Letter: The Old Rocking Chair

Actually, I don’t know who once sat in the pictured old rocking chair. I don’t even remember where I took the picture. I just found it last evening in one of the many boxes I’ve been removing from the basement, stored there for nearly a half-century.

I can picture her however, as she once had an old rocking chair of her own, rocking our babies, and then our grandbabies, to sleep in her old rocking chair.

The old rocking chair would creak as she tenderly stoked their cheeks, and soothed and softly sang to our little loved ones.

They’re all grown now and she is gone.

The old rocking chair sits empty and does not move.

There are no gentle protests from the creaking old rocking chair.

There are no infants held there, no eyes only reluctantly, slowly, drooping finally closed, reluctant because their gaze was fixed – transfixed really – on her lovely face, even – and maybe especially even – when the grandma-still-beautiful wrinkles of age had replaced the smooth complexion and soft beauty of the young mother.

King David felt – deeply, desperately, earnestly felt – this preciousness of life.

Commentators on King David’s heart cry in Psalm 39:4 observe that the living know they shall die, but few so reflect on how they shall then live, why they remain, what purpose they yet have.

Barnes says that this reflection is expressed with no little intensity of feeling.

Which is as much to ask, will there be love again?

The memories of the affection that moved mother and baby to and fro, to and fro, will that sound be heard again, the melancholy music that now moves his heart?

Will it forever be empty?

That old rocking chair?