After Forty-Five Years Apart, a Pastor Married His High School Sweetheart

I sat by myself at the kitchen table long after Wade had left for his hotel downtown.

The yellow lamp overhead gleamed on the silver case in my palm.

The forty-five lost years were no longer an empty space; they were a holy grace that had kept me safe.

I held the open silver locket in my warm hand.

I snapped the little metal clasp closed and slid the silver chain into my coat pocket next to my pastoral notebook.

The sanctuary smelled of beeswax polish and fresh pine needles when Helen, the floor nurse who’d stood with us in the hospital chapel, came through the side aisle doors carrying a heavy ceramic vase of white lilies.