Category Archives: Long Marriages

Bye Bye Big Bed

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Nate and I had the luxury of sleeping in a king size bed for four years. As all sixty-somethings age, we appreciate a good night’s sleep more and more, because it’s harder and harder to get.

Our king, purchased to celebrate our 60th birthdays, used to be in a downstairs bedroom and was available to more than just Nate and I. Volumes of girl-talk happened on that bed, as well as lounging amongst the giant pillows while watching TV. Sick kids spent their day in it, and Louisa slept there for a week after her painful tonsillectomy. Friends of our kids claimed it was “the world’s most comfy bed.”

Yesterday it got dismantled and moved from our cottage bedroom to the room next door, an Army-style barrack-bedroom decorated, coincidently, in olive drab. Beds fill the floor space for group sleeping when crowds come to town, and the addition of a California king will mean sleeping three more when everyone’s here.

Since Nate died, the big bed has been sleeping only one, and the mattress is beginning to have a Margaret-shaped divot in it.

So Klaus hauled our old double bed up from the basement, and I dug out the well-worn sheets. Once it was set up where the king had been, it seemed small in the room and shouted “Set-back!”

So last night at bedtime, always the low moment of every day, I had a conversation with myself. “If only I didn’t need sleep and could stay up though every night. Better yet, if only night wouldn’t come at all and the sun would never set…”

Today God comforted me with some fresh thoughts: I can look forward to that wish coming true one day, because Scripture describes heaven as having no night and says the Lord will be our light. That means Nate isn’t using a bed in his new home and doesn’t miss either our king size or the double. He gets to stay awake “around the clock” and never has to face a lonely night. All of that was good news to me today.

I’m still bound by day and night, work and sleep. But after I die, as Nate did, after all of us die, we’ll be free of this cycle, one of unnumbered heavenly blessings. Nate didn’t sleep well most nights, although it might have been those 30 cups of coffee he consumed each day. The fact that he’ll never face another night of tossing and turning is a great blessing for him.

But for the rest of us, night time can be riddled with problems: difficulty getting to sleep or staying that way, nightmares, fear of noises or break-ins, feelings of vulnerability and the chronic dilemma of every daytime predicament seeming greater during the night. When nighttime disappears, so will these problems.

I still dread nighttime, but the old double bed gave me a pretty good night’s sleep. And because Nate and I slept in it for 36 years, it felt familiar, like spending the night with an old friend again.

“Night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” (Revelation 22:5)

Nesting on Empty

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The beach is busy these days, summer’s last hurrah for many families. Compared to the 13 week summer we had as kids, today’s students have a raw deal having to pull on their back packs during the dog days of August. Teachers, too, surely must regret the earlier start-dates.

For me, not much will change when most of the world jumps back into making lunches, driving carpools and doing homework. Although I’ll still have two school-attending children, one will be five hours away by car, the other five hours by plane. So my nest will officially be empty, which is neither good nor bad, just factual.

Although I’ve known for years this day would come, I figured I would still have Nate when it arrived. I knew it wouldn’t feel completely empty with my partner and friend on hand to share the start of this new time of life.

Mom used to caution us during the whirlwind years of raising children when we had as many as five different schools simultaneously and five schedules to honcho. “Don’t get so busy you forget about your beloved,” she’d say. “When the kids are grown and gone, you’ll be back to where you started, just the two of you.”

Without preparation, husbands and wives can arrive at the empty nest with fear and trembling. After so many years of intense co-parenting, it can feel funny to be reduced to  two.

“Who is this guy?” she’ll say.

“What did I ever see in this woman?” he’ll say.

What does God intend for this season of couple-life? For one thing, he hopes the leave-and-cleave rule will hold up under pressure. Also, the statement, “Two are better than one” should still be considered a blessing. And putting the interests of another ahead of our own should continue to work well. But alarm bells ought to ring if a couple suddenly thinks giving up is the easiest route to take.

When one of the couples we knew would announce a break-up, especially after being married several decades, Nate would shake his head and say, “He should have stayed with the wife of his youth.”

What if a husband and wife were told, “In the spring of 2015, one of you will die.” The conversations and deeds of today would be carefully and lovingly planned. Nothing would be taken for granted. Each day would be greeted with eagerness. Quitting would be unthinkable.

Nate and I had talked about what life would be like one distant day when all the kids were up and out. We knew there would be major adjustments, but we determined to make the most of it.  The only thing we never discussed was an empty nest with just one in it.

Twelve months ago, we knew nothing of terminal cancer. Nate’s last words on the subject of the empty nest were, “We don’t know what it’ll be like, but we know we’ll be in it together.”

God had other plans, but I love Nate for remaining loyal to the wife of his youth, right up until the very end.

“Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his… So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth.” (Malachi 2:15)

Running On Time

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Yesterday I came across a coupon that expired last month. It had been good for a full year and was worth $8.00, but I didn’t know we had it. The title read, “NICTD CONFIRMATION OF A LATE TRAIN.” Google let me know that NICTD stands for Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, and it was clear what had happened.

Nate and I moved from Illinois to Michigan on June 11 of last year. The very next morning he drove to Michigan City, Indiana, and boarded what would become his daily commuter train for Chicago’s Loop. Although the ride was twice the length of his Illinois commute, he didn’t seem to mind. Grateful to have finally sold our Chicago house after four years of trying, the longer travel time to work didn’t bother him. That is, until it got too long.

Although Nate often bragged about the punctual Chicago trains, apparently the NICTD didn’t have the same “track record.” Many late trains coaxed them to put a coupon system in place that offered passengers a pay-back for extreme tardiness. Along the side of the coupon it reads, “60+MINUTES LATE.” Now that’s a woefully overdue train.

The cross-shaped punches in Nate’s coupon indicate he was on board this “at least 60+ minutes late” train on his fourth commuting day, returning to Michigan after work. With his back in severe pain by then and his body suffering from hidden pancreatic cancer, he must have been beyond miserable while the train sat on a track neither here nor there.

I can tell from Nate’s oversized handwriting on the coupon that he was also angry. He did follow instructions, though, to “Please print clearly.” Well, at least the “Please print” part. I don’t know why he never redeemed it for the price of his train ticket. Although $8.00 wasn’t big potatoes, he was probably going after it on principle. When someone contracts to be on time, they should be, and each ticket purchased is a mini-contract.

Nate was always on time. If he was late for anything, it was because I had something to do with it, an aggravation during our early years together. He was right to be punctual, and I was wrong to be late. But as married people learn to do when compromise doesn’t work, one partner gives in. And Nate did. I wish I’d tried harder to pull myself together.

But God was watching, appreciating Nate’s desire to be on time. I say that because God is never late, and we are to emulate him. He usually waits until we think he’s already late, but when he comes through, it’s spectacular. In this, he’s trying to teach us, teach me, it’s important to be punctual.

Those who’ve mastered punctuality on earth have already stockpiled some treasure in heaven. Nate gets double credit for his efforts, because he sacrificed his own desires to put the interests of his wife ahead of his own. But both “early people” and “late people” get some time-related perks in paradise. The “earlies” will never again have to struggle with the “lates”, and the “lates” will always have the time they need.

“I trusted in thee, O Lord. I said, ‘Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand’.” (Psalm 31:14-15a)