Raking Memories

[WaltC]

RAKING MEMORIES

Today is Sunday – November 6th, 2005 – almost seven months since my wife Jean died.

Jeannie and I were happily married for over 40 wonderful years and I have many many good memories of our life together.

I started to feel sad and lonely, as usual for me on the weekend, but wasn’t feeling up for a “pity party” today.

I looked out the front window to find some peace in the view of the river and noticed that the lawn was still unraked.

There are thousands of leaves out there waiting to be raked. These leaves are mainly gold, with a few brown ones and even fewer red ones.

I decided to start the task and make it somehow more meaningful and less onerous.

As I began raking I thought of the gold leaves as pleasant memories of the past and the brown leaves as some of the adversaries that Jean and I overcame together. The few remaining red ones represent the bad times and sorrows that we shared.

Gold Leaves – such things as our first date, getting married, having our first child and then the second, moving to our first new apartment, buying our first home, parties with our friends, birthdays, Holidays, etc. etc. – I forgot how many good memories I have. There are enough Gold Leaves out there to rake up and enjoy for quite a while.

I won’t bore you with details on the Brown and Red Leaves, but it was comforting to know that there were so few of them in relation to the good memories.

A couple of Red leaves reminded me of the day she was diagnosed with MS over 20 years ago. But there were lots of Gold Leaves during those 20 years. Of course one Red Leaf was the day that she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in early January. Yet, there were still a few more Gold Leaves after that, like when she organized and enjoyed her daughter’s 40th birthday on Valentine’s Day.

The Black Leaf fell when she took her last breath on April 13th, just two days after her 59th birthday.

In the front yard I could cover the brown, red and black leaves with the Gold ones. I hope I can do the same with these memories.

ALWAYS IN MY HEART – LITTLE JEANNIE – LOVE IS FOREVER

[Dusky]

Walt,

Your message is beautiful - well written - and full of love. We seem to find our loved ones in so many of the everydays tasks that we do - like raking leaves. Your love shins through for your sweet Jeannie.

All my best to you my friend.

Love,

John - Dusky is my handle on here