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“I thank my God upon every remembrance…” Philippians 1:3a NKJV
THE MEMORY SHAWL
Like autumn leaves thrown skyward in a whirlwind, I stand in the vortex of myriad minutes spinning wildly about me. The moments I am able to catch and keep are few and wane. I try to catch and gather the memory moments…to keep them, to weave them, into a shawl of recollection.
It will warm me, I think,
when most of my life’s minutes have flown.
How very few of these precious moments, it seems, I have the ability to catch. Mindless, heedless time has caught most from my hands, casting them into an abyss of forgetfulness and I am left with fragments like a kaleidoscope of tiny, fading photos, traces of memories, that once shimmered on my consciousness.
Days, smiles, insignificant joys, slip away – and now the realization dawns that no joy was ever insignificant at all, no moment mundane. No one can call them back, no one rich enough, nor wise enough to buy nor entice back time past.
I realize, too late, that my shawl of memory will be thin,
and I will be forever cold.
I pray there is time enough to gather still –
– to reap golden memories from the moments left to me
and to weave them yet.
Time to gaze into eyes that hold mine,
to cherish smiles that need no words,
to hear once more the voices of loved ones,
to share a sunset painted on the western sky,
to revel in laughter,
to share –
and grasp life,
pure life.—
To gather, keep, savor, weave, weave, and finally—-
—– to throw about my shoulders,
a shawl that holds the warmth of a lifetime
— of remembered joy.