Not Just A Blue Jean Imprint

After sitting down at my desk this morning, I reached for my glasses. Just as I was slipping them onto my face, I noticed that the right lens had something on it. Pulling the glasses back off my face, I held them up to the light so that I could see the location of the smudge. However, it wasn’t fuzzy at all. Smack dab in the middle of my lens was a perfect fingerprint.

I’m sure it couldn’t be anyone’s except for my print because they are my glasses. It could even be proven scientifically because every person’s fingerprint is different. No two people have the same print which is totally phenomenal if you think about it. Billions of people and every print is different.

All those wiggly lines make up a unique fingerprint for an equally unique individual. No two people think, look or act exactly like another human being – not anyone who has lived, now lives or will ever live on this planet is the same. Each person makes some kind of contribution, print or stamp in history.

When my Dad died on October 15, 2010, I obviously grieved. Even when I was trying to be brave, living without him on Earth was too much pain for me to wrap my mind around.

Today, after seeing that fingerprint on my glasses, I thought about the imprint that Dad made in his life. His family and friends all had a personal relationship with him that was exclusive of all others. Each connected with him in their own way and vice versa.

Day after day Dad lived his life touching other lives along the way and making his historic print on the Earth. What kind of imprint did he make with his existence? It made me contemplate how my life might look when it is over.

I reached into the box of Dad’s clothes after I got home tonight and pulled out a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt. As I drew them close to my face, I could faintly smell his soap. I buried my face in his t-shirt and felt an ache in my chest begin to open.

Meanwhile, my mind drifted off to a sunny day when I hugged his neck and could smell Old Spice. I lingered in those lovely memories only a moment because the flood gates had opened and my tears were swiftly falling down my cheeks.

Jeans and t-shirts don’t last forever and neither do our lives.

Like the hem of our jeans, sometimes we get a little frayed, but we refuse to give up or completely fall apart. We try to hold up our end of the responsibilities that fall on our shoulders and keep on moving along.

There are many experiences that put a hole into our hearts that can’t always be mended. We learn to live with them and hope that others will accept us in our imperfect state.

Many stitches are visible on the jeans, but there are many more inside. The threads that show on the outside have a different purpose than the hidden stitches inside. Removing a few stitches here and there could be the demise of the whole pair of jeans. So it is with our lives…a hour here and there can totally change our lives for the good or the not so good. We can hide our actions and no one will see them, but eventually every experience has an affect on the outside of our body and the rest of existence.

Each minute of our life is but a stitch in time and history. How are your stitches holding up to the test of time?

What kind of statement are you making with your life?

Dad may be gone, but he left a whole lot more than just a blue jean imprint on me. I miss you Dad wherever you are tonight.