To a Child LOVE is spelled

[Guest guest]

To a Child LOVE is spelled...

 

 

In the faint light of the attic, an old man, tall and stooped, bent his great

frame and made his way to a stack of boxes that sat near one of the little

half-windows. Brushing aside a wisp of cobwebs, he tilted the top box toward the

light and began to carefully lift out one old photograph album after another.

Eyes once bright but now dim searched longingly for the source that had drawn

him here.

 

It began with the fond recollection of the love of his life, long gone, and

somewhere in these albums was a photo of her he hoped to rediscover. Silent as a

mouse, he patiently opened the long buried treasures and soon was lost in a sea

of memories. Although his world had not stopped spinning when his wife left it,

the past was more alive in his heart than his present aloneness.

 

Setting aside one of the dusty albums, he pulled from the box what appeared to

be a journal from his grown son's childhood. He could not recall ever having

seen it before, or that his son had ever kept a journal. Why did Elizabeth

always save the children's old junk? he wondered, shaking his white head.

 

Opening the yellowed pages, he glanced over a short reading, and his lips curved

in an unconscious smile. Even his eyes brightened as he read the words that

spoke clear and sweet to his soul. It was the voice of the little boy who had

grown up far too fast in this very house, and whose voice had grown fainter and

fainter over the years. In the utter silence of the attic, the words of a

guileless six-year-old worked their magic and carried the old man back to a time

almost totally forgotten.

 

Entry after entry stirred a sentimental hunger in his heart like the longing a

gardener feels in the winter for the fragrance of spring flowers. But it was

accompanied by the painful memory that his son's simple recollections of those

days were far different from his own. But how different?

 

Reminded that he had kept a daily journal of his business activities over the

years, he closed his son's journal and turned to leave, having forgotten the

cherished photo that originally triggered his search. Hunched over to keep from

bumping his head on the rafters, the old man stepped to the wooden stairway and

made his descent, then headed down a carpeted stairway that led to the den.

 

Opening a glass cabinet door, he reached in and pulled out an old business

journal. Turning, he sat down at his desk and placed the two journals beside

each other. His was leather-bound and engraved neatly with his name in gold,

while his son's was tattered and the name Jimmy had been nearly scuffed from its

surface. He ran a long skinny finger over the letters, as though he could

restore what had been worn away with time and use.

 

As he opened his journal, the old man's eyes fell upon an inscription that stood

out because it was so brief in comparison to other days. In his own neat

handwriting were these words:

 

Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn't catch a thing.

 

With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, he took Jimmy's journal and found the boy's

entry for the same day, June 4. Large scrawling letters, pressed deeply into the

paper, read:

 

Went fishing with my Dad. Best day of my life.