I did not love him, God knows, because I was some sort of saint or hero. I did not love him because I suddenly saw the light or because I hoped by loving him would persuade him to fix my life. I loved him because I couldn’t help myself. I loved him because the one who commands us to love is the one who also empowers us to love, as there in the wilderness of that dark and terrible time i was in, through no doing of my own, empowered to love him at least a little, at least enough to survive.

So much happens to us over the years, within us, through us, it’s important to take time to remember on purpose. It means not picking up a book or turning on the radio, but letting the mind journey gravely, deliberately, back through the years that have gone by but are not gone. It means a deeper, slower kind of remembering; it means remembering as a searching and finding. And then, we will find, beyond any feelings of joy or regret that one by one the memories give rise to, a profound and undergirding peace, a sense that in some unfathomable way all is well. We have survived, you and I. Maybe that is at the heart of remembering. We have made it to this year, this day. We needn’t have made it. There were times we never thought we would and nearly didn’t. There were times we almost hoped we wouldn’t, were ready to give the whole thing up. Each must speak for himself, for herself, but I say for myself that I have seen sorrow and pain enough to turn the heart to stone. Who hasn’t? Many times I have chosen the wrong road, or the right road for the wrong reason. Many times I have loved the people I love too much for either their good or mine, and others I might have loved I have missed loving and lost. I have followed too much the desires of my own heart, yet often when my heart called out to me to be brave, to be kind, to be honest, I have not followed at all. Weak as we are, a strength beyond our strength has pulled us through at least this far, at least to this day. Foolish as we are, a wisdom beyond our wisdom has flickered up just often enough to light us if not to the right path through the forest, at least to a path that leads us forward, that is bearable. Faint of heart as we are, a love beyond our power to love has kept our hearts alive. * adapted