Get the Best You Can Out of Life

The flame of the lamp leaps

My father and girlfriend in his yearbook

It was an old, worn, forgotten yearbook that penetrated my placid veneer, exhuming layers of unexpected sadness.

Sometimes the most inconspicuous things have the power to awaken, surprise, inspire, and even shatter us. The tattered yearbook, on a dusty shelf in the back corner of an antique store in Washington state, must have been glad that someone finally noticed its lonely existence.

I’m not sure why I picked it up.

Perhaps it reminded me of my father’s old yearbook, tucked away in a cardboard box, amongst other boxes in the garage where remnants of my Dad’s life hibernate. These last things my father left behind, sealed away in darkness. Waiting, hoping. Maybe someone will pull them out to reminisce and remember.

There, alone in the back section of the antique store, I flipped through the yearbook pages.

It belonged to a woman named Nancy. The year was 1959. The photos were black and white. High school students looked more mature back then, in their suits, sweaters, and thick-rimmed glasses.

Their youthful faces so bright, so full of promise.