From Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach
From the June 15 page:
“The Secret Anniversaries of the Heart”
The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart,
The secret anniversaries of the heart . .
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This is the traditional month for orange blossoms, lace, and rice, but wedding anniversaries aren’t on my mind. Today I am thinking of singular rites of passage, the secret anniversaries of the heart. These are the anniversaries we never talk about, kept in silence and apart. You might remember a first kiss, while I can’t forget the last time I held my father’s hand.
I was speaking to a good friend this morning on the telephone. She was enjoying the preparation of a special dinner for a marvelous new man in her life. Last year her marriage of twenty years ended and she says she’s grateful her husband told her he was leaving in late summer, when everything was withering on the vine. She says that she never would have gotten over it if he had left during the holidays. I think I know what she means, but I pray I never find out for sure. As she reminds me, it’s the “feel” of the year that can trigger a secret anniversary of the heart. Another friend recalls the ritual of her mother braiding her hair whenever she walks out into her backyard in the spring and the first lilacs are in bloom. There was always a bouquet of lilacs on her mother’s dressing table.
Secret anniversaries of the heart are not restricted by the passage of the years. . . . I need to share what I’ve held in my hart for so many decades but have never expressed. It took a secret anniversary of the heart to remind me that there is always time enough to remember. But there is never time enough to commemorate what we cherish, unless we pause to observe, when they occur, the holiest of all holidays.
Prompt: Write about a secret anniversary.
You can write about your personal experience, someone else’s
experience, or respond as your fictional character would respond.
