Visitors -- Part 1: Affirmation

In a variety of ways, I've been playing hostess lately.  Wonderful Friends of many years came to visit for a long weekend. While they didn't stay with us, we planned all our time together, as we have so little of it.  Then German Daughter (and Boyfriend) came to stay for a few days before taking flight back across the Pond.

Wonderful Friends are husband and wife K & K (Godparents to D#1) and son is S, my Godson -- he of the wild quilt presented as a high school graduation gift.  D#2's Godparents were very old friends with family connections back to my father's college years and are, all too predictably, no longer with us.  When we were planning the visit, K & K asked if D#2 would like them to become a more-or-less "official" pair of Godparents, no disrespect intended to the originals, of course.  While there is no longer any potential need for them to truly take a parental role and raise my daughters, we all welcomed the idea of somehow sealing this long-standing relationship and strengthening the connections between our two families.

I talked to our pastor about it and he suggested we do an affirmation of baptism service following the regular Sunday service that we planned to attend during our visit.  We were all quite agreeable that this was an excellent suggestion!   On Sunday, August12, we gathered at the font in St. Paul's and reaffirmed her baptism, with K & K as sponsors, and then we remembered our respective baptisms.

Thanks be to God!

If I were a widow

Last week marked four years since my husband blindsided me with the news that he no longer wanted to be married to me.  We had been married over 19 years and, coincidentally, that day was the 20th anniversary of the day we met.  I was, in a word, shattered.  Since then, I have noticed many ways in which I would be better off  if I had been widowed that day.

• Most important of all:  I would know that, while I was alone, my husband loved and cared for me until the end.
• It would be all over, instead of just beginning, and the healing could have started immediately.  
• No secrecy would be required – keeping the “news” from all but a couple of people and, especially, from our daughters initially – in the vain hope that he would “change his mind.”  
• My daughters would have known that their father cared for them – unconditionally – and put their needs before his.  Which, in all honesty, he did, until that unknown day when he chose to leave the family rather than to make an attempt to preserve it.
• We could all speak openly and happily about the man who was such an important and precious part of our lives, both with others and with each other. 
• My children would not have to worry and work at figuring out how (or if) to have a relationship with their father, nor be concerned that doing so would somehow hurt me.
• Widows are supported and cared for, from the time of the husband’s death.  Left-behind wives are invisible.
• I wouldn’t have to be concerned that I was being judged by those who believe that “it takes two to make a marriage and two to break one.”   That is utterly and completely false.  A relationship or marriage absolutely can be broken irretrievably by one person alone.
• There would be “A” date to “mark”, sad as it would be.  Instead, I have: the date he told me, the date I found out painful things, the date I asked him to leave, the date our “legal separation” began (our 20th wedding anniversary, not coincidentally), the date he moved out.  None of them are known to anyone except me.   I’m still waiting for “the date” of the final divorce decree. 
• My church would be a place of safety.  Instead it became a place of pain, as he continued to attend alone, acting as if nothing had changed.  More often than not, I’d end up taking refuge in the bathroom, sobbing.  Eventually, as I began to feel alone even there, I began to skip worship rather than risk seeing him.    I often wish someone had asked him why he continued to show up, when he’d overtly rejected his vows.  But, of course, no one is supposed to “take sides”…   (Yes, I know.  We are all sinners and should all be welcome in God’s house.  But it seems to me that it would not be too much to ask to have the “church” – or someone in it – question when a person decides unilaterally to reject a faithful spouse and end the existence of a family.)
• My financial situation would be improved.  His life insurance would have paid off the house and put money aside for both daughters’ educations.  Instead, I drained my savings paying for half of one's college expenses and getting the other through her last year of high school, while trying to hold onto our home as long as I could.  I did have “child support” but it by no means approximated what he had brought into the home.   When I could no longer continue, the house was sold and my daughters and I moved.   While retirement always seemed like a mirage, it is now a financial impossibility. 
• I would not have to worry, to this day, that I would meet him unexpectedly, fearing my own uncontrollable gut reaction.   Nor would I have to see a person I shared my life with for two decades, and had two children with, nod his head in my direction, acknowledging me as if we were vague acquaintances.
• My ability to trust in another person would not have been destroyed.  

Some might say,  “Death is final; where there is life, there’s hope.”   For most of us surprised and shocked spouses, there is no hope.  Once, there were fervent prayers and desperate wishes, but we sensed that there was no real hope.  And, after a time, we realize that too much damage has been done ever to be with that person again.

[Please note that I mean no disrespect to real widows and do not wish any harm to my ex-to-be.  This is a compare-and-contrast piece that has been stirring inside for a long time and re-surfaced with the “anniversary”.]

Left behind?

I had missed going to church the past two Sundays.  Two weeks ago, I was in DC with D#1, after her graduation, getting ready to move her home.  Last week I had just repeated the process with D#2 and, quite honestly, I was beat!   Since I will, once again, be driving a young person some distance this afternoon, I wanted to be sure to get to the early service at 8:00 so I could finish getting ready for that trip.

Though still a little tired from a week of re-arranging my no-longer-living-alone life, I dragged myself out of bed, did essential morning ablutions, and drove the 5 minutes to St. Paul's (not the picture above).  When I arrived (a few minutes late), there was just one car in the parking lot!  Thoughts ran together: "It IS Sunday, isn't it?", "Was there a picnic service today?".... and.... ultimately a chuckling voice said, "Guess they were all Raptured yesterday."

Of course, the answer was simple.  I had missed an email that today was the start of our summer schedule with one service beginning at 9:30.   But the timing -- and resulting coincidence -- was too good NOT to share!