Blog 3237 – 09.12.2024
Faded Photograph
Today’s title comes from the first two words of a hauntingly beautiful song that came out in 1969, Traces. At that time I carried the above picture in my wallet of my girlfriend who would soon become my first wife, Barbara Ann Barefield. In nine days she would celebrate her seventy-third birthday but, alas she passed on Halloween Day 1999, she was forty-seven years old. The longer I live the younger that seems.
Most of us have experienced at least one love that “didn’t work out right” and there are traces left behind if not a faded photograph, tickets torn in half, or pages from an old love letter, there are memories in bits and pieces that we hold dear in our hearts and minds. I loved the little girl pictured above. For all the heartbreak of losing her to someone else and then losing her also to death I still have the most tender feelings when I think of her.
My fourth and last wife Linda Lee might be jealous of Barbara indeed my other two wives were, Linda Gail, and Sandra Darleen. and yes even my own mother, Alene Florence. I do not understand this possessive and jealous love that does not allow for other loves past, present, or future. It is an impossible to love so limitedly. I believe we are made and meant to love everyone and that these special intimate loves only serve to open us up to love wider and better, not to close us off or to limit us from seeing the divine in everyone and everything.
Well, that is at least how I make sense of love and comfort myself when I mourn the lost loves of my life – family, friends, wives, and lovers. The song brings back memories for me I hope it will for you as well.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
TRACES (Lyrics on screen) – CLASSICS IV ft. Dennis Yost
theencouragingword 