I Am

 This morning I received an email through Ancestry from another distant cousin searching for family information, stories, and old photographs. It’s a request I’ve come to expect every so often.

For the past few months, I’ve been slowly working my way through boxes of old pictures. The oldest photographs have been the easiest. Grandparents, great-grandparents, and generations even further back have gradually found their way into the hands of relatives who treasure them. I’m happy to know those faces will continue to be remembered. I have a few photographs ready to send to this cousin as well.

The more recent photographs are different.

Those are still tucked away, waiting. Some memories need a little more time before they’re ready to be held again.

As I sat watching genealogy videos on YouTube this morning, I noticed the quiet irony. So many of the stories are about reunions. Families separated by decades finally finding one another. Long-lost cousins discovering they had been searching for the same roots all along. Broken branches of family trees being joined together again.

There is something deeply beautiful about those stories.

And something quietly bittersweet.

For the most part, I’ve grown comfortable being singular. I’ve learned to enjoy my own company and to walk my own path, even during the years I shared it with someone else. But every now and then, a day arrives that feels a little heavier. The silence is more noticeable. The heart remembers the people who are absent as much as the ones who remain.

I’ve stopped fighting those moments.

Like tears, they come. They stay for a while. Then they pass.

Today there will be housekeeping to do, a wonderful book waiting to be finished, and the ordinary rhythm of daily life to tend. The dishes will be washed. The floors will be swept. The sun will cross the desert sky just as it always does.

Life has a gentle way of reminding us that it keeps moving.

One small step at a time.

And somewhere beneath it all is a quiet confidence that has carried me through harder days than this.

Everything will be all right.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.