Gratifying Love

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After writing last night’s post entitled “Love Letters,” today a dim bell rang in my head reminding me I’d already used that title. Sure enough, the day after Valentine’s Day, there it was: “Love Letters.” Was it a senior moment or a poor memory? Probably both.

While looking again at February 15’s blog, though, my eye landed on a comment at the end by “Anonymous”. He or she wrote: “I am envious of the love your husband had for you and the love you had for your husband. That unconditional love has eluded me.”

I got a pang of sadness for that commenter and for Nate. The sad truth is that although Nate definitely loved me unconditionally, I didn’t always love him back that way. I felt so secure in his devotion to me I often took his love and him for granted. I’ve written this truth “between the lines” of my blog but haven’t said it outright. Let me set the record straight, Anonymous.

It’s been my nature to expect the best from people, particularly our children, and then when they deliver, to expect more. Years ago Nate and I attended a parenting conference during which a powerful statement from the speaker impacted me: “Expect the best of your children and they’ll live up to it.”

That plan can be taken too far, however, if parental expectations seem never to be satisfied. The second problem is treating a spouse in this way. I erred in both categories.

But it’s interesting that once we received Nate’s cancer diagnosis, my expectations ceased and my wifely faults suddenly stood out like lighted billboards on a dark highway. I remember walking on the beach with my sister just after we learned of the cancer, telling her, “I realize I haven’t been the best wife, but I am going to be, from this moment on.”

While Nate was sick, it was my greatest joy to love him unconditionally. But it took knowledge of a fatal illness for me to stop “expecting more.”

Years ago, Nate and I became friends with a couple we met through his work. We had much in common with them until it surfaced that the husband was having an affair. As soon as his wife found out, she divorced him. The affair fizzled, and sadly, a short time after that, the man had a sudden heart attack and died.

Nate and I often talked about whether or not our two friends might have tried to restore their marriage, even after the torture of the affair, had they known he was going to die so soon. My guess is their answer would have been, “Yes”.

Our marriage was good, but it could have been better, had I reciprocated with unconditional love like Nate’s. What could be more gratifying than a husband and wife trying to outdo each other in loving the other person more? Since it was easy to love Nate like this after he became sick, why couldn’t I have done it when he was well?

If he was sitting at my elbow as I typed this, he’d say, “What are you talking about? You were a great wife.” But that’s just it. Those would be the words of unconditional love.

As I pray daily for my blog readers (which includes you, Anonymous), I pray for strong marriages, that husbands and wives will have eyes to see each other as if their lives already had end-dates on the calendar. If we were willing to love unconditionally despite the sacrifices required, God would respond with blessing beyond our wildest dreams.

The end of Anonymous’ comment on February 15 was, “I’m so happy for you that you’ve had this very precious gift.”

Well said… a precious gift, given freely, without expecting anything in return. The Lord operates that way too, giving and giving more. If we decide to give back, he gives again, piling blessing on blessing. And this is our example for marriage.

“All of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it.” (1 Peter 3:8-9)

Love in a Crawl Space

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Before we moved from Illinois to Michigan, the girls and I emptied a very full crawl space measuring 25 ft. square. The most valuable thing in it was a trunk-sized cardboard box I hadn’t looked into since before we got married.

But it was time to downsize, and we needed to be cut-throat about trimming debris from our lives. The box was marked “Memorabilia” and I had no idea what was inside. It was also marked with water stains from a basement flood two houses back, and I wondered if the box was even worth opening.

After peeling off the dried out, curly-edged masking tape, I opened it to find every letter I’d received during high school and college years, each one still in its envelope, the oldest with four cent stamps. In a day without cell phones, texts or Facebook, handwritten correspondence was the only way we kept in touch. The letters were organized by author, nearly 30 different people, each stack secured with a rubber band and ordered by date. Although the rubber bands had rotted and the letters were stuck together, all were readable.

Tucked in the bottom of the box were my journals from the same time period. Although I didn’t have the letters I had written in answer to the ones I’d received, my journals showed what was on my mind.

After finding the letters, I went upstairs and announced to Nate I’d be taking a few days off from packing up the house to take a trip down Memory Lane. I invited him to join me, but he smiled and said, “No thanks.” He knew how goofy I was as a kid and had better things to do than wade through hundreds of old letters.

Every evening after dinner I “descended” and sat among stacks of boxes that were packed and ready for our move. Author by author I went through the massive letter-box, “visiting” each friend and our shared past.

There were cousins, girlfriends, boyfriends, my sister (after she went to college), my brother (after I went to college), my parents (mostly lectures-in-envelopes), and a number of letters from military guys fighting the Viet Nam war. The whole assemblage was a storyline of life in the sixties, from the peaceful beginning of that decade to its tumultuous end.

I’d forgotten most of the details in the letters but certainly remembered the people. After reading what the girls had written, I packaged those bunches up and sent them to each author. Some guffawed, some cried and some went through a crisis after reading their own writings. As for the guy letters, I read each one, then filed them all in the recycling bin.

The most interesting part of my trip down Memory Lane was to note how all of us had changed, what decisions we’d made since the sixties and who was doing what now. Some have compiled many years of marriage, others had suffered through divorce. Some had no children, others had lots. Some now live in foreign lands, others haven’t gone much of anywhere. Some are wealthy, others are struggling. And a handful have already graduated to eternity.

The letter-box had nothing in it from Nate. That’s because once he and I got to writing, his stack grew so well, it needed its own box. I kept that “set” to open after we’d moved. Going down our own private tour of Memory Lane would be, I thought, something the two of us would have time to share, once we moved to Michigan.

But God had a different plan, and we never got to open that box. My guess is that Nate now owns all knowledge of our past, even without the letters to jog his memory. It no longer matters to him like it still does to me. I believe when we get to heaven, we won’t have forgotten a thing. To the contrary, we’ll probably remember everything more precisely.

One of these days I’ll “descend” to our Michigan basement and open that box marked “Letters from Nate” to make that  trip down Memory Lane by myself.

But not yet.

“The memory of the righteous will be a blessing.” (Proverbs 10:7)

 

Half of a Whole

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The trouble with losing a marriage partner is that half of the whole is then missing. We’re usually drawn to a mate who’s got what we lack, which is, of course, the reason for most marital spatting. But maturity and years bring a willingness to let go of unrealistic expectations of each other in categories where the mate isn’t skilled to produce good work.

One Saturday back when we had five children, I had a homemaker’s meltdown. Nate usually worked on Saturdays, preparing for the week to come, but pressures had built at home, and I asked him for help. I spent the week compiling chore lists for the children and for him. My goal was to pass out a list and its accompanying job supplies to each person, then exit to run errands. Later I’d return to find every task completed.

While jangling my keys, I delivered the grand finale to my meltdown. “You people don’t help enough around here, and the place is falling down around us. It’s time to be responsible. Just do what’s on your list and get it done all the way.” Then I left.

One of Nate’s assignments was to hang a clothing bar in a closet for coats and out-of-season clothes. I left him with everything he needed and hoped for the best. Knowing Nate’s skill-set didn’t include a mechanical bent, I wondered how he’d do.

When I returned, the kids, their lists completed child-style, had scattered into the neighborhood, and Nate was cleaning the kitchen. He was glad to see me and said, “The bar is up, and the clothes are hanging on it.” Like an excited kid he said, “Come and look!”

He was right about the bar being up and the clothes hanging on it, but my eye shot to the back of the closet where large nail holes dotted every half inch on the wall, left to right, like a computer period-key gone wild. He smiled and said, “I had a little trouble finding the studs, but it’s up there good and solid.”

That dotted line was my object lesson for the duration: don’t ask Nate (or anyone) to do a job he’s not capable of doing well. The truth is, hanging that clothes bar was on my skill-list, not his. I knew about that when I asked him, so I got what I deserved. Just before we moved last summer, we spackled the holes and painted the wall. And he was right. That bar was still up there good and solid. He’d finished it “all the way.”

Today was a tough grieving day for me because of the truth of that story. Nate’s natural skill-set, working on all numbers-related projects, handling insurance companies, playing phone tag, remembering when payments are due, researching everything, planning ahead, has been removed from our partnership, and I’m needing it, needing him. After spending four hours on the phone with multiple insurance companies and enduring a parade of wait-times, I’d failed on several counts. But moving to internet projects, I hoped to do better.

Concentrating hard to pay bills on line by myself for the first time, I failed at that, too, unable to make it “stick”. I stood up in front of the computer and burst into tears, longing to have Nate back. I cried off my mascara, then put some more on, but in a few minutes had cried it off again.

I told myself that people who never marry somehow manage to figure out how to do things outside their natural expertise, so I should, too. The problem is that in marriage, partners learn to lean on each other for opposite abilities. Although Nate and I hadn’t mastered that, after forty years, we’d come a long way.

My marriage ended when Nate died. His ended, too, but he’s not missing me like I’m missing him. I guess the conclusion should be that when someone is sorely missed, the relationship must have been a good one. I know I’ll never be the same without him.

When life ends, love doesn’t. And the raw truth is, when a spouse dies, love only continues to grow.

“Christ, who is the head of his body, the church, makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” (Ephesians 4:15b-16)