What the Wind Knows

by Amy Harmon

We turn memories into stories, and if we don’t, we lose them. If the stories are gone, then the people are gone too.

“There are some paths that inevitably lead to heartache, some acts that steal men’s souls, leaving them wandering forever after without them, trying to find what they lost,”

Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, girl. Let it go.”

I loved churches the way I loved cemeteries and books. All three were markers of humanity, of time, of life.

I’d heard once that our view of God has everything to do with those who taught us about Him. Our image of Him often reflected our image of them. Eoin taught me about God, and because I loved and cherished Eoin, I loved and cherished God.

Life, religion, and learning were exactly that. A series of choices. If I had tried to consume everything that was presented to me all at once, I would have become too full too quickly, and all the flavors would have run together. Nothing would have made any sense in and of itself.

I touched Brigid’s and Peter’s names too, thanking Brigid for raising Eoin, for molding him into the man who had loved and looked after me with so much care. Surely, she had loved him as intently as he’d loved me. He had to have learned it somewhere.

I would have to keep reminding myself that her anger, though directed at me, was not my burden.

“Someone very wise told me that we keep the people we love in our hearts. We never lose them as long as we can remember how it felt to be loved by them.”

I can’t imagine all men love their women the way I love Anne. If they did, the streets would be empty, and the fields would grow fallow. Industry would rumble to a halt and markets would tumble as men bowed at the feet of their wives, unable to need or notice anything but her. If all men loved their wives the way I love Anne, we would be a useless lot. Or maybe the world would know peace. Maybe the wars would end, and the strife would cease as we centred our lives on loving and being loved.

“I’m so happy,” he confessed against my lips. “Is it wrong to be this happy when the world is so upside down?” “My grandfather told me once that happiness is an expression of gratitude. And it’s never wrong to be grateful.”