Picturing your spouse

C.S. Lewis, while mourning the passing of his wife, notes he could not recall her face clearly, but  could describe in detail the face of a stranger he met that morning. His explanation for this was that we have seen the faces of those we love “…from so many angels, in so many lights, with so many expressions-waking, laughing, crying, eating, talking, thinking-that all the impressions crowd into our memory together and cancel out into a mere blur.” I was skeptical when I first read this – until I tried to remember my husband’s face. I found my mind going to favorite photographs and found I was unable to bring up his face apart from these. Another part of the explanation to me is, that we see so much more than their faces when we look at anyone we know well. Our love and their spirit influence how they appear to us.