Split a piece of wood

I've got to invent letters for my various family members, like other bloggers. I have not been able to bring myself to it though. It just seems to be a step closer to invasiveness. Don't ask me why.

One of the jobs that my brother-in-law, my wife, her sister, and I have enjoyed the most of all our routine jobs is gathering firewood for the winter. There is not only a wood stove to keep the cottage warm, but in true Finnish tradition, there is a cedar sauna by the water. It is powered by a woodstove, and eats up so much wood that it has to have a woodpile too. So the four of us would go out into the peaceful woods and turn old oaks ravaged by gyspy moths into firewood. (Sometimes the kids would come too, riding the snowmobile is often inspiration enough)

Yesterday, we went scouting for wood. While we were out looking, my brother-in-law mentioned that he and his wife had been out for a walk, and seen a stand of dead oaks that would be perfect. He said it fairly matter of factly, but I know he hurts to take any walk now where she cannot follow.

Back at the cottage, it occured to me that although the place still looks like hers - she would still find everything right where she expected to - only a few things are still where she put them. The hummingbird feeders have all been brought down and refilled. The dishes have all been washed and put back many times. Piles of magazines have been read and restacked. The firewood in the woodbox has been burnt, and replaced. The green chair, the last place she sat, has been pulled in and pulled out many times since that Friday night.

We are slowly losing all her physical traces. We're preserving certain key things, of course. Her archway with the painted hummingbirds is something we'll keep as long as we can. But the casual traces of her presence are fading.

She has gone to where nothing fades any more, where "neither moth nor rust consumes" (as Jesus would say.) For her, everything of us she took with her is already everlasting. But for we still here, there is some sadness in the fading of the temporary things...