Friday, December 30, 2011

Grace: After Midnight in a Bar

Among the list of posts unpublished this year are six drafts
~ the second draft entry reads:

Grace meets you exactly in the moment when you're
most terrified that you're going to be found out, and when
you're most acutely aware of everything that you're not.
Grace meets you in that moment and ... frees you to
own all of the things that you aren't.
—Rob Bell, Marshill.org

A messily-divorcing-twenty-something-brunette sits in a too-familiar local bar, her children visiting the soon-to-be-Ex and his girlfriend this July 4th weekend. She simply wants to be left alone.

A tall man walks over, asks in a Texas accent, "May I sit here?"

Her reply, "You can sit anywhere you want," is caustically dismissive. She returns to her drink, is surprised as he sits down.

The scene is dark, lacking the sparkling hope of magic endings, the Once Upon A Time promise of a bedtime story suitable for children.

Research has revealed that the best predictor of the
security of our children's attachment to us is our ability to
narrate the story of our own childhood in a coherent fashion.
—Daniel Siegel, Mindsight


Ours is a story of three rings without story-book proposal. The first wedding ring, a simple gold band purchased for me by me in a shopping mall jewelry store in the city where we first met ... just days before our courthouse wedding when the romantic within me realized the no-ring-thing wasn't really working for me. The second ring, a secret purchase, a gift for my husband after our parish priest, Father Richard Gubbels, walked me through the hoops and healing of annulment. The third ring, an anniversary band, a surprise gifted to me by my husband.

In the good years, marriage is fun and easy. In the years when I can do nothing but whine and complain, the tall man stands by me. In the years when he is unhappy, I hold onto him.


23 August 1991


God met us in the darkness brought us into the Light.

Do everything without complaining or arguing ...
shine like stars in the universe. Philippians 2:15


Rw
.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You wrote: "In the good years, marriage is fun and easy. In the years when I can do nothing but whine and complain, the tall man stands by me. In the years when he is unhappy, I hold onto him."

I heard a reporter ask an elderly couple one time what was the secret to their long marriage?

One of them replied: "We were lucky that we didn't ever fall out of love with each other at the same time."

Ebbs & flows, waxing and waning of life ...