Threads of Remembering

🕯️ It's Friday evening, and I'm still smiling at yesterday's conversation with Stefan. It began, as the sweetest things often do, without warning.

A collage of macramé lampshades arrived on my phone, creamy cords knotted into lanterns and tassels spilling like soft rain, followed by his familiar teasing: Are you still alive?

My brother, fourteen months older and my classmate for most of our school years, had started plaiting a macramé flowerpot holder. In his search for ideas, a memory came tumbling out of the tassels: the brown macramé lampshade that hung over our lounge table in primary school, and the candle that set it alight and burnt the bottom half.

✍️ I didn't need to search for that memory, as it was waiting for me the moment I saw the photo. Something had fallen off the table, and Stefan held the candle closer to see better. I remember the smell of scorched cord, and I remember that Mama refused to buy me the "Baby Love" doll I'd longed for after that little disaster. Stefan doesn't remember the doll at all, which made me laugh, since he was far too busy taking apart everything he could lay his hands on, pianos included.

🌱 One memory loosened another, like pulling a single cord in a knot. Out came the dogs: Anta, Adelo, and later Wolf and Wanda, along with Wum, whose name Stefan remembers even if the spelling escapes him. Two mothers had puppies at the same time, twenty-three of them all at once, with one litter tucked away in Stefan's wardrobe, while our cat had kittens too.

We later moved to the plot in Rosashof because of all the pets, where a burglar once found himself cornered between Wum and Wolf, unable to move an inch until Papa came home. Wum let him into the yard but wouldn't let him leave, whilst Wolf refused him entry to the house. Papa's workshop carried the scent of sawdust while he crafted table stands for the Holiday Inn, and Stefan worked beside him on the woodwork machines while still a small boy.

🌱 Then Stefan sent an old photograph of the two of us perched high on the swing frame, and something in me stirred. There's something particularly moving about seeing us there, high above the ground, barefoot and seemingly fearless. The memories I'd been describing suddenly had faces, sunlight and shape. I could almost feel the warmth on my shoulders as I remembered the garage roof we jumped from, and the mulberry tree we climbed before leaping off the other side into the sand. The higher, the better.

I've long since left my climbing days behind, especially since my back and neck surgeries, yet I could see where our Misha got his love of heights and climbing when he was little.

🕊️ In the middle of all the laughter, Stefan said something that settled deep within me. He's always joked that he'd start remembering things one day, and now that we're older, he believes we've finally arrived. I told him the truth, gently and simply: I'm only now beginning to remember, little by little, as my heart heals. Until recently, I remembered almost nothing.

🪨 For many years, large parts of my childhood sat behind a high wall. Stefan mentioned that the Rosashof plot is now hidden behind eight-foot concrete walls, so you can't even glimpse the house, the lawn or the gate. I sat with that image for a long while, recognising that my heart once built walls like those for protection, and they did their work for a season. Walls that keep danger out also keep memory in, sealing away the mulberry trees along with the wounds.

📖 "I will remember the works of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old." — Psalm 77:11 (NKJV)

🕯️ I'm learning that the Lord doesn't kick down the walls of a wounded heart. He waits, He woos, and He heals, and as the healing comes, the gate quietly swings open. This season asks me to hold two truths together: the sorrow of childhood memories that have been so difficult to reach, and the unexpected joy of rediscovering moments of laughter, adventure and connection. Both are real, and both are held in His hands. The Holy Spirit has been handing my memories back to me one thread at a time, never more than I can carry, and always wrapped in His tenderness.

✍️ Macramé is made from nothing more than simple cord and patient knots. Each knot holds the next, and slowly something beautiful takes shape, strong enough to cradle a pot or diffuse a light. My life has been woven in much the same way, with knots of grief and knots of joy, singed edges and tangled places. In the hands of the Master Weaver, none of it is wasted, and even the half-burnt lampshade has become part of the story He's redeeming. Like kintsugi gold traced along the cracks of broken pottery, His healing doesn't erase what happened; it makes the mended places shine.

🌱 Tonight I'm grateful for a brother who remembers with me, laughs with me, and lets the past come back with gentleness. I'm grateful for a God who restores what was lost, including the memories I once thought were gone forever.