Our oldest son came for the weekend. He had a job hanging a screen in New York City and swung through Philly to see us. As someone who carefully wraps left overs and uses coupons at the fabric store I wondered what company could justify flying a technician in from California for one day. Lukas brought up the website of Jimmy Choo and showed me
their line of women's shoes.
"Oh. The right half of a pair of heels would cover your flight. The left paid for your hotel."
We crammed a lot into forty eight hours... a nice dinner, games where we laughed until we could barely breath, conversation, church. In my clean up before he arrived I lugged two boxes of old videos to the car to take to the thrift store, unsure if they even accept them. He saw the boxes and asked about converting
some of the home videos to discs. I had assumed VHS footage was obsolete forever. Then he asked about old photo albums. We poured over a few and he picked a hundred pictures that predate digital cameras and took them home to scan. It was delightful to remember camping trips to Yosemite, Halloween costumes, John with dark brown hair, warm days at the beach, the handful of grainy shots of our wedding. While I still can't always tell Micah from Zack in the baby pictures, it felt wonderful to
guess.
After church he took out his phone and handed it to someone to take a picture of all of us. We smiled. She clicked. I think even Benjamin looked in the right direction.
I shook my head to think it had not occurred to me to take a picture. I was so fully present, enjoying our brief time I forgot to save it too. He has not been here since 2012. Who knows when we will be together
again.
Remembering in marriage is a Godsend. Opening the door to where you have been is like spending your IRA without depleting it a penny.
