Packing Up a Life

 I'm copying this from my personal blog tonight - http://mariatbates.blogspot.com. Maybe someone out there is also facing endings and packing up the past. Fear not. God is with you.

 

I'm back at my parents' home, the one I grew up in, but this visit is unlike any other I've had since we moved here in 1972. Today is the first time that no one was waiting for me when I arrived. No one was here to ask me about my flight or how things have been going for the kids. I went for take-out and ate dinner in front of the TV, something we never did when I was growing up. Dinner with my parents was eaten around the table; it was something for which you made it home in time. But tonight it didn't matter. And this silence will be with me all week. I guess this is kind of how my father felt the past seven years, alone here since mom passed away. Now, nearly a month removed from his death, I'm back home to begin the difficult process of packing up the things that made up the life of my family of origin.

 

Or am I?

 

Families are not the sum total of the things they aquire. They are made up of people who see each other at their best and worst moments. They walk one road together, with all its bends and curves and bumps and dips. I was born into a family known for its love, devotion, and faith, and there is just no way those qualities can be boxed up or donated to a local charity.

 

So as I go through the closets, bag up clothes, and sort through papers, I'm sure to throw some items away. After all, how much junk can be accumulated in 41 years? I won't be too quick to toss and pitch though, for among the junk will be pictures and personal notes and memories to be treasured ~things I will want to share with my own children. They may bring tears, but I suspect there'll be some smiles, too. My parents may be gone, but the God who loved me enough to place me in this amazingly, incredible family is with me still.

 

"The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness." Jer. 31:3

 

"But you, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; Your renown endures through all generations....Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise The LORD.” Ps. 102:12, 18

 

~Maria