The recent dinosaur tail found in Amber gave a whole new perspective to the development and design of feathers. More commonly it is smaller creatures that get consumed in amber and preserved. Amber preservation is incredible in that it gives a crystalline glimpse into the past that includes hard to preserve soft tissues.
In human life, relationships — both near and far — operate like like amber. They enable a pure if often small memory that includes the soft tissues of feeling and relationship. Ronald Reagan once said of the death of the Challenger astronauts that they “slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.” Death seems that way to me…and once a person is gone each memory of that person is one more of those surly bonds that will slip away as the people that knew the departed go themselves. This week John Glenn joined the others in slipping the surly bonds of earth. I was just a kid when he orbited the earth. But I have a very clear adult memory of him, as he was one of the heroes my husband admired.
This week coming my husband Will would have turned 62. Both before and after he was blind we spent a lot of time in the hospital due to complications of diabetes, playing scrabble or reading. After he was blind, I read to him, usually William Faulkner. Have you ever tried to read William Faulkner out loud? I had to go slow, because my brain needed the time to figure the right tone for those long sentences. They were amazing sentences. When times got tough for him he had me read him the novel by Tom Stoppard, The Right Stuff. Glenn’s protection of his wife in spite of all his other pressures was one of my favorite parts. I was reading the The Right Stuff to Will the very last evening we got to spend together conscious, although we did not know then that it was the last time.
We thought we were in for a disappointing but temporary downtime and that he was missing a high school reunion. People ducked out of that reunion to come see him in the hospital, providing breaks in the reading from time to time. We thought we’d be out in the woods backpacking within days. We thought we had only a few weeks to get this hike done before dialysis schedules would make future hikes shorter. There would be no dialysis. A heart attack that night changed everything. He was 29.
Moments with Will are like portraits of moments in a sort of amber for me now. They are crystalline, beautiful and most accessible when triggered by some reflection of our bond, but they are amazingly pure in the restoration of soft feelings when they occur — like reliving a scene. When John Glenn died this week it became one of those memory triggering events.
Two thousand years ago, the apostles must have been desperate to remember the resurrected and departed Jesus. Over their lives they would have their “amber memories”. Four of them wrote those memories down to preserve them for us all for all time. Amber memories, with their detail and feelings, make compelling stories. The gospels are compelling reading about Jesus. I find John to be the most remarkable, possibly because he wrote it last, after the amber had crystallized more. Our God is great, and provided a way for us to experience Jesus life third-hand by reading those gospels. Who are we to pass that by?
Originally published on Medium in the publication We are all Overcomers. Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
