Memories & Understanding

Sorry for the delay but my internet has been down again—for the fifth time in the past six months—but here is the information Jellyhead asked about in her comment on my last posting:

William L. Short and Sarah Belle Laning married in Bloomington, Illinois, on August 23, 1854, Illinois State Marriage License # 801.

Here is a copy of a typical 1854 Illinois Marriage License:

As Ginny and I worked transcribing the Short diary over the weekend, when we found this marriage license we got to talking about weddings.

Earlier in the week someone had asked me if Ginny were a sentimental person.

I assured them that she is not.

That shows just how much I understand the woman I’ve been married to for almost 41 years now. Because as she and I talked about weddings… Well, here is a photo of Ginny in her wedding dress, one she’d sewn herself for the occasion:

As we talked, she revealed that even after all these years she still has that dress!

She also has the hat she’s wearing in the photo. And the gloves. And the turtle pin, the first piece of jewelry I ever gave her. She even pressed that orchid I bought her in a book—but she can’t remember where that flower is now.

She still keeps her wedding paraphernalia in a box marked “Memories”.

I don’t understand.

Who keeps old cloth?

It’s a girl thing I guess.

Ginny went on to reveal that in her memory box (which I never knew she had) she also keeps: a baby cap she knitted and a baby dress we bought in Mexico for Jennifer; an outfit she knitted for Donald; a tie-dye tee shirt made by Ginny’s brother for baby Eve; and a baby blanket for baby Patricia knitted by a 90-year-old lady at the church we used to attend.

Baby Patricia, our youngest, turns 30 this year…

And, just in case, Ginny saves in her box, if, God forbid, we ever need them again, several Maternity Dresses!

Maternity dresses she wore all those years ago.

Yes. Maternity dresses.

I never knew she’d treasured up all these cloth things in her Memory Box in her closet.

Just goes to show how little I understand my wife.

Of course, understanding is not all it’s cracked up to be.

A psychologist in a novel I read last week observed that sometimes our quest to understand something is an avoidance mechanism; it’s a subterfuge to avoid commitment. Instead of diving into the water, we test it and analyze it and look for contaminants.

By getting bogged down in trying to understand, we miss out on enjoying.

Yet, we appear to be respectable by saying we’re seeking to understand.

King Solomon once said, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding, and He will direct thy paths”.

But I don’t understand Jesus. How could He be God and man at the same time? How could His dying on a cross 2,000 years ago be related to my sin yesterday? How could this dead guy, skewered by a Roman spear in his side, walk out of that grave under His own steam? How can He hold the universe together on one hand and be inside me on the other? And if He knows all there is to know, past, present and future, how cam my prayers have any bearing on anything?

And why is it that that glorious Being who holds nebulae in the palm of His hand, makes Himself available for a relationship to every human person?

I have no idea.

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand God any more than I understand Ginny.

Both remain inscrutable to me.

But, how about this!

It does not matter whether or not I understand in order for me to be loved.

Yes, God loves us even when we do not understand Him.

And yes, Ginny loves me in spite of everything…

And though I don’t understand why she’d keep old cloth for ages, I adore her.

Although I do have to admit, that trying to transcribe a 155-year-old diary together—I read text, she typed my dictation into the computer—transcribing an old diary together, places a certain amount of strain on our relationship…

Especially when I repeated the same line after line again and again and again only to realize that she was not wearing her hearing aid!

She said she didn’t want to wear them.

She refused to wear them.

Why was that?

I have no idea.

I’ll never understand that complex woman.

No, I’ll never understand her.

Thank God, I don’t need to.