Echos of the Past

4th of July

Independence Day

Families, food and fireworks

Nostalgia

A scrapbook collage piecing the present with the past.

Vignettes highlighting my Handyman playing ping-pong with my nephew’s young children…too young to remember Jim…side by side with memories of Jim laughing with my nephew and his friends 4th of July’s long past.

Scenes set with Himself chatting with Grandmonkey’s first real boyfriend introduced to the family in the time honored tradition of a holiday get together superimposed over Jim and our daughter’s first.

Images of the Handyman and my brother-in-law, heads bent towards each other across the patio table, deep in conversation etched beside the recall of Jim and Bruce on the deck smoking and talking.

Driving home through the night was as if entering a tunnel of time slicing through sights, sounds and smells of July evenings long ago. Children’s laughter as they scamper through the darkness lit by sparklers stinging their hands. Sulphur from the last of the fireworks sending bursts of starlight into the night sky commingled with scent of hot dogs, hamburgers and watermelon hanging gently on the summer air. Barbeque grills dimly glowing from the lingering embers of the day’s cooking…a flip book turned backwards to be viewed in reverse.

I’d be lying if I said there was not a mist to my eyes in the remembrance… a gentle, aching tug at my heart for all that is gone. Yet, there is a comforting gratitude for the love surrounding that past life that also hugs this present life…a solace in the replay and digesting of the truth that life continues a well worn path even through the tragedies of our hearts.

Remembering a time not so long past when it was not so, I am thankful for the memories of a love stored among the treasured relics within my heart and grateful for that which remains to be written.

“My cup runneth over.” (Gena Rowlands…Hope Floats)