Love remains, in sunshine or in shadow

Memories flow after wife’s death

Today is her birthday, so tonight her kids and grandkids will gather around a table as they have every year since she died in 2012, recalling how wonderful she was.

And he, known to them all as Dad or Poppa, will sit at the head of that table taking it all in, doing his darndest to be a warm, cheerful presence.

He’ll try — he really will — but over the years since her passing he’s found that the more you try to act normal, the more obvious it is you’re not.

The hymn writer noted, “in the stillness of the midnight precious memories flood my soul,” and he’d say Amen to that.

Memories have become his constant companion.

He remembers the moment he first saw her. He was sitting at the far end of the counter in a small, northern New England diner when, at the other end, she emerged through the swinging door of its kitchen.

She was a waitress who had just come home from college for the summer. He knew absolutely nothing about her, and yet there was something in her manner, her smile, her easy laugh, that swept him off his feet, just the way it happens in the movies.

So he gathered the gumption to introduce himself and nine months later she became his bride.

“Being married to her,” he would tell the congregation at her funeral six years ago, “was like being on a date for 47 years.”

But now he’s Poppa, and as he looks into the faces of their close, beautiful family he’ll realize again he’s been blessed beyond measure.

So what’s the problem? Why not get over it and move on?

If he can say it to others, why can’t he say it to himself ?

Could it be a form of survivor guilt? Possibly.

When friends try luring him to social occasions, or suggesting he invite a lady to lunch, he recognizes and appreciates their urgent desire to comfort him and rekindle the joy they feel has slipped out of his life.

They sense he’s not the way he used to be and they’re probably right, but for him there’s no mystery to it: Only a great love could produce such a great hurt, and if you’re experiencing such a hurt it’s just a reminder of how truly blessed you were. That’s the way he sees it. His memories tell him how truly blessed he was and tonight’s dinner will tell him how truly blessed he is.

That’s not bad, is it?