The dusty boxes my father carried were decaying, and their musty smell caused my nose to wrinkle. They appeared to contain a jumbled assortment of old photographs, newspapers, and scraps and snippets of this and that. But I was wrong. They were filled with windows — windows to a past long since forgotten.
Windows serve many roles. Before the days of air conditioning, I remember how my mother would take naps on sultry summer afternoons. So the room would be swept with a cooling breeze by the attic fan, my sister and I would set up lawn sprinklers just outside the window to take the edge off the hot air.
Windows also cast light — and even enlightenment — into dark places. That's what happened as we rummaged through the boxes that morning. Old and dusty objects somehow became portals in time through which I wasn't prepared to look.
Despite my son's disbelief, one window shed a beam of truth on an oft-disputed fact: I WAS once young myself. I actually had hair in those days — even bushy sideburns fitting the styles of the times.
And even his Grandpa was once young. We caught a glimpse of him as a teenager in those hard years of farming before the Great Depression. We saw him a bit later in the uniform of the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. We may forget such momentous times, but windows to the past refresh the faintest memories.
Tears welled up as I saw our babies' lives in fleeting panorama. In moments son Barrett progressed from babyhood to young adulthood as images of his life flickered before us. Daughter Jenny, whose mental retardation had frozen her in time for 22 years, sped from birth to death in no more than a blink. There were some certificates and awards, signposts that marked passages that had once seemed so tedious and slow.
Certainly all experiences are woven into the delicate fabric of our lives. But windows to the past have a way of bringing distinctions into bold relief. Some things that seemed important really weren't. Others were, but I wasn't perceptive enough to have made different choices. Perhaps I should have been more attentive … or asked … or listened more closely to my parents. But such wisdom in youth was not mine.
And I wondered: will there be a day some 30 years hence when my son will unexpectedly open the same kind of windows to the past for his children? And if so, what will they see? I do have some hopes.
I hope that they will see a happy, contented family. I hope they will understand that our many problems and struggles didn't keep us permanently defeated. I hope they see that our successes were tied to the realization that God causes all things — even the most difficult circumstances of life — to work together for good to those who love Him.
I hope that we will be together when the windows are opened.
Copyright 1998 James McAlister
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