Nostalgia

So my coworker is playing songs at her desk and a country song "Remember When" came on just barely. I never really liked the song, but two years ago in October my Grandma Hunter passed away. As part of her memorial service/funeral, my aunt took all the pictures that they had found and put them on a slide show. Now you have to understand that my parents are the youngest in their families, and I'm one of their younger children, so even though I have many memories of my grandma, my grandpa died eight months after I was born. The slideshow was the most beautiful thing that I could ever imagine. It showed my grandma as she was growing up, and I have to admit, I never knew that she was quite that rough and tumble. By the time I can remember she had had open heart surgery, and my grandpa had been dead for a few years. The pictures of them were so tender. Even though there weren't any in there in which I would have said they were deeply in love the way they portray it in the movies, every picture I saw of them together showed that they loved each other in the deepest way possible. They were best friends, in every sense of the word. They were a part of each other in a way that you can't describe. They had gone beyond the two of them and had become one. Along with the slideshow they had the song "Remember When" playing as the pictures came across the screen. I have never felt that much sorrow for someone. As I watched my grandma's life come up on the screen I cried, not for myself, but for the opportunity I had always had, and never taken, to get to know who my grandma was inside. I cried as I realized that in the last twenty years since she had lost my grandpa that there really had been a part of her missing. That there was a big gaping hole where my grandpa used to be. I cried as I thought of their reunion on the other side of the veil. But a second now, but a long struggle for both as they were apart for twenty years. I met my husband the very next month. I really do love him with all my heart. It's taken a year and almost a half to realize that slowly our relationship is becoming the same type of relationship that my parents and grandparents enjoy. I don't think about this very often, but when the song came on it reminded me of this, since I met Josh I have known that more than likely he will pass away before me because I am almost ten years younger than him and women usually live longer than men. Even though I don't remember this all the time when the day-to-day struggles come creeping up, my heart will ache for him when the time comes that we are seperated in this life. I miss him when he isn't with me, and the last thing I love to hear every night is him breathing in the bed next to me. As the song played today I couldn't help but be thankful for the short time that I have had with my dear husband, and pray that there will be many more times that we will share. That some day we will look back on this time and think "Remember when..." and not remember the struggles of the day, but remember the days when the sun was shining down on us and the joy that we felt, even if it was just for one moment out of the day. To be able to still be holding each other's hands at the end of this life, with smiles on our faces, and love in our hearts.

Every time I hear that song now I am reminded of what it symbolizes for me. The union and oneness that I could see in my grandparents lives. The union and oneness that I see in my parents lives. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to build that relationship with my husband, and that I don't need to be afraid for the seperation that is most certainly inevitable because I know that I will be able to be with him again. He is my love, my one and only, my perfectly imperfect best friend. I'm grateful for my eternal companion. Together for not only this life, but all the life to come.