This certainly has been the strangest year most of us have ever experienced. The unexpected has become the norm and seems like we are having to adjust daily to the unknown. Trying to find life’s joy isn’t easy with the constant grim news that comes flashing up on notifications. Not since wartime has there been a daily body count, the number of people who have lost their lives to the virus.

Death has been present in my life this year. My mother-in-law, Dusty, passed away in February after 17 years of Alzheimer’s. The family was able to be with her during her final hours and we are grateful for that would not have been the case just a few weeks later. Dusty’s ashes remain in our home awaiting burial that has already been postponed once. My beloved mentor Rachael died in the March and her memorial is delayed indefinitely.  This last weekend Hamilton and I attended a memorial for a cousin now buried with parents and grandparents under the shade of a tree.

The last few weeks, I’ve been working on projects around the house. Like so many Americans, with our lives restricted, we turn to our home to nurture us and, in turn, we are nurturing our homes.  I’ve been deep cleaning many of the rooms of my house that were neglected while I was in school the last few years.  It is hard work that must be done to keep my beloved home looking its best. In each room, I systematically wash all the woodwork, oil the furniture, clean the windows and wash the curtains. While I scrub and polish, I keep my mind occupied with an endless stream of podcasts, usually one just running into the next so that I’m not sure what I will be listening to for the next bit of work.

The last on the project list has been the library.  We are all addicted to reading and the library tends to overflow with read and to-be-read books as well as art projects and memorabilia from family members.  It is definitely the hardest room to clean. I needed to repair some of the paint and clean behind bookshelves that hadn’t been moved in several decades. As I worked, the podcast that started was an interview with Dr. Cedrus Monte who recently published a book about the death of her mother. The book launch was delayed so Cedrus was reading excepts as a virtual launch. The poignant words flowed over me as I worked and allowed me to reflect on my own losses. At one point, Cedrus speaks of the fear of disappearing into the unknown as death moves in and I experienced those words as the fear of being forgotten.  It doesn’t take but a couple of generation for our lives to fade and become a handful of unidentified photographs.

But in my library is a special place of remembrance, a secret compartment where the memory of a stranger continues on in my world.  I have a small antique writing desk that Dusty bought as a lovely end table for the library. A few years ago, I opened it and was investigating the nooks and crannies when I lifted a compartment that held a hidden space.  To my surprise it was full of papers of the former owner, Robert Lennie, a teacher at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, Scotland. With these receipts, letters and cherished papers, I am able to piece together a snapshot of Robert’s life in 1920’s and ‘30’s Scotland. He was not married and was a lay preacher. But my favorite paper is a short poem written in pencil on a blue piece of paper by his students who obviously really loved Professor Lennie.

They’ve an excellent teacher, (his name’s Mr. Lennie).

He doesn’t have foes, and friends, he has many…

I have a picture with no names on the back so I can’t be sure it is Robert. But I cherish these hidden snippets of his life. This total stranger from another land and time has a place of honor in my home linking me to a magical land that I love. Robert isn’t forgotten and continues to live on in a way he could have never imagined, in a home far away from Scotland.

We too can’t imagine where our lives are going or what legacy we will leave.  The winds of fate seem to have much to do with that and our current whirlwind of life is sweeping us to an unknown world. The best I know to do is live life well and to the fullest, nurturing people and cherishing place. Hopefully that will be enough legacy for me to be remembered and leave a bit of love and kindness in my wake.