Love And Heartache In Between

In January, I had the privilege of officiating my second wedding. The wedding actually happened in two parts: Part one was a private ceremony at the hospital while part two was the public ceremony in an old church in Wilmington. At the time, the bride’s father was very sick and wasn’t able to attend his daughter’s wedding, so we took the wedding to him. Both parts of the wedding were beautiful, but the unplanned hospital ceremony was particularly special. It was one of those events that I will always feel humbled and honored to have been part of.

While waiting for that Saturday’s wedding festivities to begin, I went to an art gallery that carries Fabio Napoleoni’s work. [Fabio Napoleoni is my favorite artist.] While there, I was introduced to the art of Dr. Seuss for the first time. I didn’t know that Dr. Seuss artwork was a thing, but evidently it’s a pretty big thing. The gallery owner planted a seed of investment in my mind but that seed lay dormant until Read Across America Week. For that entire week and for the next week after, I thought and prayed and debated between two Seuss works but in the end decided not to get either piece until I could see them in person.

Last week, after a long, tough fight, my friend’s dad passed away. The funeral was Saturday. Because I was going to be in the area again, I decided to stop by the art gallery and look at those two pieces. I’m very glad that I did. In person, I didn’t like either piece. In a surprising twist, however, I found another piece that I really liked and ended up coming home with it. Even now, as I think about the piece, I smile…because I know that this was the piece for me. Will it end up being as great of an investment as the other two? I highly doubt it. But that doesn’t matter. Because it has meaning. I will include the image here so that you can find your own meaning:

The CD player in my car recently messed up. After 17 years of rotating between 6 CDs, I guess it just got tired. It’ll still play one CD, though, so I’ve been pulling random CDs out of my bag of CDs. One of the CDs was a Carolyn Arends CD and one of the songs on the CD sang out the lyrics, “Love and heartache and in between, Life is made up of little things.”

From the love shared in a wedding at the foot of a hospital bed to the heartache shared at a celebration of life, life is made up of little things—letters and writing and music and art and laughter and tears and shared meals and jeans days and talent shows and palindromes and sunsets and walks on the beach and challenges not to waste the time we’re given. May you, dear friends, celebrate your lives of little things and may none of us ever take for granted our moments with the people we love.