Message in a Bottle

my children, 2003

We stand watching image after image appear on the small screen.

Hushed conversations swirl around us.

An uncle's oxygen tank makes a schooooo. schoooo. schoooo sound from the corner of the room.

"At my funeral I want a real candle, not an electric one," my friend whispers into my ear.

And we watch image after image pop to the smooth surface of the box in front of us.

Like little corked bottles from a shipwreck finally making it to the surface of the water.

And we, like sailors looking over boat's rail, delight in each bottle breaking the surface.

"Wow, Jim looks so much like his Dad in that picture."

"Look at how much she loved her son...you know she was never supposed to get pregnant..."

I am overwhelmed at the all the unique bottles popping up around me.  All the LOVE. Enough to fill an ocean.  Despite the heartaches and troubles every life has.

Treasures from a life.  

{The life itself soaring past the water's surface and breaking into heaven just a few days past.}

I didn't really know the mother we laid to rest.

But I know how she loved her son because of how he loves.

And so I know how she was loved.

And so it goes through the generations.

Our greatest legacy is not one of physical beauty or wealth or professional success.

There was not one single bottle popping to the surface about any of those.

The bottles that break the surface and continue bobbing in the lives of those left behind contain one common message.

L O V E

As I continue steering my own little boat through the waters of motherhood, I will remember the images of all of those bottles of love bobbing in the wake of one woman's life.

Thanks, Rita.