ForgottenWoman

That old outdated piece…

My heart is in a fragile place these days and I’m learning that healing from many of life’s ‘happenings’ happens in cycles. I’m not crazy about the cycles to be honest. Once I feel like I’ve healed to a point of no more tears; my emotions hit rock bottom and the tears flow uncontrollably. When I feel like I can laugh at things that once stopped me dead in my tracks; I laugh, and then the next day I find myself seething in anger over what I just laughed at. Anyway… life for each of us has it’s ups and downs – if it didn’t; we’d be dead. Yeah, I know that’s pretty blunt.

So, I want to share with you a little story about my personal healing and I’m hoping it will somehow speak to another fragile heart. Many years ago – about 37 years to be exact, I was given a couple of pieces of furniture that belonged to my first husband’s family. He had passed away and his mother somehow understood what they would mean to me in the years to come. They were very used and fragile and I wanted desperately to make them a part of my home. The same year that I lost my husband, my father was diagnosed as terminally ill. My father, being who he was; found many ways in the last years of his life to express his love to my mother, my brothers and my sister and me. I knew that he was very concerned about me and my little boys and we talked often of heaven, of him seeing not only Jesus; but Jonnie and talking to him about how we were doing. 

Somehow during those years, my father found a way to get these two pieces of furniture into his garage and devoted himself to refinishing them for me – which turned out to be an amazing gift of love: reminders of both his and Jonnie’s love for us. Over the years, these pieces took a beating – afterall; there ended up being 9 children in my household. Their value was discounted and they were removed from my home. I paid for them to be put into storage because I couldn’t bear the thought of them being destroyed. 

Last week I made the decision to bring them back into my home: having to work through the negative things I had been told and the thoughts that they aren’t modern enough, don’t fit the rest of the decor, are really “dated”. This past Sunday afternoon a group of young men made the trip with me to the storage unit and carefully moved them back into my home, where I spent a few hours cleaning and polishing the pieces. What I want to share with you is the surprising way this affected me: and how comforting and precious the hours working on them have been. I thought of my father – the love and care that he had taken to make them beautiful for me. I thought of Jonnie and the years of his childhood that these had held all of his mother’s ‘treasures’. I thought of her and the love she always showed me – and the thoughtfulness that caused her to make sure I was given these pieces. And the tears flowed as I quietly prayed a prayer of thankfulness that they had survived their time in storage and will continue to serve my family. 

Why do they mean so much? Because of the love they represent. Because of the memories they evoke… one son stepped in last night and smiled as he said, ”Mom, this looks right now! It’s not so empty!” Then he opened the door on one side and he said, ”I used to hide pennies in here. There were files of music and things and I would find money and come hide it in here!” Silly to you? Maybe… but not to me. Little pieces of me are seemingly coming back together. I may be old fashioned, outdated, sentimental and more – but it’s this piece beautiful?