They say that at the end of your life memories flash before you. What I didn’t realize is that when you lose someone who was such a big part of your life, this video montage seems to go on and on. At times it’s jarring when I suddenly remember some random event. Cathy and I drove to Las Vegas this week to see Cher in concert. As we passed the casinos in Primm, I looked at the big roller coaster that I’m pretty sure I have never ridden but suddenly I had a memory of riding roller coasters with Patrick. It’s almost like some sort of alarm that your body sets in case you go too long without thinking about your loved one. Some of these memories almost bring me to tears but I’m trying to learn to smile and let the memory just fill my heart.
Recently, I remembered the beautiful box my mother-in-law made us to put cards in at the wedding. The idea was to have one place to keep all the cards so they wouldn’t get lost and it was a great idea! The morning after the wedding we gathered at my mom’s house to open gifts. At some point someone mentioned the cards and no one could find the box. I can’t remember exactly what was discussed at that point but Patrick and I were anxious to get going. We drove to San Francisco and flew to Puerto Rico where we left on a 7 day cruise.
While we began our honeymoon, our families were trying to solve the mystery of the card box. It was determined that the box had been placed on the roof of a van while a child was being buckled into a car seat in the garage of our new apartment. The box fell off somewhere between that apartment complex and my mom’s house. Family members walked most or maybe all of the route in a fruitless search for the box.
We called to check in a few days later and at that point our families had taken on the awkward task of trying to determine what had been in the box. Some guests had written checks that could be canceled and rewritten. Some had given us gift cards or cash so those were lost. A few weeks later a friend was in a meat market where he had purchased a gift certificate for us. The meat market was owned by friends of his and he was visiting when someone came in and tried to redeem the gift certificate. They got it back but didn’t get any info on the person and from that point on we knew that the box had been found and someone chose to keep our cards and the gifts inside them.
At first I was sad and then we felt victimized. I just couldn’t believe someone would be so cold- hearted. The relative who had placed the box on the roof of the van felt really bad and actually sent us a new tv as a gift. We wanted to send it back since it wasn’t his fault but were finally convinced that he was not going to feel better unless we accepted it.
As the years went by the impact of this seemed smaller and smaller. The loss of the card box was not going to ruin the memories we had of a fabulous time in our lives. Sure we thought about what we could have done with the money but eventually it just became a distant memory.
I share this as a reminder that sometimes we go through situations that seem like the end of the world but eventually those memories are softened by time and you realize they were just a tiny blip. Just to clarify, I am NOT comparing the loss of the cards to the loss of Patrick! They were two different types of losses. Losing Patrick will always have a big impact on me. My main point is, “Don’t let bad experiences define you.” This experience taught me that what really matters is love and family. You can have all the money in the world but I would rather have the people I love. When I look back on my wedding, the card box is a very small part of the memories, and the rest are JOYOUS!