Never Fully Get to Miss

Holidays, inevitably, are filled with memories - everyone's memories.  So many stories are told this time of year.  Whether you're surrounded by family at the dinner table or running into old friends while Christmas shopping, everyone is remembering.  And usually they are remembering someone. 

It's odd - the people I miss this time of the year.  It's odd because they are the ones I miss, even though I will never fully understand what it's like to miss them.  I'll never know what it's like to miss that look they get when they see they've made you smile. Or that way their hugs leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy.  The way the room changes, ever so slightly, just because they bring their presence into it.  I've heard of all of these things so many times but I've never experienced them for myself.  I love them because they mean so much to those who I have loved my whole life and therefore, are a part of who I am.  The memories I hold of them consist only of old, worn out photographs and stories that have been told to me over so many holidays.  All those treasured stories that have made me laugh, cry, and love them all the more.  

One reason why I think these people hold that special place in my heart is because, at some point, those who mean the world to me will occupy that spot in someone else's.  It makes me so sad to think that maybe the man who will one day be my husband or those children who I dream of might never meet my mother or my father, my grandparents, my brother, and all those others who are so important to me.  How could I spend my life with someone who doesn't know them?  They are so a part of who I am, and if they never get to meet, well sure, they'll hear stories and hopefully love them the way I love those who exist in the worn out photographs, but they won't ever feel real to them.  That just makes me so sad, how much they would miss out on.

I guess I'll just have to hope that God puts the right guy in my path before it's too late for him to make memories of his own.  Sometimes I wish He'd give us a glimpse at that master plan of his, but then again, what's life without a few surprises.  And love seems to be the biggest surprise of all - knowing when it would come might keep my breath from being taken away, and I wouldn't want to miss that.