ReFocused or not, here I come. . .

It was the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year that the old man was going to spend in the house he’d always called “home”. The movers were just out front tying down their load and preparing to drive off with a lifetime of memories that were only old furniture to them — but pure gold to the man who could see those reminiscences soaked into each piece.

His children and a neighbor or two were tidying up the downstairs and a fellow was still mowing the lawn. Tomorrow another truck would arrive and a new family move in. And he would be living in a room just twelve by twenty down at the retirement center. “Retirement center!,” he thought. “More like a ‘death house’! Someone will tell me when to go to bed, when to get up and what to do every waking moment of the day! There are prisoners that don’t have it that bad!”

The truck was pulling away out front, small puffs of smoke and dust rolling past as if to testify that everything in this life is passing and swiftly changes from one condition to another. Downstairs he heard a vacuum being run and drawers being closed. There was nothing left but the walls to remind him of the halcyon years he and his wife had spent here together. But those walls did remind him, didn’t they! He chuckled in spite of himself as he recalled that sunny summer Saturday so many years ago when he and his young bride had papered this very room in which he was sitting. He’d never forget that day - not while he had any presence of mind, whatever.

They had spent days selecting just the right pattern (lacy white lilies on short stems with small green leaves over a background of sky-blue) and then the perfect glue (for paper did not come pre-glued in those days, you know). They got right to work and did the first wall with little difficulty and in short order. The same with the next two walls. But that third wall, the one where the roof’s slope gently lowered the ceiling down to the floor?, that one went completely haywire! They were both concentrating on rolling the paper on the slope above their heads. She said they needed extra glue to help it hold to the wall so he’d lathered it up until it was fairly soaked in the sticky solution. They started at the top and rolled it to the baseboard. And that’s when it happened. . .

Too much glue, too much rolling, or just too much slope. . . whatever the reason, the paper let loose from the top and came falling down, cascading around the two of them with its coils as if to say, “Forget about this work stuff! You two need to play a while!” As if they’d ever needed much encouragement to do that! In less time than it takes to tell, the floor was a slippery, gluey mess and the two of them were lying in each other’s arms. . .content to leave that wall above their heads for a painter to finish.

His smile lingered as he recalled how it was most likely that afternoon that their eldest child started its journey into the world. Like a man awakening from a dream he does not wish to leave, he fought against the persistent intrustion of reality that forced him to remember where he was and what was going on around him. He looked around the room one last time and then he saw it. How could it have been overlooked? His old suit still hanging just inside the partly open closet door.

Like a flash he was back in the sweet embrace of the memories of the past and he saw himself on the first day he had worn it. It was as he and his wife had presented their precious, pink bundle of pure joy to the Lord and promised before a smiling congregation of well-wishers that they’d do whatever it took to raise that child for Him. He’d worn the same suit on the day the child graduated from High School and, again, from college. Three times three children he’d repeated the same ritual.

Then it had hung unused and unnoticed for several years until the day his sweetheart brought it to him, freshly cleaned, for him to wear to his retirement dinner at the place where he’d worked his whole life.

The last time he wore it was the hardest. He wore it for her as they went together for the last time back to their little country chapel. And, then, he wore it home alone. . . back to a house that was no longer home.

He reckoned that suit had one more trip to make.

Welcome to where the Old Suit hangs. . .