Mourning Aftershocks

[Maryanne Winder Lester]

Have you ever noticed how you can get over the loss of something that may seem trivial, insignificant or even extremely important, only to realize the impact of the loss days or years or even decades later? Everything we own comes with some sort of memory or emotion. Examples from my own life include concert ticket stubs to my very first concert in 1972, Ten Years After, at the Ga. State Univ. Auditorium, the aquamarine stone from my first “real” ring, my baby teeth that I kept in a pouch for many years, the coin purse including 23 cents my grandfather had in his pocket the day he died in 1961, a cassette tape of a dear friend who died in 1974, a newspaper article from 1962 showing my picture playing a calliope in the 4^th of July parade, a handmade clay pin of Mr. Bill saying, “Oh, No!”, the C from my Clarkston High School sweater where I lettered in band. These are some of the less significant items I have lost, but I still wish I had them. And now and then, I think about each one of them.

And, as most of you know, we recently lost the home where my parents lived together for over 30 years. Yesterday, we made the very last trip to that home for the final items. It is now just another house, in need of all kinds of repair, but I could still walk through it blindfolded. Every single room, nook and cranny holds a memory. I will never forget this home for as long as I live. And I am still in mourning over this loss. I have accepted it, I love the new house and I look forward to making new memories here and I understand in my mind that this was probably one of the best things that could have happened. But, in my heart…that’s another story. I keep thinking I will write about something else, but this just keeps coming back to me as a major topic.

Monday, a piano dealer came and bought my piano. Anyone who has ever been to my home since I was 4 years old has seen this piano. It travelled from Iowa to Wisconsin, to Ohio, to Georgia, to Connecticut and back to Georgia. It started out ebony, then my father painted it ivory in my young days, then he painted it an antiqued beige in my teens. It was a monster and weighed almost 2000 pounds. And I know most if it’s history. It was a Kranich and Bach 6 foot baby grand, originally manufactured in 1885 in New York. When I was 4 years old, my mother heard me playing Mozart at the babysitter’s house and knew that I needed a piano. She had some old and dear friends in northern Iowa that owned this piano and she remembered it from her younger days. The piano was used by that family when they owned a silent movie house and their father had played it to accompany the silent movies. When “talkies” started, the piano was moved to their home where the children enjoyed using it as a doll house. It was never played again until it was brought from northern Iowa to my home. In my adult years, I stopped playing the piano. I guess I just got busy and lost interest. But, I knew it would always be a fixture in my parents home. It was my oldest and most precious possession, but there just wasn’t room in the new house. I discussed the piano with the dealer who came to buy it and he recognized the difficult decision I was making to give it up. He is an elderly man and plans to work on the restoration when he retires. He said he would never sell it. And, although he paid very little to me for this piano, he promised me I could come to his store and pick out an upright piano to take its place. I am mourning this loss even more than the house.

Solomon, wisest man to ever live, wrote in Ecclesiastes, 3:1-9, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”And he lists some examples, “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away.” It’s ok to mourn and lose and throw away because there is a time for each of these. Paul also writes in his letter to the Philippians, 3:7-9, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count the things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.”

The greatest gift we can ever receive and our most precious possession is not a physical object. It is not something we can look at or touch to receive gratification. It is our Salvation through Jesus the Christ. And all we have to do is believe in Him. No mourning or worry or weeping involved. And once we believe and have our Salvation, it can never be taken from us and we can never lose it. It is said that “you can’t take it with you.” That refers to physical things. But, our Salvation…we take that with us into eternity.

Maryanne Winder Lester

5/19/2010