Cheryl Ries

I haven't posted anything for a while, I usually regret the time when I have "dry spells" of either motivation or insight, or perhaps I have distractions which cause my blight.  I don't know all the reasons this time to explain away a few months of silence in my thoughts, but I do know what, or rather whom, has inspired this latest entry.  I have a very special reason for wanting to share something from my heart, and the avid desire to write now is only explained by the unbearable ache of his approaching death.  Yes, my dear uncle is soon to pass, and I wish above all things which inspired my "voice" that it wasn't due to this most tragic reason.

I've always had him in my life, like those who've passed before, my father . . his older brother, both his parents, my dear grandparents on both sides.  I don't know if one is ever ready to lose someone they love, but for some inexplicable reason, his death is conjuring up painful reminders of those whom I've lost before, I guess that is typical with death, it reminds us of how we felt before.  But, in this case, it reminds me of how I felt losing my dad, many years ago now, the single worst event of my life so far.  My uncle's impending death is sorely not just bringing an ache of its own, but it is also tugging at a wound from long ago.

The past doesn't stay there, as it really isn't the past.  It's our history surely, but it is what we are now.  Hence, our past is just as recent as our last second and as far away as what used to be.  The past is what we can often objectify when we wax older, seeing the mistakes we made then as either more noble choices or more costly in error, acknowledging our own fragility, we cannot make some things easy to digest, they just stand out as unbearable states of "before now", which still haunt, still burn, still stab, still . . .

Where once we stand sure of the here and now, we are drawn down a pathway of what used to be, reminded constantly of that pain, that presence of those ghosts of long-gone souls.  I cannot imagine a time ahead when I will look back to now and remember how this still feels all so strange to have lost my uncle in this way.  It's been a lifetime already without my dad, I lived without him almost as long now as I lived with him.  How can we hope to render those things impotent in our lives when they seem to mark our history so significantly?!  One day very soon, I will only have my aging memory to remind me of yet another incredibly important part of my life, I wonder if there are ways to learn to imprint more memories upon my mind than I have been able to do in the past, as I've failed to recall simple things like birthdays, voices, favorite things, moments treasured once before.  I can only ask God to give me more memory space the longer I live to make room for all the beloved souls who now must reside there and within my heart!  God please, make the space big enough to hold them all forever in perfect form!

And for my dearest uncle, whom I haven't had nearby for years, but I have gotten to fondly think of as the part of my dad whom I could still access, I wish for you a gentle surrender into the arms of our Lord and Savior.  I know you will be greeted by your older brother, my dad, and your parents there.  Other await you as well, as does the most perfect love and perfect health to which you may surrender your current over-taxed body.  God will hold you in His most-loving embrace there, and you will always be ahead, keeping yet another pair of eyes, another warm heart, another familiar voice there to guide us all, who remain, home.  I love you very much, and miss you already more than you'll know.