Pictures in the Air

The poet, Pablo Neruda gave us many unforgettable lines and one of my favorites is, ” absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through the walls and hang pictures in the air. “

Soon, we are to lose more than half a million American souls to the pandemic and in the midst of this tragedy we have lost many other things including the hugs of our loved ones, the music of their voices and the basic comfort of congregation. We are hanging pictures in the air of our remembered joys. Our minds have become a portrait gallery where the visages of our dear ones hang in defiance of time. I think we are all destined to be pictures in the air. We all can see the faces of our dead, dear ones. Someday we will be pictures in the memories of those who loved us.

We have lost a great deal.

Yet, we have not lost our amazing capacity to REMEMBER. Guy de Maupassant – master of irony- puts it boldly “our memory is is a more perfect world than the universe; it gives back life to those who no longer exist.” It is our duty to remember and hang some portraits. Congregation is temporarily gone but our wonderful memories carry on.

I seek to remember with intention…to tour the gallery of faces that mean so much. In these enforced private times, take a moment to bring many back to life.

Lest we forget.