Memories Are A Treasure

 Today we reached a new road marker. It was on this day thirty years ago that Steve suddenly left us without warning. We had just eaten our belated Christmas dinner when he went to sing at a church and wound up singing in heaven instead. At the time, I thought I could not live another day and here we are thirty years later.

I have so many memories of Steve in the eighteen years he was with us. He loved books and at age of four could sit contentedly in the doctor's waiting room without getting into trouble while I had a checkup for the next baby.

Steve had a vivid imagination that created all kinds of fun. His little brother, Gene, followed him around joining in the fun and imitating him. Once day Steve set up this crow's nest in the front yard so they could play pirates. Notice the empty paper towel tube his Raggedy Andy had for a spy glass.

We had a cabin in the mountains where we went several times each year. One time, when Steve was about twelve years old, we had a long full summer day and got to the cabin well after dark. He was so tired he thought he could die. He flopped on the couch right inside the door and said, "Mom, will my skeleton be in your way here?"

My mother passed away at the end of July 1993. We had estate sale in October. Steve was about a month short of his eighteenth birthday. She had an old pool table she always used as a buffet table for Christmas dinners. Steve told me he bought it and I asked him why. He said, "Because that's where the food always was." He started trying to fix it up but never got it finished. That pool table sat in our basement for twenty-eight years and was always used for our Christmas dinners.

About six weeks after he turned eighteen, Steve put on the new clothes he had bought to wear for chorus programs and left for the first program of that year's schedule. Halfway to the church, the car he was riding in spun around and the passenger side hit a sycamore tree. Someone came to tell us the news that he was gone in an instant. When Gerald (age 9) heard it he flopped down on a chair and said, "but we still wanted him." Exactly!

In the long road through grief I learned the truth of Song of Solomon 8:7. "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." Floods of tears and death itself cannot destroy love. Though the one we love is no longer here to return our love, still our love lives on. We cherish the memories of what once was and wonder what might have been.

Your memory is a treasure

With which we'll never part;

God has you in His keeping,

We have you in our hearts.