Spencer was a foodie. He loved a well cooked meal from a high quality restaurant. His favorite places were Q’s (San Francisco), J. Alexander’s (Nashville/Chicago), McCormick & Schmidt’s (Chicago), BrickTop, and Kemol’s (Saint Louis). He also loved lunch at Ralph Lauren’s (Chicago, now defunct) and The Peabody Hotel (Memphis). You could just as easily catch him grabbing a meal at Diner’s Delight or sliding through Bing Lau’s on North Grand. He would sneak off to Granite City for homemade ice cream, and the carrot cake at Stoney River.

He LOVED a well cooked meal. We spent our best times trying out new places to eat—had a whole itinerary of places to try this spring and summer…a fat couple’s love language.

Today.

I drove all the way to BrickTop’s to buy some Millionaire’s Deviled Eggs. He will never know the amount of bacon I wasted trying to perfectly caramelize some bacon for him. My deviled eggs is A-1, but that bacon part? Whew! I’m not the best at cooking because I don’t like to cook, but I know how. And I’d try to figure out ANYTHING he wanted to eat. My shrimp game was strong. My fried catfish was B+. He loved my meatloaf and when I learned to make Salmon Croquettes how he liked them? Well. You couldn’t tell me nuffin. And he decided he’d never leave me once he figured out I knew how to make banana pudding (I stand and stir sugar y’all can keep that pack of jello mix🙄), a variety of pies including lemon icebox pie, and all types of cobblers.

I will never try to make that special bacon by hand again.

Eventually, I will just be sharing memories that I’ve shared over and over again. Despite 20 years of experiences and adventures, at sons point I will arrive at the end. Over and over again.

And I will begin again.

If I am so blessed of the Lord, I will catch up to his age in these photos. I will get to see if I will remember to look at them then—to compare wrinkles and aches and pains. Will all the differences fade away as I close the gap? Will I better understand some of his ways? Will I even remember enough to know what to compare?

I am so circumspect in what I say, how I say it. It’s so easy to let my mouth run off on me, to allow grief to be my new lover and marry my sorrow. But. The Lord requires something of me far beyond me venting my spleen in agonizing pleasure—cuz that is what all complaint is, the painful pleasure of demanding to be right. Yeah so no.

It be tempting, though. Because sometimes? The tears just aren’t enough.

Meanwhile. I catch glimpses into how grief swallows people whole, ends their lives. Trying to explain the impact, the trauma, the literal physical reaction to something so intangible is wild. My hip went out driving back from MS. As I crossed the JB back into IL, I went into a full on anxiety attack.

It was the first time I’d gone to MS and come back to him gone.

I wanted to pull over, to just get out the car and walk away. But the Holy Spirit whispered, “Nope. Just drive and breathe. Count. And breathe.”

At every turn a vain imagination or high thought pops up.

Like, how enraged I’ve been, thinking how he was the one to always soothe my impatience as the school year ended.

Like, how lonely it is, and how I need to leave home—leave here to be happy again.

Like, how overwhelmed I’ve been, worried about how the kids REALLY are because they are still trying to tiptoe around my broken heart.

God is near to me all the time binding up these wounds, you know?

I saw these pictures, and I know eventually I won’t have any more new memories to remember. I will just be sharing the same ones over and over again.

And then I will start over.

Love never dies. It just changed form, changed hands, changes form and feel. Even when it looks like it’s buried and in the grave, love rises again and again, just like the memories that make me laugh and cry and repent for wishing for what was.

Why do we keep looking for the living amongst the dead? Because sometimes, we don’t want to life to go on differently. We want to keep it selfishly the same. But the God I serve and honor with my life has a way… we cannot go over or under or around or through. We must come in at the door. It’s at the door we get the keys to the kingdom.

Anyway. I feel nostalgic but I am not sad. It’s been…93 days. One day with the Lord is as a thousand, which means that Spencer has had 93,000 days to get comfortable in the presence of the Lord. One day I will join him. The relationship wont be the same—Jesus said we don’t get the privilege of marriage on the other side. But the fellowship? It will always be there. And we will praise God together, again.

Hopefully there’s some fancy restaurants to sit at and cackle about the goodness of God.

Writing to ease the ache,