When you were little, do you remember peeking through your fingers at the movies? The action would be picking up and you weren’t quite sure if you wanted to see it all. So you peeked. You could see just a little bit, which was plenty, and you kept peeking until you got to a better place in the storyline.
Peeking for me started the first week of January, when the Valentine display was set up next to the $2 clearance rack of gingerbread houses. Oh, yeah. I forgot Valentine’s Day would be next. The Christmas tree is still up. We’re still eating fruitcake. Must be time to fast forward to February.
So I peeked, noting the cards and chocolates, gifts and goodies. I privately acknowledged I would have more business to do facing them, but as that was all I could do for now, I returned to hunting photo albums with my friend.
Peeking helps. You don’t deny the reality of what is in front of you; you look as much as you can, squinting if that helps, processing, feeling, mourning, and then you go on. That’s why it helps to be patient with yourself, and not let anyone rush you into feeling what you’re not feeling. What good does it do to pretend you are what you’re not? Pain hurts. I think we SHOULD feel it, as much as we can stand it, and give ourselves space in which to ride out the wave until we get to a smoother place.
For example, there was the second time I ventured out to a grocery store. I was more composed than my first time, and that was encouraging. A little more healing, I thought. That’s good.
And then the song overhead intruded:
“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”
No help for it, I had to stand still and let that wash through me, there by the boxes of pasta and jars of sauce. I peeked at the irreversible reality, sorrowed the loss, blew my nose, and decided between angel hair or bowties. There is no way but through sometimes.
I think we will do well if we give out chocolates and cards, gifts and goodies all year long, not just mid-February. Because, as the song says, sometimes “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”.
Teach us how short our life is, that we may become wise.
Psalm 90:12