Dreams remembered are rare for me. But this morning, 11 months and 9 days out from Jean’s last earthbound day, I finally saw her face.
We were painting together. Finishing the corners on a ladder in a hazy room somewhere and then suddenly I saw her face on a pillow directly below mine. I said. ” I love you babe. I really love you. ” No response. Her eyes were closed.
As I pulled out of the scene and found myself floundering under the covers on this wintry morning. I remembered.
“Sweet dreams.” It’s what people always say. And I finally had one. A few moments of glitter and gladness to augment the staleness of the midnight air.
I never understood nor pondered the life of the widow or widower until of course I fell headlong into the pit of it. Living in this solitary position has made me finally aware of the loss of others. People I’ve passed off or passed by who’ve been dealt the death card seemingly at random.
Realizing my dilemma has heightened my own self awareness of the thin veneer that separates my personna. Just below the surface, the scourge of disappointment, discontent and brokenness lurks. Just below the sunny countenance of my outer self each day.
Grief’s juggernaut is that it clears the head from believing all is well with the world. It’s not.
We live small when we believe that all roses that are red and violets that are blue don’t die.
Shriveled. Then get dumped eventually in the daily compost.
But for a brief moment this morning, the sweetness of my dream gave me blessed remembrance. O the bliss of the life shared with my beloved.
My new found position in life creates the gift of new friends. A new awareness of the needs of others that hold that card or other cards that bear the mark of desperate lonlieness. And that remembrance gives me hope for a larger dose of love ahead.
My Dad was born in 1919. Slightly before GPS. Knowing where north was born and lived was essential to a farmer. Anyone. Still is… in my aged opinion. I can always visualize where I am in in any city if I can just find north. I run through in my mind… the corners that crossed our family farm and which direction i would go if at the corner, having found north. Keeps me directionally sane in the chaos of a city like Minneapolis Mn. where the north south interstates always seem to be named 35 E or 35 W . Go figure. Here I am 10 months out from the hell of watching my beauty die. I purused the pictures of Jean in January 2014 on a flight back from nowhere. It seems I just can’t quite find north. Oh… Jesus is there. Calling out and I hear a voice but can’t quite get my bearings. The chaos I find rolling around in my brain crowds out direction. I have always felt confident of what to do. How to be. Which way to go….
But north just eludes me. The tears that cloud my eyes and fall gently on the familiar Southwest Airlines seat back table remind me of my hurt, the damage, a rocked soul, powerlessness, .
Has anyone seen north?
John Eldridge, the reknown “Wild at Heart” author, in 2000 published “Journey of Desire” the book written a year after the death of his mentor, friend and co-author of “The Sacred Romance”, in my lonely opinion, the seminal work of Eldridge. I remember savoring my first exposure to the book in 2002 and 2003 as Jean and I went through a couple tough surgeries ( my back and Jean’s open heart) and the recoveries that followed.
I did not know then the death of my best friend as I now know, but Eldridge wrote with Brent Curtis tragic death in his shadow. I am re-reading Journey of Desire now with an inkling of what he felt. Trying to gain perspective. This verse gives me such hope. I’m trying to unpack it today.
Song of Songs 8:6-8
For love is as strong as death;
ardent love is as unrelenting as Sheol.
Loves flames are fiery flames —
the fiercest of all.
7 Mighty waters cannot extinguish love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
Chains hold men. Their strength binds, shackles feet and hands. Keeps men from freedom. Their bodies, their wills, restrained.
The heart is chainless, unshackled. It’s freedom knows no bounds. By it’s design, God spoke volumes about love. Laying not a path of duty to bind ones love but by releasing freedom, even the possibility of betrayal into the love equation, God secured chainless love. That expression, that picture keeps me held in His beauty. By owning freedom, I give freely, loving God from the fountain of desire that flows in the deepest trenches of my bottomless soul.
Married love is like that. Man and woman, enveloped, shaped by God’s ultimate love triangle, give each other freedom, no chains to bind. Ardent love is as unrelenting and final and supreme in its eternal power as death is. Love that emanates from HIm grips us, chains us to hope and binds us to His purpose for us. And by living in harmony with Him, the fiery flames, that burn fiercely in a marriage are ignited for one another and shall not be extinguished. Chainless love. The same love as Christ for the church, the bride for Christ.
I am riding in the shadow of my bride of almost 32 years. 