An Ah-ha Moment

I am a reader.  A voracious reader.  Will read almost any kind of a book.  I remember as an 8-year-old reading -- and loving -- something written for middle schoolers on astronomy and the formation of the universe.  That was too many decades ago.

I am also a re-reader.  I will read -- or listen to via audiobook -- the same treasured stories over and over and over again. 

Last night I was playing the audio version of a book by Rosamunde Pilcher.  It is a favorite, one I revisit several times a year.  This time, one line caught my attention and stuck.   I remembered the scene, but not quite this way. 

The heroine is at the end of a month-long vacation.  She is buying gifts to take home, others for her host family. 

...Another gallery.  Unable to resist, she paused to look in its window and saw a little abstract painting ... that represented exactly her own impressions and feelings about this ancient land. ...  [She] craved it.  Not for herself, but as a present...

But -- and this is important -- she has no one to gift with this little treasure. 

...the picture wavered and became watery.  She realized that her eyes had filled with tears.  She had never cried [when her partner died], simply grieved and mourned privately to herself, and tried to learn to live with the cold loneliness of an existence without him.  She had thought that she had achieve this, but it could not be so.  She wondered ... if she was the kind of woman who could  not live without  man, and if this was true, then there was nothing she could do about it....  Reluctantly she turned from the window ... and walked on....  And she came to a bench and sat upon it, huddled in her sheepskin jacket and with her packages set about her, like any old pensioner exhausted by shopping. ... But she was not any old pensioner.  ... She had survived.  Was moving on.  But to what?  ... she found herself longing for company... she wanted [someone] to be with her, just for a single day so that when they returned [home], they could talk about the wind and the sea ... and remember, and marvel at the magic of a special moment.  

And here is what caught my attention.  This was the Ah-ha Moment. 

Perhaps that was the worst of all.  Not having someone to remember things with.

The novel goes on, and Our Heroine moves into a new relationship.  It is, after all, a novel about love and relationships.  But Mrs. Pilcher put into words that emptiness so many of us feel.  We need someone to remember things with -- little things as well as big things.  

Life goes on, too.  Perhaps blogging is my response to that need to remember things, share thoughts. 

Pray for those who are alone.  Physically alone.  Mentally alone.  Spiritually alone. 
Reach out and touch someone you love.   Remind them they are not alone.

P.S. It is  a melancholy day, but I'm smiling.