A Handful of Corks

I’m excited for our upcoming move away from this town and towards new experiences. Packing some of the kitchen today, I worked on what can stay in a box for a few months. An easy rhythm came to me. Reach, pull, wrap, pack. Music helped me keep pace. Then my hand grabbed the old glass stein filled with corks. I stilled, realizing I had fallen onto one of the little bombs sprinkled among my packing chores. 

Almost seven year since my husband died, things can still kick me in the stomach. The flash of pain was actually affirming. I’ve been worried that I was getting caught up in my new life, putting too much distance between my old one with him and the grief I walked through to get here.

So I took the time among paper and boxes to carefully pull out corks and read the messages we had put on them. An anniversary. A friend’s engagement party. 

Our Wedding. 

That champagne cork felt smooth in my fingers. I remember the moment we gathered it. Our wedding was a small and informal thing at a friend’s horse farm in Florida. On a warm May night, we poured champagne for our friends and family instead of a receiving line. Walking table to table gave us time to thank them all for being with us on such a perfect day. 

Back in my kitchen, I lined up our corks on the table. This was it. A finite number of markers celebrating moments with Gage. No more will be collected, but I was grateful to have the ones that sat in front of me. I could see his boyish smile in my mind and feel him again, even for a brief instant. I had forgotten how his presence touched me. It filled me the same regardless of where I was; in his arms or thousands of miles away. We were together. We are still entangled, in some way, even with him gone and with me trying to figure out a new path here.

I put the corks back in their home and carefully wrapped the glass. There will be a place for them in my new home. I don’t know how many times I’ll be brave enough to touch them like that again, but I’m glad they will be with me.