No single memory has the value of living to anyone except the holder of the memory.

Images can touch all of us, but to the holder, each special memory generates a beat of joy, and that forms the musical notes that mark a human being’s inner song.

I heard my song this week; I saw it in this photo of Maria and Lena and Fanny, huddled together and laughing, on our farm. There was a stillness all around me, I celebrate it.

On Tuesday morning, I encountered a precious memory that had my heart beating and my breath a bit short.

First, I was looking at so much that I love – Maria, the animals, the farm, the old barn, the sun coming up right over us, the firewood waiting to be stacked and ready for winter.

I can barely see or capture all of these things in one image, and I knew it was special. I have loved Maria for more than a decade; she is the heart and soul of my life.

I have only known Lena and Fanny for a few months. They are not my children. They are not my family. Yet, watching them laugh and work together and slip into our lives so comfortably and naturally made me wonder.

In a sense, they are family now. I don’t love them as daughters, but I love them as gentle, open, and generous people. They both call me Grandpop now, a naturalness, almost as if it were true.

There is a smile and a warmth to it.

It ought to shock me, but it doesn’t.

My mind goes to the two children we lost in my first marriage so many years ago and then to the wonderful daughter we had. And to her child, my granddaughter.

When children die, they leave a hole in the heart that never heals; it is always there. I am cautious not ever to try to fill it. But my life was never really the same.

When they call me “Grandpop,” I don’t recoil or back up or puzzle. In some ways, I know I am becoming a kind of grandfather again in ways.

I read their stories, bring them books, talk about life and quilts, listen to stories about their boyfriends, answer their questions about the alien life around them and off their farm. And about Maria and me.

They want to know our story.

My own daughter and granddaughter are close to me, and I love them both,  but they are and seem far away.

There is really little chance that I will be an integral part of either of their lives, it isn’t for lack of love or want, but life and circumstance make their own plans, and it is important for me to accept the truth of that, even as so many people cluck and shake their heads and tell me it isn’t so.

These girls have their own parents, and they love them, and their sisters and brothers are much loved, and I have no wish or need to replace that.

Yet this connection has meaning for me; it sings my song.

It was almost overwhelming to me to see the farm that I love so much, and my wife, who I love so much, and the animals here, in one image.

When the holy sun rises and shines its line on all of us, including Fanny and Lena, I feel that something new and important has somehow entered the orbit and life.

This was the last thing we were expecting.; it literally came out of nowhere.

After the skirting, Lena asked Maria if she could go online and find a quilt pattern that Maria might order.

I watched in silence and some awe as these two artists, each passionate about their work, went through quilt patterns together on Maria’s computer, Lena getting wide-eyed.

Lena pointed to one, she knew what she was looking for, and Maria ordered it’s, and it’s on the way. Lena is waiting to pay her for it.

I am struggling to understand my attachment to this family and the love that is growing between us.

When I went to the farm this morning, Moise was busy hammering in the woodshed, Barbara overseeing the booming donut operation.

I’ve never understood love and how it works, and why it comes and goes or happens at all. It is a stranger to me,  overwhelming to me to find so much love in my life at so deep a place and time.

I don’t really know what to do with it; it frightens me and beckons me like a mermaid in the sea. I expect it to go away at any moment.

Even from the car, today, as I drove away from the kitchen,  I heard the shouts, “it’s Grandpop, it’s Jon,” and saw them rush out and ask me how many pennies I wanted them to put in the jar in exchange for the ice.

Lena came over to me. “How is Maria today,” she asked. “Is she working on her quilt?” Yes, I said, she was. Lena, who is not clear about how ordering online like that works, asked me if I knew when the quilting stencil was coming. She was trying to piece it all together; she has rarely even seen a computer.

But the stencil was very important to her. I know the look, I see it from Maria all the time.

Lena asked me how it looked, and I said Maria doesn’t show me her work until it is done, and even then, not always.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “I understand that.” Two spirits come together.

We all left laughing, and I threatened to come back for more pennies. What is happening, I wondered. Perhaps the answer is that at the core, we humans really are alike in so many ways.

When I got home, Maria was plotting to re-imagine my new Amish Penny Jar.  She brought it to me proudly when she finished it. There was so much love in that jar I wanted to cry.

Maria said I was like a little boy, joyous over a new surprise.

For me, life has always been made of precious moments; I must celebrate them every day and remember them.

Images like this will help me to do that.