BY WALT ALBRITTON
OPINION — I dearly love the song, “Precious Memories.” The one line that continually bubbles up in my mind is the song’s basic theme: “Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul.”
Ah yes, they do so linger. Since Dean’s death, my memories have become even more precious to me. Though I mourn her absence in my life, I find great solace and joy in remembering the marvelous experiences we shared, especially those shared with our family.
Many days now, being alone, I rise early and do some of my best singing while the coffee is brewing. Since heaven is surely nearby, I choose to believe Dean can hear me singing about those precious memories that linger and cheer me on.
Knowing how disappointed Dean would be, I would not dare greet the morning with a sorrowful face. She welcomed each new morning cheerfully. Many a dark day in our lives was brightened by the morning face that Dean chose to wear.
A country poet herself, Dean loved the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson, that dear man who blessed us with “Treasure Island,” “Kidnapped” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Dean loved to bless audiences by reciting Stevenson’s delightful poem, “The Swing.”
She adored the poem for its charming cadence and its enthusiasm for life. But she loved it even more because it was written by a man who remained cheerful in the midst of his suffering. Stevenson struggled all his life with various illnesses. He was so sick as a child that he could not attend school on a regular basis until he was 14.
Stevenson and his wife Fanny lived in France and America, but his happiest years were in Samoa. They loved the climate in the Pacific. A victim of tuberculosis, Robert refused to surrender to despair and self-pity. One of his stepdaughters, Isobel Field, described Stevenson’s victorious spirit in a book of her own, “This Life I’ve Loved.”
Isobel wrote, “One day Stevenson read us a prayer he had written. In it were words none of us will ever forget: ‘When the day returns, call us up with morning faces and morning hearts, eager to labor, happy if happiness be our portion, and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure.’
Isobel continued, “We awakened on the morrow with happy morning faces, but that day was marked for sorrow. That day, at the height of his fame, in the best of health he had ever enjoyed, Louis went out of this life suddenly, quietly, painlessly.”
From the moment Dean read Stevenson’s prayer, asking God to call us up each day with morning faces and morning hearts, she never ceased asking the Lord to help her greet each dawn with a morning face. And I can happily testify that she did!
In these mornings of my life, when grief sometimes has me by the throat, I find that I can overcome it by singing and praying — loudly. While the impact of grief diminishes gradually with the passing of time, it remains a life-wrecking force, unless we surrender it to Jesus.
Grief can cause you to feel that the bottom has fallen out of your world. A chair is empty. A pillow is unused. Someone you loved is missing. You feel so alone; there is no one to share your hurts or your dreams. You feel numb and helpless. You fight back tears; you are sick of crying. You want to share a thought, a feeling, but there is no one to hear your voice. The silence is maddening. How can I live without this person with whom I have shared most of my life?
Then reality sinks in. Life goes on. It will go on, with or without you. You must find a way to pick up the pieces and go on with your life. Your life is not over. You must choose to make wise decisions about the time remaining.
That’s when I find singing and praying helpful. It breaks the power of silence. It makes you conscious of God’s Presence. You celebrate the truth of what the Psalmist David said: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
The Lord who created the heavens and the earth is with you. He is healing your broken heart. You discover that your memories help you break the stranglehold of grief. You decide that brokenness will not have the last word!
My precious memories of Dean strengthen me — her enthusiasm for life, the causes she loved, her devotion to the ministry we shared, the ways she loved Jesus by loving hurting people, the personal sacrifices she made by putting others first, her tenderness, her toughness, the loving caress of her hand upon my brow, her love for the holy scriptures, the ways her hands were always busy serving others, her joy in hosting meals for family and friends, her simplicity in living, her unselfish spirit, her indomitable courage in facing sorrow and her undaunting resolve to wear a cheerful morning face.
Grief cannot stay in the same room with a morning face! So, God helping me, I am resolved to greet the remaining mornings of my life in the only way that would please Dean and honor Jesus — with a morning face and a morning heart.
Are you wearing a morning face? If not, you can — with His help! Jesus can give you the indomitable courage to wear a morning face!
