I have always loved Barbra
Streisand’s song, “The Way We Were”. It is such a sentimental song about
memories, smiles and the way things used to be. I remember, early on in our
marriage, Edry and I went into one of those recording booths at Six Flags,
sometime in the 1990s, to record a song. I can’t remember the song he
recorded. I think it was an Elvis Presley song, because he knew them all.
But, I recorded “The Way We Were”. I lost that tape somewhere. I
wish I still had it.
The words are more sentimental
now that he has passed away. There’s a line in the song “Scattered
pictures of the smiles we left behind” that takes me back to when I was going
through pictures for his funeral service. The pictures had to be perfect
pictures. They had to reflect the man that I knew was perfect for me and
my kids. The pictures had to show happy times with smiles.
Those smiles were left behind,
like the song says. After he became ill, it was so hard to smile. The
smile I put on my face took so much effort. There were fake smiles, half
a smile, “I’m going to cry” smiles, “please don’t feel sorry for me” smiles and
the dreaded “don’t ask me how I’m doing” smiles. All these smiles took every
ounce of effort and courage to put on; these were pretentious smiles. I
needed to have my “smiles” so that I could survive the pain of questions
and the struggle of life day after day.
I could only be myself in the
privacy of my own bathroom. That is where the smile would come off and I
could cry my heart out. You see, I had to put on a smile for Edry, as
well. I could not let him see me cry over the fact that he was slowly
dying from early-onset dementia. I could not cry with him over what
was happening to his mind. Much of that journey I cried alone. I am
glad that this verse in the Scriptures gives me comfort.
Psalm 56:8 says "You have
taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle; Are they not in
Your book?” (NASB)
I am grateful that God puts
every tear in His bottle. I hope the bottle is big because I’m still not
done crying. But that’s ok. God is the God of all comfort. When I
read my Bible, God gives me comfort for the moment and for the days to come.
In fact, I have a
responsibility to tell others this message because it says in 2 Corinthians
1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that
we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort
with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (NASB)
So if you find yourself in need
of comfort, don’t worry about the tears. God has your tears in His
bottle. If you feel any kind of affliction pressing down on you, the Lord
is the God of all comfort and He can comfort you like no one else can. He is
the Father of mercy and compassion.
My husband died, but that
doesn’t mean that God abandoned me. Rather, God continues to comfort me
daily. Sometimes I cry looking at our pictures and sometimes I smile. But
when I smile, I can now actually wear an “I am blessed” smile.
“So it’s the laughter we will
remember,
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