Letter: The Question Has Been Answered

On this day, one year ago, I wondered – and wrote about – the old rocking chair.

Would someone sit there again or would it be forever empty? Would gentle protests from the creaking old rocking chair be heard once more? Would the face of the one rocking to and fro, to and fro, in the old rocking chair, have lines of aged soft beauty, eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled at me?

Would there be love again?

Perhaps King David felt – deeply, desperately, earnestly felt – these questions, reflecting as he was on the 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.

Such feelings – heart-felt emotions welling up from deep within, and not of intense sadness but rather of great thankfulness – are mine as I look back at the questions I had one year ago today, and look now, today, at the pictures on our wall, the love on our shelf.

There is the new clock, though made to look old, the hands on its face when we bought it just two days ago set at exactly the hour and the minute my plane arrived and we met in person for the first time.

There are as many daisies as possible in the little bucket that it can hold, like the bouquet of daisies we held together when we were married just two months ago today, and like the overturned bucket she was standing on that day.

And on the shelf, between the old clock and the bucket of daisies, is the song “Me and You” by Kenny Chesney, that actually plays, like it did on our wedding day, asking the question I had.

And providing the answer.

“Ordinary? No. Really don’t think so. Just a precious few…get as lucky as me and you.”