and I have given thanks that this special young man is here in my life for one more day before he leaves. How I will treasure the memory of his hugs and laughter and I will delight in the fact that he is going home in clean underwear… thanks to me.
Photo: “Wasmand” by Sietske at Dutch Wikipedia – Transferred from nl.wikipedia to Commons.. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
