The Sunglasses

Mom and I shared more than one eye disease. Because of our eye conditions and the resulting surgeries, we were both destined to wear ugly sunglasses for the rest of our lives. We both needed the kind that fit over our regular glasses and blocked out the light from the side as well as the front. We used to wear the really ugly, oversized kind that was distributed by ophthalmologists everywhere, because that's all that was available. In recent years, though, Walmart and a few other stores have carried a larger variety for the people like us who need specific sunglasses.

My grandkids love the "jewels" that often adorn every available pair.

Because the light really hurt her eyes when she wasn't wearing sunglasses outside, Mom always had multiple pairs: one pair in the car, one in her purse, one on the counter near the back door, and a spare for when she couldn't find the pair she was looking for. All of hers were black, without any extra adornment, but in recent years she had obtained some that weren't quite as big as the doctor-provided ones that she had to wear for many years.

After Mom died, my sister, Laura, handed me two or three pairs of Mom's sunglasses to take home, since I was the only one who needed them. I put one pair in a drawer to use later, and another in the car after I lost my regular pair on the way home from Fairbury. It wasn't too long before I noticed something unusual about the newly-acquired pair that I had begun wearing nearly everyday, whenever I drove in the daytime.

The right temple swiveled a little bit, so I had to be careful putting the glasses on, otherwise the end of the temple might be pointing up or out, where it would not do its job of keeping the sunglasses securely on my face. As I examined the glasses closely for the first time, I noticed that someone--undoubtedly my dad--had "shrink-wrapped" a clear plastic tube over the temple to repair it after it snapped apart in two places.

Dad's repair job

Mom and Dad were part of the "waste not, want not" generation. Dad, in particular, never bought something new if he could buy it at an auction, or repair it if it was broken. In fact, I know that some of Mom's sunglasses were auction finds. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the plastic tube Dad used for this repair job was also something that came in some miscellaneous auction box.

Love comes in many forms. Sometimes, it is evident in something as simple as a repaired pair of sunglasses. 

Even though I have a perfectly good, undamaged pair of sunglasses waiting in my drawer, I expect I'll be wearing this particular pair for quite some time, because every time I put them on, I think of Mom--and Dad.

And He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

Malachi 4:6


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