Angels at Night

When I was little a friend and I would put our hands together, palms flat, up in the air, and then with our other hand we would rub the fingers of our hands, up and down.  With our eyes closed it was supposed to feel like a dead person’s hand or a mummy’s (like we knew which was which).  To young minds I supposed it did.  Why we would want to experience that sensation, I can’t remember, but we did.  It is definitely a strange feeling.  Your mind can’t quite grasp what you are feeling with your eyes closed.  Strange how your senses work together for your mind to understand what’s happening to you.  More on that subject later.

 

I’ve been looking through some older pictures of Mary and us and realized that because they are two dimensional and from time past, they don’t feel real anymore.  There is a vacant mummified shell surrounding them.  I guess because I know she’s not here.  We can’t all sit down and point and laugh at the old pictures like we used to and make comments about what, where, when, and why we were where we were (say that three times real fast).  When I see pictures of Julie and the kids there’s a warm fuzzy feeling and I bring them out and show them to everyone.  I take pictures of the kids while they are sleeping angels to remind me why I run around after them when they are awake.  I did that with my kids too. 

 

Each time I look at pictures of Mary my impressions change.  First I could look only at her at a young age, recent pictures hurt too much.  Then I wanted to see all I could of recent pictures of her face, life size, so I could stroke her cheek and hug her to me.  Then that hurt too much.  It kept going back and forth like that for several months.  I have pictures of her in my truck, kitchen, office, backpack, wallet, and bedroom.  Practically everywhere except the bathroom.  I liked the pictures of her with Tony more until I started seeing recent pictures of Tony by himself or with Nicole.  Nothing against Nicole but like she said, they would go places where couples were and then there was “Tony with his sister”.....Probably wasn’t fun for either of them.  But they stuck together like family does.

 

Like I said in my last post, all her pictures are frozen in time now.  I need some new ones, different ones, so I can feel the experience of newness again.