Saturday, February 18, 2012
Stolen Word
8:25 PM | 
Posted by
Cheryl |
Snap by Snap has always been about photos and the stories they tell. I love the story this photo tells. Even though my mother has been gone 41 years, her daughters are still talking about her, piecing together bits of information about her life. Photos, a ring, a locket, a doll, a sewing machine, a diploma: The photos always tell the best stories. It makes me wonder what small parts of my life will remain 40 years after I'm gone and what they will say about me.
I found one small part of my early life in my wanderings today, and it made me smile. It's a Bible - and I have a few of those. Some belonged to my mother, my father, or were favorites of mine at various points in my life. But this particular Bible is the one I stole.
I was probably 10 or 11 - not much younger than my mom in the picture above - and like a lot of kids whose parents are leaders in the church, I spent a lot of time wandering the building, waiting for meetings to get over with. Our church building at that time was a cool old building with three stories, long halls of polished wood floors, creaky theater seats, and a basement whose columns had been marked near the ceiling to show how high the water reached in the flood of '38. There was a lot to explore there. I found the lost and found that day, and it was full (of course) of lost Bibles. Bored, I began looking through them and stopped in my tracks as I found a familiar name in one of them.
This was during the period where I was afraid of forgetting my mother, and I was desperate for things that would help me remember her. And there on the page was her name. I closed the Bible, and took it home. When I got home, I scribbled out the name of the person to whom it had been presented. My internal Jiminy Cricket was practically shouting in my ear how wrong I was, but I could not tear myself away from that Bible. In my childish mind it represented a part of her. A moment in her life that was somehow now mine. It was the beginning of my small and unimpressive life of crime.
And here I am, so many years later, mostly reformed from my wild child ways, but I still have that contraband Bible. Why did I keep it? So many other old Bibles have been donated or given away, but this one remains on my bookshelf. I guess it still reminds me of that moment when I felt I'd gotten part of her back in some small way. Stolen and forbidden as it was, it was mine. Losing a person leaves such a gaping wound in our lives, and it takes time for grief to weave scar tissue over the gash and for our breathing to slowly regain its rhythm. Memories and momentos make it easier.
I've said it before in this blog - We are made for connection. In its absence we seek substitutes. I think that's why I love photos. I love seeing faces long remembered - eyes sparkling off the paper, proof to hearts that we remember. Having the photos preserves moments in our lives and theirs, and moves us past the pain of the separation to the memory of the life.
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