Pray Believing
Back in March Terry, our lead pastor at WMBC, wrote a short piece for the Faith Focus column in our local paper The Voice and in it he talked about leaving his socks in the corner of the bedroom. Well, in all seriousness he talked about a lot more spiritual stuff, but the socks seemed to be a highlight for my mom because that following week when I went to visit her one of the first things she brought up was that article and how funny she thought it was that a pastor would admit to the whole community that he leaves his socks lying in the corner of the bedroom. I guess in her mind pastors just don't do those kinds of things. We laughed about it and then she said, "One day his wife will look back on this time and wish that she could see his socks lying in the corner again!" The tears rolled as she expressed how there were many things she missed about my dad, even the annoying things like socks showing up in the wrong place.
Yesterday evening as I was working in my kitchen I thought back to that conversation with my mom. Yes, there are so many things that I miss about Wes and yes, that would include silly things he would do that he knew would annoy me and then when he'd get a reaction from me he'd smirk and wink which then annoyed me even more.
As I finished wiping down my counter I walked to the table and sat down at my laptop to begin writing this post. Thinking back on our past anniversaries, they would start with a 7a.m. phonecall from Wes wishing me a happy anniversary, telling me he loved me and asking where he could take me for supper. Just between you and me, I would typically choose a place that I knew was also a treat for him. When I would tell him where I wanted to go he would often say, "Oh good! I was hoping you were hungry for that!"
Today, just like the past 3 years, 7 a.m. came and went and his number didn't come up on my phone. But others have not forgotten, beautiful flowers from Wes' sister Lorna were delivered to the farm yesterday, a 5 a.m. text from his sister Val came reminding me that I'm loved and not forgotten. My phone pings as my family sends their love and well wishes. Wes would be pleased to know that there are still expressions of love coming my way on our special day especially now that he isn't able to do that for me anymore. His phone number no longer shows up on my phone, but my phone does not remain completely silent.
As I look up from my laptop I stare into my kitchen and smile because I have such vivid memories of Wes standing beside me at the stove asking me what I was making for supper. If it was perogies and schmaunt fat, well let's just say he was a very happy boy. I remember how he would follow me around the kitchen telling me in great detail about his day, relaying funny stories of things that had happened on the road. Sometimes those stories were tragic, like the time he was the first on the scene of a young man who had used an oncoming semi to commit suicide. Or the time he saw a young boy in the ditch who had been thrown off his dirt bike. Wes took off his own shirt and made a sling for the young boy when he realized that he had a broken arm and then got him help. Or often he would simply tell me who he had seen on the road, so many people that he made sure to wave at as he drove along 75.
I've told you this before but one of my favorite times with Wes was when he would stand in front of me in the kitchen, holding out his hands and asking me to put down the tea towel and dance with him. He'd play some old country love song from a scratched up CD and then there around the kitchen island he would waltz with me. As the song went along he would begin to hum quietly and completely off key in my ear as we slow danced across the tile. And it usually ended with a kiss and an "I love you!"
If there's one thing I truly regret it's not saying 'yes' every time he asked me to dance. What I wouldn't give for one more turn around the kitchen. But if there's one thing I'm very grateful for, it's the many times that we did.
The last couple of weeks I've been asking God if he would allow me to have a dream of Wes or a new memory that I could hold onto. I knew this day was coming and I knew for me it would be a hard day. Still nothing happened, so I thought, well that's that and that's ok. Then yesterday evening as I was writing this I decided to get out our old wedding album, you know the big one we were so excited to have made back in the 80's, the ones with the 8 x 10 pictures in it? I hadn't paged through it for a number of years and so I took my time looking at each picture, memories of that special day flooding through me and tears falling with every page I turned. I got to the middle of the book and there lying between two of the pages was a blank white sheet of paper. Without thinking I flipped it over ready to toss it to the side thinking it was simply scrap but when I turned it over I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I don't remember which anniversary this was or why we both wrote on the same piece of paper. But, it's a very special gift all these years later, one that I'm so very grateful for.
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