I experienced great kindness today – from a totally unexpected source. I was in Wal-Mart, getting some groceries, and I went by the portrait studio to cancel an appointment I had made. Rachel got her school pictures, and they were good, so I decided to keep those as her birthday portraits.

The manager there, Emily, has taken most of our pictures since we moved to Cookeville. Michell would regularly stop and talk with her when she walked by the studio, and apparently she made another connection. Emily recently told me she was moving to Knoxville, and I had told her about Michell’s death.

When I told her I was canceling the appointment, she said she had something for me. She handed me an envelope with something I never expected. She had gone back and re-printed some pictures that Michell and I didn’t buy, and gave them to me. When I saw them, I started to cry. It was all I could do to say “thank you” before I had to walk away.

I pulled them out again in the car, and started crying uncontrollably. I sat in the parking lot and cried, and I kept crying all the way home. I thought I was through most of the overwhelming pain, but the pictures brought my loss crashing back – pictures of Michell and the girls, of our whole family, of Michell and I together. We were taking a picture of the two of us to hang in our bedroom – I think one of them is up there, in a frame, waiting for me to find. I’m afraid to find it.

For now, looking at these pictures brings me terrible pain. She still looks just the way I remember – so vibrant, so beautiful, a loving wife and caring mother. I think about how much I miss her, about how much the girls will miss because she won’t be here to love them and care for them, and about how alone I feel without her.

Yet I am so very thankful for this unexpected blessing. I have a few copies of each to share with family and keep for the girls. And because I know someday I will be able to look at them, not with pain, but with joy.