I came across videos of a trip Rick and I took 14 years ago this month. He knew going to Cornwall to explore the land of my ancestors had been a life-long dream and we spent five glorious days in England. We then met up with my son and his wife to explore several other countries in Europe. It was a trip of a lifetime.
I was going through the trip photos in my Dropbox folder and discovered the short videos I took using one of those little Flip video cameras available at the time. I forgot the videos existed! As I opened them one by one, I watched my husband being silly and playful, saw videos of him driving us down the narrow treacherous paths through the countryside, and even found one of us dining together in a restaurant in Germany with my son and his wife, where my daughter-in-law turned the camera on the two of us, providing me with a rare video of us together.
When I finished watching all the videos, I felt almost paralyzed. I was so overcome seeing these unexpected memories of that time we shared, that I didn’t know HOW I felt. And, of course, I started to cry and did so for probably two hours. As my grief therapist once told me, as time goes on, there will come a stage where there are very few new memories, so uncovering one I haven’t explored will be a shock to the system.
