"Time, indeed, is a sacred gift, and each day is a little
life."
When I see them smile,
hear them laugh, and feel their hugs, the most wonderful thought warms my
heart: These precious moments spent with my children are priceless. And even
when tempers flare, tears fall, and innocent emotions run wild, I know how
blessed I am to be a part of their lives.
In the faint light of the attic, an old man, tall and
stooped, bent his great frame and made his way to a stack of boxes that sat
near one of the little half-windows. Brushing aside a wisp of cobwebs, he
tilted the top box toward the light and began to carefully lift out one old
photograph album after another. Eyes once bright but now dim searched longingly
for the source that had drawn him here.
It began with the fond recollection of the love of his life,
long gone, and somewhere in these albums was a photo of her he hoped to
rediscover. Silent as a mouse, he patiently opened the long buried treasures
and soon was lost in a sea of memories. Although his world had not stopped
spinning when his wife left it, the past was more alive in his heart than his
present aloneness.
Setting aside one of the dusty albums, he pulled from the
box what appeared to be a journal from his grown son’s childhood. He couldn’t
recall ever having seen it before, or that his son had ever kept a journal. Why did Elizabeth always save the
children’s old junk? He wondered, shaking his white head.
Opening the yellowed pages, he glanced over a short reading,
and his lips curved in an unconscious smile. Even his eyes brightened as he
read the words that spoke clear and sweet to his soul. It was the voice of the
little boy who had grown up far too fast in this very house, and whose voice
had grown fainter and fainter over the years. In the utter silence of the
attic, the words of a guileless six-year-old worked their magic and carried the
old man back to a time almost totally forgotten.
Entry after entry stirred a sentimental hunger in his heart
like the longing a gardener feels in the winter for the fragrance of spring
flowers. But it was accompanied by the painful memory that his son’s simple
recollections of those days were far different from his own. But how
different?
Reminded that he had kept a daily journal of his business
activities over the years, he closed his son’s journal and turned to leave,
having forgotten the cherished photo that originally triggered his search.
Hunched over to keep from bumping his head on the rafters, the old man stepped
to the wooden stairway and made his descent, then headed down a carpeted
stairway that led to the den.
Opening a glass cabinet door, he reached in and pulled out
an old business journal. Turning, he sat down at his desk and placed the two journals
beside each other. His was leather-bound and engraved neatly with his name in
gold, while his son’s was tattered and the name “Jimmy” had been nearly scuffed
from its surface. He ran a long skinny finger over the letters, as though he
could restore what had been worn away with time and use.
As he opened his journal, the old man’s eyes fell upon an
inscription that stood out because it was so brief in comparison to other days.
In his own neat handwriting were these words:
“Wasted the whole day fishing with
Jimmy, didn’t catch a thing.”
With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, he took Jimmy’s journal
and found the boy’s entry for the same day, June 4. Large scrawling letters,
pressed deeply into the paper, read:
“Went fishing with my dad, best day of
my life.”
