Empty Chairs
2010
My friend has a wonderful display of small chairs. It sits on top of her kitchen cabinets. I asked her about the chairs and she told me that one was hers when she was a little child and the rest had sentimental significance. She had collected them through the years. Leaning against the wooden chairs was a piece of glass in an old and weathered frame. In cursive on the glass was the phrase “no empty chairs in our heavenly home”. No matter where you sit in her house . . . in the kitchen or the family room or if you just walk down the hallway . . . you are reminded that we hope for a reunion with those we love when we go home.
These are my chairs. I am not sentimental about them but I do love them. As I struggle to find those who are lost for now, a glance at the chairs keeps me focused and reminds me why I am still looking. Still rummaging through virtual boxes and files in a million databases from the same number of places and people. I can visualize our family in the next life, gathered around the table, talking about our experiences in life. All of us. I can also imagine how lonely I would feel if I looked around the table and couldn’t find a child . . . a grandmother . . . a sister. What if all that I could find was an empty chair?