Last winter a friend and I were sitting on the couch in front of a bright fire. Her shoes were off, and I noticed her plaid feet.
"Nice socks," I commented. "I have fun ones on too, but you can't see them under my boots." I do take pleasure in creative footwear.
"They were my son's," she said quietly. Her son. The one that is gone. The one whose shirts she brought in a big bag for me to sew into a quilt.
"I like to wear them. It keeps him close." She seemed like she was carrying something very heavy.
I was moved to think that this was a ritual they shared. In the morning, as she dressed, she thought of him. Perhaps she had bought them in a package of six, and stuffed them in his stocking a few Christmases ago. To keep him warm. Now they keep her warm.
When someone leaves our life abruptly we must conjure ways to keep going. Not because we forget them, but because they would want us to. No one who moves on wishes the people left behind to mourn forever. At least that is the message I read in a book about after death connections, called
Hello From Heaven. Another book on my shelf whose cover is ragged is
Heaven and Hell. A
show I enjoy talked about it as well, describing the loving care of angels.
It gives me great comfort to believe that love is more permanent that these fragile bodies we call home. The notion that a relationship that builds for half a century disappears like smoke is unpalatable to me. After fifty years, we are just getting started.
