One thing I have noticed about life is that it is never about just one thing. We are so complex as human beings that when we are hurt, for example, it isn’t an isolated incident that brings us to tears; it is a collective of pains and frustrations and disappointments that finally pushes us down to our knees.
There was something my mother said when I was very young, I don’t know if it was my age, her words or the way that she expressed herself that impacted me to the deepest levels of my soul but the words have remained with me ever since.
As I recall the moment now it makes me emotional:
I pray that I die before your father
so I don’t have to live a day without him…
The irony of that statement is that my father was never home (another area of my childhood that has shaped the way I deal with life now), so she spent the days without him irrespective of death. He was a travelling salesman; so it was part of his job description but evidently, it was something my mother couldn’t handle well.
They are divorced now – due to my mother’s frustration with my father’s absence, which she viewed as a lack of commitment to our family and in turn my father’s dwindling affections in face of my mother’s rising resentment.
There’s still so much for me to learn and I grow frustrated at times with the lack of positive relational experiences modelled by my parents. I do have to remind myself that they did as best they could with the knowledge and tools that they had, as I too will do the best that I can with the knowledge and tools that I have when it comes to raising my children.
I have also come to understand that there are lessons I have learned and implemented into my life and character, which were lessons that my parents didn’t so much teach but were consequences of their actions or inactions during my upbringing.
As I mentioned in other entries and a few paragraphs above, my father’s absence was something that bothered me greatly. I would cry inconsolably every time he would leave for work – as he would be gone for months and months on end. I would rejoice every time he returned safe and sound. One such occasion, I was so overjoyed at my father’s return, that I jumped out of the moving car I was in, in my haste to reach him. I have the scar to prove it.
Now in my adulthood, as I decided to settle down and embrace the idea of a lasting romantic relationship, the prolonged absence of my other half unsettled me very much. It was the distance and physical lack of presence that made me realise that true absence comes in many forms but none more painful than when the emotional detachment begins to set in.
My mother’s aching need for my father’s attention and presence has transferred to me. I too desperately wish that once I marry, I don’t have to spend too much time apart from my husband – aside from what is obligatory. Perhaps that I am identifying these needs now before such a time to come is a good way to prepare for whatever lies ahead in God’s plans.
Divorce is not an option for me and neither is settling into a half-life of complacency and duty. Mere shadows of old lovers passing by each other like sailing boats, with little in common but a roof over our heads and children long grown and gone.
Ultimately I know that it isn’t my husband where I will find my rest, peace, calm and happiness. Jesus is my everything and Jesus is my forever but somehow, I still have tearful nights were the fear of being without my husband – under whichever circumstance – overcomes my rationale and the ache becomes too much to handle.
The ache is unbearable and too akin to the fear I have when I don’t feel Jesus’ presence in my heart and life. Not completely the same but unsettling enough to wake me up in the middle of the night.
My desperate yearning is that my children will never doubt the love of God because as parents, my husband and I failed to express the affection and the direction we should set forth for them. My other desperate desire is that although I want my children to be well educated in many things, ‘regret’ through heartbreak is not something that they learn too quickly.
There are many things that I am sure of, such as Jesus being the Son of God and air and food and hugs.
There are many things that I take for granted, such as waking up in the morning, seeing my family, getting from A to B, work, friends and making plans…
Then some things cast shadows of doubt and twist my stomach into knots of fear and despair such as failure, heartbreak, loneliness, loss…
So although the idea of living without my husband for any stretch length of time does physically make me want to heave, the very idea of me outliving him absolutely terrifies me.
I think that makes me a bit of a control freak. What do you think?
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