Love Will Find a Way | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Love Will Find a Way | Previous Challenge Entry
By Barbara Mahler
02/15/14
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A picture of my youngest daughter and her two nieces has occupied a prominent place on my dresser top for many years. When the treasured photograph was taken just before Christmas in 2001, my daughter, Elysa was 13; Kara, my oldest daughter and her husband’s firstborn, was just a year and a half; and Marti, my son and his wife’s only child was five.

Even a quick glance at the picture easily renews my memory of Marti’s anticipation about Santa’s impending visit. The image aptly reflects her excited expression and adorable impish grin. Perched on Santa’s left knee she had been reassured she would receive “lots of presents” because she had been “a very good girl.” Kara, on the other hand, looked a little scared. She was too young to know the man with the long white beard and didn’t take her eyes off her parents during the whole time she sat on Santa’s other knee. Elysa stands behind all three, smiling a smile that lit up her whole face.

We had much cause for celebration that year. My son, Marti’s dad was a 9/11 survivor. He had been in the South Tower, and although injured and traumatized he had made it out. Even though she was too young to understand all that had occurred, Marti had not lost her daddy; his wife had not lost the love of her life and I had not lost my son.

Mutual concern for Jim had drawn us close. We truly rejoiced at celebrating birthdays, graduations and even my re-marriage. It was not Christmas every day, but we had become a family again – closer than we had ever been.

Now, thirteen years later it is beyond my comprehension; I am totally without understanding as to how the family who so cherished their new found family-ness could or would tolerate the loss of each other again; to have part of my family exclude another as they had once before tears me apart. Little did I know that the message LOVE WILL FIND A WAY that encircles the frame of my precious photograph would hold a different meaning today than it did thirteen years ago. My heart is truly broken. I grieve over what I am powerless to change and pray daily that somehow, someday, someway “love will find a way” once again.

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