traces

Ever since a recent trip back to my home state to visit friends I've been thinking about the ways in which we make -- or leave -- our marks.

When friend S and I visited her new house to drop off a few things in advance of her move, she carefully hung a painting in the living room to claim it as her own. Suddenly the empty room began to take on the vibrant personality of the woman who will make her home there.

While in the area I visited my parents' graves. The veteran's cemetery is on a lovely country hillside, quiet in the late afternoon sun that day -- a beautiful panoramic view for us visitors. The only thing distinguishing my folks' among the rows of markers -- hundreds standing at attention with military precision -- is what is etched into their own simple granite headstones. Both veterans of World War II, they had planned this as their final resting place when it opened decades ago, but as beautiful as it is I still struggle with the anonymous uniformity of it.

In contrast, my dad's father was a stone cutter and crafted the granite stone that marks his and my grandmother's graves. I've always loved the asymmetrical artistry: rough-cut on the diagonal with an arching lily gracing the otherwise plain facade. I can see his hand in it. Had that been my father's trade, I think he'd have done the same.

That weekend I walked the streets of my hometown with my cousin on a raw November afternoon and we could only imagine and point out the ghosts and shadow landscape of what is no longer our home. You would never know that our families had lived and worked there. All traces are gone.

I wonder what I will leave as testimony to the fact that I was here. What legacy? Lately I've been puzzling over the contradiction between personal agency and that which is beyond our control. Always a proponent of free-will choices I nonetheless have had to acknowledge that some things just happen...without our consent or will. Even then, however, we are faced with choosing our responses.

Then this week there was James Kim. The 35-year-old husband and father died trying to find help for his wife and two young children after they'd been stranded for days in the Oregon wilderness. They had missed a turn on the highway. I have been preoccupied all week by James' story and that of his wife Kati who nursed their infant and young daughter to keep them nourished during their harrowing ordeal. There was relief when mother and children were found, but a profound sadness when James' body was finally discovered a couple of days later.

I don't know why I was so deeply touched by this man and his unconditional love for his family. Then again maybe I don't need to understand. All I need to know is that he left traces on my heart.