A Major Change

Just before midnight, Friday, September 28, 2012

I cannot sleep.

The poetic corners of my heart long to express this tumultuous emotion. (Okay, a little melodramatic perhaps, but cut me some slack...it's the middle of the night :)

The grieving process includes pictures, memories and soul-moulding realities that roll through my thoughts and heart.

I only worked there five years. Yet the encounter has affected nearly half the years of my life.

It's a stationery store on the corner. I see it, as though gazing down through an absent ceiling. My minds' eye sees the note pads, the paint brushes and tubes of watercolour paint. Behind me a third of the store is filled to capacity with books. A maze of shelving, rarely wandered through in my time there. Secretive, unknown titles never perused. I worked the north and east sides; paperclips, binders, dozens of rolls of tape. The office chairs are scattered, lonely, hoping for someone to test them and, nodding, choose the right one for their cubicle up the street.

I see the desks in the corner, where ohhhh so much of my heart is. The back rooms and across the alley, the warehouse—places I spent loads of time, counting, lifting, moving, checking lists and scrambling to fill out the waybill after greeting the Purolator guy.

The sum of the parts isn't so much where I spend my time remembering. Rather, it's the parts themselves, that hold meaning. Like a wheel. The store is the hub, but the spokes...each spoke so precious, in it's own way.

The aisle, where I watched my precious little boy sneak around the corner to surprise Aunties Maureen and Elsie. Our longed-for child... The coffee breaks I spent, hurrying out the back door to the doctor's office down the road, only to hear, yet again, the pregnancy test is negative. And now, in another town, I have my three babies, years after those return trips to the store to move cases of paper off the skid, heart breaking. And despite the miles and time between us, those sweet ladies, my former boss and co-worker, loved my first-born son like a grandchild. Doting. Spoiling. Stickers taken off the rack and care-packages covered in hearts, loaded with goodies. Visits here and back there, kisses on baby hands and feet, and pictures emailed across the miles.

That corner office, where those same ladies played with my boy, and later, his two brothers. Reluctantly submitting to my request for photos. Me grinning with a full-heart at the screen-saver of my babies on Elsie's computer. Those little encouragement notes, so simple, still visible...evidence that my simple gestures ministered to their souls.

The purple file folders. To Be Filed. Twelve years since I've worked there, and they're in the same wire basket tucked underneath Maureen's desk. Edges are ratty now, and soft.

The counter where I'd lay the bucket full of mini chocolate-chip banana muffins. Oh those silly muffins. More love went into those things than chocolate chips. And I'll tell ya, they were loaded with chocolate chips!

Memories of co-workers, tragically taken before they lived a full life.

A hand on a shoulder, silently wishing strength into her heart as she grieved the death of a loved-one. “For as long as I shall live, I will testify to Love. I'll be a witness in the silences, when words are not enough. With every breath I take, I will give thanks to God above. For as long as I shall live, I will testify to Love.” (Avalon)

Strange thing is, all this emotion, and the store isn't even closing. I heard tonight, Maureen is retiring. A gasp, and then, to express a chuckle through the shock, I exclaimed, “No more staff discount!?!” A few more months and she'll be done. Tonight my precious friend Elsie is sleeping in our guest room. Her own grandbabies tugging gently at her heart, so I watch her drive tomorrow to her new home, in her new city.

My ladies are leaving my stationery store. There are three people there still, whom I know from my days as an employee. But oh my ladies...

A thesaurus doesn't hold the words to express my strange, deep, rich heart's cry tonight.

I am thankful. Oh such a tiny, insignificant word to describe it. Thankful. For my time there. For the knowledge I gained. For these women who have loved me and my family beyond distance and time. For the promise of the years of friendship ahead.

Thankful even for the silly things that affect my everyday, cuz of my experience there...it's spelled stationery, folks. When it's paper, it's stationery. When you're standing still, it's stationary. :)

And the surge of delight as I watch TV's Undercover Boss. I'd have loved to have had my co-workers try my job for a week ;)

The timing of this final chapter at my stationery store is Divine-inspired. In two weeks all three of us will be in those walls together. The last inventory. The final batch of muffins. And Lord-willing, a photo.

I love you Maureen. I love you Elsie. Beyond the stationery store, and forever.