The Lingering
At my mother’s house in July, I sit with my mother and aunt sorting through old family photographs. As they label photos with names and dates, I start in on a stack of letters from my grandfather to my grandmother, circa 1952. He’s stationed in Alaska with the Navy from what I can discern, which is somewhat difficult because he doesn’t date any of the letters except as, “Monday, Tuesday,” and so forth. There is nothing remarkable in the letters, really, just details about paychecks, the weather, his crewmates. Despite this, my grandfather always closes with how much he loves her and misses her their children.
As I read through the letters and look at photos of physical lives long since over, I wonder, what was it all for? What did their lives mean? What were they doing here? What am I doing here? The cynic might say life is nothing but an inevitable trudge toward death. And yet, even if that is true, moment-to-moment I do not worry about the end because I’m too busy in the thick details of my life – the grocery list, coupons clipped for Costco, detangling Emerson’s hair, summer peaches, and counting down the days until the last season of Breaking Bad. All of it is meaningless, really, to anyone but me. None of it will matter to my daughters’ children or their children because they will be leading their own lives with their own details and concerns and small joys. I will be nothing more than a faded photograph by then.
The question comes again – what’s it all for? What are we doing here in this transitory life?
I do not know for sure, of course. I’m doing my best to live a life that fulfills some sort of higher purpose but it is probably in vain. I may meet my maker at the end and he or she may say, “Really? That’s what you spent so many hours doing? Writing about love?”
And I will have no choice but to defend myself.
Love is all there is and all there ever will be, I might whisper, trying to be brave. It is the only thing to fight for, the only thing that really matters. Love weaves between all the ordinary and makes us all extraordinary. Love, although invisible, intangible, impossible even to put into words, matters. How we loved one another while on the earth matters.
This afternoon in my mailbox is package from Clare Barboza. She’s both a dear friend and a talented professional photographer. One of her ‘art’ photos inspired the cover for Riverbend. I eagerly open the package, hoping it will be photographs from the weekend we all spent on Whidbey Island at the beginning of June to celebrate Clare and Joe’s ten year wedding anniversary. I’m not disappointed. It’s a photo of my friends and me on the lawn.
It is a beautiful moment in time, this photograph. There was wine and the sun on the lawn and laughter. Just then none of us were thinking of the details that bring us to our knees – bills, divorces, work crises, difficulties with our children. No, in that moment it was only a certain slant of sunlight and the taste of deep red wine and one another. It was love.
Someday when my grandchildren are sorting though photos, they might ask one another, “Who are these people with Grandma Tess?” Perhaps one of my girls will remember and perhaps not. But wherever I am, I will know. I will remember.
These are some of the friends who loved me though one of the darkest years of my life. They listened on a cold November evening of my oldest daughter’s troubles in school. They invited me to Christmas dinner and let me sleep in their guest room so I did not have to wake up alone the first holiday my children were with their dad and not me. They assured me on a cold day in February that I was talented and good and lovable.
On the day of the photograph, they made me laugh.
These are my people.
And the love we felt the exact moment the photo was taken? Surely it remains even after we’re gone, lingering for those still left so this hard world might be bearable? Surely it is in the sound of rustling leaves, or drops of rain glistening on blades of grass, or in the purity of a child’s laugh? Surely it lingers? Because where else would it go?
I imagine after the boxes are sorted and labeled, my grandchildren will go back to the details of their lives, making their own memories, creating loves of their own, perhaps noticing a certain slant of light on a summer lawn. As they should, of course. Because we don’t know why or when or how our physical presence in the world will end. We have only now. We have only this very moment with all the messy, worrisome, funny, joyous details. This is it.
And because this is true, we know we must love sweet, love hard, love without restraint. Love is all there is and all there ever will be. It is all that remains.
