Today is our 30th wedding Anniversary

The traditional gift is a pearl, probably because a pearl is the beautiful result of much time, patience, and perhaps friction. I just made that rationale up, but it sounds about right doesn't it? And today I am thinking about our marriage as something, if not perfected, at least made beautiful by patience and friction – and a LOT of laughter! - and also by habits: dozens of small habits repeated over hundreds of days that resulted in the texture, form, substance and appearance of our marriage. Those habits, now broken, are the constant little losses that are reminders of great loss. It’s painful, not particularly more so today than every other day.

Early in our marriage I discovered that I didn’t assume Steve and I would grow old together. Because my father had died early and unexpectedly, I made no assumptions about how long it might be until death do us part. But recognizing that lack of expectation, I began to turn from what seemed more like fatalism than faith. Hopes and dreams sprouted and grew around the rooted hope of growing old together. With Steve’s death each of those hopes died too. Last week I discovered Shipwreck Beach in Ucluelet. It was a beautiful place to walk, yet as I looked more closely I discovered ships were not the only thing wrecked upon that shore. The entire beach was made of broken shells, the deaths of countless sea creatures. How touchingly appropriate for me –it has been a beautiful spring and summer in Vancouver since Steve’s death April 28, and yet each beautiful day I am walking among hundreds of dead hopes.

There is one hope that remains, and that is The Hope toward which Steve and I organized our life together for 30 years. How many, many occasions were merely a foretaste of something yet to come:

From Isaiah 25

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare
    a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
    the best of meats (ethically raised & really awesome plant-based options too!) and the finest of wines. 
On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
    he will swallow up death forever. 

And the promise of the death of death itself includes this:  

The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces

What a provocative detail! Embedded in the great future Hope is acknowledgment of the oh-so-real present grief. While I have as much confidence in the one Hope as ever I had, the death of hundreds of other hopes is torturous. For the tear-stained, even great Hope does not mitigate the present pain of daily stumbling over hundreds of broken habits, all the small rituals of love and shared dreams.

To celebrate our 20th anniversary, Steve and I made lists.

·      20 favourite smells

·      20 best meals eaten

·      20 “houses” where we had lived

·      20 different teas (missionaries drink A LOT of tea)

·      20 sayings in the family lexicon

and so many more….

Today I am contemplating different lists

·      30 things I miss about Steve

·      30 things Steve used to say

·      30 things I can no longer remember 

·      30 things I have to figure out how to do

·      30 things I want to ask Steve (Where did you put ____ ?)

·      30 decisions I don’t know how to make

But there is another very long list: the list of kind, thoughtful, helpful things offered, delivered, and done over the past months to care for me and for our family. The list includes many meals and treats, flowers, help with plumbing and taxes, new shoes!, texts, emails, cards, books and book recommendations, walks, listening and talking. Each is meaningful and helpful beyond what I can express. In fact it is so far beyond my current capacity to express that the thank you notes I rush ordered right after Steve died are still in the box under my bed! Oh that initial burst of energy, now subsided…

For now, THANK YOU very much for the love and support you continue to send our way. Someday I hope to tell each of you how much these have meant. But you know how it is with hopes…

At one point I had imagined that today I might be with many of you celebrating Steve’s life, but alas such a celebration is not yet possible. I look forward to a time we can be together, but today maybe it’s best to simply name aloneness.

Shattered, but still walking,

Susie