Memories Knocking at My Heart

     That unsettled feeling I sometimes get around the holidays started after we returned from Colorado. Then I realized it was memories of Tracy stirring in my mind. I want to ignore them if they make me cry, but I remembered the Lord's message from last Christmas, that the memories are the part of Tracy I get to keep until I see him again. They are a gift from God that I would be rude to leave unopened. So I remembered my little boy charming the hats off of visitors by trying them on and looking so cute they let him keep them. The child who brought me his softest teddy bear to use as a pillow when I had a migraine. My purse and pockets full of rocks, miniature trucks and army men. Driving home from dropping the kids off at school with Tracy's stuffed animal of the day buckled into my passenger seat. My teenager coming home and crying on my shoulder when his girlfriend chose a rival instead of him. 

     I miss the solid substance of my son, but the memories are the pathway to those times. His expressions, his voice, even his stinky feet. And if crying is part of remembering, it is also part of healing.

 

Memories Knocking at My Heart

 

I sense it in the pulsing of my heart,

which inexplicably kept beating 

after yours was torn from mine--

memories knocking at my heart.

I feel it like the coming of winter,

like the holidays that lay ahead,

and with them, thoughts of you--

memories knocking at my heart.

Good memories, for the most part,

yet it hurts to hold them in my mind, 

to brush aside the mists of time for

memories knocking at my heart.

My Savior holds me close to Him. 

My family's love secures me.

I could not bear this on my own--

memories knocking at my heart.

 

For that would be a deeper grief

than I have ever known,

memories knocking at my heart,

and facing them alone. 

                                                                            11/15/23