[guide.chat] Forwarded Email: B-F inspiration: to a child love is spelled t-i-m-3

From: "Si Watson" <mrsvilla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "guide chat" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 21:00:05 +0100
 a child love is spelled t-i-m-3

      To a Child LOVE is Spelled T-I-M-E
      by Mac Anderson and Lance Wubbels

      In the faint light of the attic, an old man, tall and stooped, bent 
his great frame and made his way to a stack of boxes that sat near one of 
the little half-windows. Brushing aside a wisp of cobwebs, he tilted the top 
box toward the light and began to carefully lift out one old photograph 
album after another. Eyes once bright but now dim searched longingly for the 
source that had drawn him here.

      It began with the fond recollection of the love of his life, long 
gone, and somewhere in these albums was a photo of her he hoped to 
rediscover. Silent as a mouse, he patiently opened the long buried treasures 
and soon was lost in a sea of memories. Although his world had not stopped 
spinning when his wife left it, the past was more alive in his heart than 
his present aloneness.

      Setting aside one of the dusty albums, he pulled from the box what 
appeared to be a journal from his grown son's childhood. He could not recall 
ever having seen it before, or that his son had ever kept a journal. Why did 
Elizabeth always save the children's old junk? he wondered, shaking his 
white head.

      Opening the yellowed pages, he glanced over a short reading, and his 
lips curved in an unconscious smile. Even his eyes brightened as he read the 
words that spoke clear and sweet to his soul. It was the voice of the little 
boy who had grown up far too fast in this very house, and whose voice had 
grown fainter and fainter over the years. In the utter silence of the attic, 
the words of a guileless six-year-old worked their magic and carried the old 
man back to a time almost totally forgotten.

      Entry after entry stirred a sentimental hunger in his heart like the 
longing a gardener feels in the winter for the fragrance of spring flowers. 
But it was accompanied by the painful memory that his son's simple 
recollections of those days were far different from his own. But how 
different?

      Reminded that he had kept a daily journal of his business activities 
over the years, he closed his son's journal and turned to leave, having 
forgotten the cherished photo that originally triggered his search. Hunched 
over to keep from bumping his head on the rafters, the old man stepped to 
the wooden stairway and made his descent, then headed down a carpeted 
stairway that led to the den.

      Opening a glass cabinet door, he reached in and pulled out an old 
business journal. Turning, he sat down at his desk and placed the two 
journals beside each other. His was leather-bound and engraved neatly with 
his name in gold, while his son's was tattered and the name Jimmy had been 
nearly scuffed from its surface. He ran a long skinny finger over the 
letters, as though he could restore what had been worn away with time and 
use.

      As he opened his journal, the old man's eyes fell upon an inscription 
that stood out because it was so brief in comparison to other days. In his 
own neat handwriting were these words:

      Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn't catch a thing.



      With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, he took Jimmy's journal and found 
the boy's entry for the same day, June 4. Large scrawling letters, pressed 
deeply into the paper, read:

      Went fishing with my Dad. Best day of my life.


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[guide.chat] Forwarded Email: B-F inspiration: to a child love is spelled t-i-m-3

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