The human heart is a funny thing, what it withstands, what it does not. I’ve long since accustomed myself to Suzanne’s absence. She’s been in Africa well over a year now. She’s busy, happy, completely at home.

But last night, the worlds collided. Suzanne’s friend Katie came to visit “bearing gifts” from her recent trip to see Suzanne in Benin. Things Suzanne had bought and wanted us to have:

There was a leather wallet, a small wall hanging of a woman carrying a jug on her head and a set of hand-cast ladles made of an indeterminate metal (maybe aluminum?).

For some reason now, I can hardly look at these gifts without a tissue nearby. That Suzanne chose them with her own hands, arranged for their passage here — well, it just got to me.

It’s always that way, isn’t it? The small, thoughtful detail; a glimpse of the eternal within the everyday.


(Photo: Katie Esselburn)