Salt In the Fridge

“I know I bought salt the other day—where could I have put it!” My 85-year-old father was flummoxed about the location of his table salt. He looked and looked, and later I searched every imaginable cupboard and storage area in the old farmhouse. During my visit his friend eventually loaned him a container of salt after he gave up.

Looking for Salt

Several days into our visit, I rummaged through the refrigerator trying to make room for some large items. I started pulling things off the top shelf, and I’m rarely surprised since the man stores many grocery items in his refrigerator. Behind several items—juice, biscuit mix, flour, or jam—the salt appeared. Salt in the refrigerator.

Now I had heard of everything. I had previously given my, “Dad, some of this stuff doesn’t have to be stored in the refrigerator,” speech. He is a conundrum of Depression Era proportions. He stores much in his refrigerator yet allows his boxes of crackers and cereal to remain with open tops for easy access. However, this latest treasure hunt in Dad’s kitchen later caused me a different kind of concern. For years he has been frustrated by his inability to remember the combinations for locks on outbuildings or family birthdays. This mistake seemed of a different nature. And I’m not present enough to know how this kind of memory lapse has progressed.

Memory Loss

We fear memory loss in ourselves and in those we love. We don’t want others to forget us, or to forget those times and places that hold meaning for our lives. Snapshots, fragrances and music help jar those aging neurons to retrieve bits of past life. Some things we even long to forget. But precious faces, voices, tastes, sounds and places, we want to bind about us as velcro thoughts—begging, “Please, please stick with me.”

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…” Isaiah 49:15-16 (NIV). Some Scriptures give me comfort that my God will always remember me, and Dad. Long after my writings have been lost or faded, long after my name is just a line on some family genealogy. God will be able to find us again when He makes all things new.

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