Surprise!

Saturday was one of those days you get in the pre-holiday weekends. I had decided to get the Christmas decorations cartons back in the attic, which is a little bit of a chore. Picture a very large plastic storage bin being shoved up the ladder into the attic opening, then pushed as far as possible towards the back of the attic, then the next bin...40 times or so. My eldest s-i-l has the best situation, their house has a huge storage space that you can walk into. Needless to say, by the time I'm through I have gotten a pretty good work out for the back, legs, arms and just about everything in between. Of course it would be nice to do this only once in the season, but we have to pull down the storage bins, so my bride can decorate, this takes about a week. Then I have to put the storage bins back because they take up too much room to leave out. After the season, they all have to come back down for reloading, then back into the attic. In my bride's defense, though, when we don't have the kids coming to Christmas,we don't decorate, we sort of become those people who don't celebrate the season.

So Saturday morning I put on my sweatshirt and sweatpants and started hauling it all into the attic. My bride made one appearance to inform me that the bin that I was holding had clasps that would prevent it from spilling. We did not exchange words, we merely looked at each other and she said, "well do it the way you want to, I was just telling you." I have long held that you can tell me what to do, or how to do it, but not both. At the end of the event, though, she was very appreciative, so it all worked out for the best.

We ate lunch and got ready for the rest of the day, which included dinner at my son's house. My bride has figured out that it is best not to tell me how many stops we have between here and there. More than two and my ears stop listening and my head sinks to my chest. Errands are the anathema of my weekends, regardless of how necessary they are. So we headed out towards Container Store, and points north.
Usually my son and D-i-L are pretty good about just saying when we get near call them, then just come on by. But Saturday our son kept being vague about when we could come on over. Now, he is by nature vague, but in this instance it was out of character. So we kept calling, and he kept stalling until late afternoon.

Finally we got the come on over signal and we pulled up to the house, gathered all the stuff we were supposed to bring and rang the doorbell. The door opened and we were greeted with a throng of kids (both daughters, son and D-i-L) plus THE GRANDKIDS! ALL OF THEM! Eli and Phoebe and Lincoln, all in one place, all at the same time. I remember Miss Phoebe Mae squealing, "Shurprish! Shurprish!" and dancing from one foot to the other. Nena (my bride) was stunned. We waded right into a maelstrom of hugging grandkids and kids. What a great surprise. Apparently my kids had cooked this up earlier in the week and kept it very quiet. I'm a little concerned that my kids all get along so well that they can, with great success, plot against their mother and myself with such ease.

But this memory gets filed with so many others. It still surprises me that the kids would go to this effort to surprise us, to make us happy. It was an unadulterated success. So what happens to these memories? They make up so much of our lives. They are in some part our entire anthology. We are our memories. I have no idea what heaven will be like, but I hope we get to keep our memories, especially the good ones, the ones that filled us with warmth, that brought us to happy tears. I wonder if part of our "worship" in heaven will be the eternal keeping of these memories. Memories created by a loving God to give his creation a sense of belonging, a sense of right-ness with those around us who matter. What if at that moment we get to remember all the events that made us who we are..first kiss, first dance with a lover, holding our little ones for the first time, moments of intense belonging, last kiss, last hug, last "I love you", a moment of never forgetting, of eternal remembering. Sounds like heaven to me.

Each day is a surprise, a treasure of memories, a glimpse of fleeting rapture. Memories..like so much thread woven into the fabric of our lives.

Godspeed to the travelers on this journey. Make this a season of eternal memories. Tis the season..indeed.
Don