I'll always remember you.
"I found God here."
Oftentimes, I will find myself walking along some path, looking for something noteworthy to add to my ever-increasing repertoire of meaningless memories. I may find some graffiti on some forgotten wall someplace.
Oftentimes, this graffiti is of no interest to me. I will take note of it, only to have it slip my mind moments later, forever lost to the void that is human forgetfulness.
Sometimes, though, sometimes I remember.
Sometimes, I remember walking down the marina at sunset, the gentle sea breeze blowing in my hair and the smell of salt on the wind. I remember the sunset over the trees on the bay, golden rays playing between the branches and the swaying masts of the moored ships. I remember kneeling down, for some reason or another,
And seeing you.
You called out to me then, and I know not if it was because you held some importance to me or I was simply more curious than average. I listened to you, and I wrote you down in that cheap little leather notebook I had carried there from Lake Tahoe.
And there you stayed. You sat comfortably within those pages, watching the days and weeks and months go by as I carried on with my life, forgetting all about that sunset, viewed from that pier, in that marina. I kept you in my notebook like one keeps treasure in a vault. I was never one to reflect back on what I saw then, I had far too much staring me down.
But you remained all the same. You were simply ink on a page, but you were far more than that, too. You were the most important one of all. Though I may have forgotten you, what you had begun that day, as the first entry to this tiny catalogue of my life, was not forgotten. Without you, I had nothing.
One day, I saw fit to remember you. My memory came like a piece of candy down the winding track in some long-forgotten gumball machine, bringing new pleasure into a long neglected space. I sat watching another sunset, this time in a city park, far from the sea where I found you. You were with me all the same, however, memories rushing back to remind me of those simpler days.
"I found God here."
Scrawled in permanent marker on a concrete block, you presented nothing initially special. But you had called to me, and I had answered, and you had made your mark in my heart.
As the days go by, and my notebook fills with more and more musings, observations, and reflections, I still remember you. I think about you from time to time, and I wonder, as if I was back on that pier all over again,
What God did you find here, stranger?
Did you sit on this wharf as I did, all those years ago, waiting, wondering, wishing for something? Did you, too, see the fading sunlight through the maze of branches and masts, and feel the beauty wash over you?
I know not what God you found here, stranger, but while you found your God, I found you.