Nana's Radio

Nana's radio is playing.

Technically, it's not the radio portion that's pouring out music. It's the cd player in it.

John Michael Talbot.

I bought the combination radio/cd player for her when she was living in an assisted living facility. The radio was a replica of those old-style radios from the 50s that sat on kitchen tables in Ozzie and Harriet homes. I thought she'd enjoy it. She listened to some oldies stations on it a few times, but as she gradually withdrew from conscious reality she stopped caring for music. When she died, I inherited it.

Now the radio sits to my left on top of a small bookcase in my office hermitage that used to be my middle daughter's bedroom.

Talbot. Audrey Assad. The Carolina Chocolate Drops. America. Seals and Crofts. Caedmon's Call. Garnet Rogers. My mood determines whose voice issues forth from my borrowed replica.

To the left of the radio-bearing bookcase a small mirror is hanging on the wall. It was my daughter's mirror. I looked in it the other day and as I studied my face I thought of her staring into it studying her face years ago.

She no longer lives at home. She hadn't slept in the room in nearly a decade. Over this past summer I gradually turned her room into my office hermitage. A small table to work on. Several bookcases full of my favorite novels, Chesterton, poetry, religious books, music books. I left up a few of pictures that she had put up on the wall, and a dream catcher. When I look at them, I think of her.

While cleaning out some boxes full of things that had belonged to my parents, I found a small Infant of Prague that I'd searched all over for for my mother. It was meant to be worn about her neck. It's still in the jewelry box; I think she never wore it. Every now and then I look at it and remember her. She loved the Infant of Prague.

I also found a small plastic viewer. When you look through it you can see a picture of my father from back when he was a successful insurance salesman. It looks like it was taken at one of the many conventions or conferences that he attended. He regularly won trips and awards for his prowess as a salesman.

There are more inherited things in this room. I don't feel that it's my room yet - even though I own the house. It's still my daughter's room.

For now.

But that radio and that Infant and that viewer and that dream catcher will always be theirs.

I'm just grateful they've let me share them.

Pax et bonum