When He's Gone

I woke up this morning to the tiny whispers of my precious 4 and 6 year old boys who were standing outside my bedroom.

"You go in first and distract her!"
"OK!" (The door squeaks open.) "Good morning, Mom!" Gabe exclaims, standing next to my bed. He hoists himself up onto the covers and crawls into the sinking abyss of pillows next to me. I lean over to give him a kiss, then notice Jack standing in the doorway.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Mommy!!" Jack yells, stepping aside, so I can see the Valentine heart he hung on my door knob. Then he proceeds to explain how he had Gabe come in the room first so I wouldn't notice him hanging the heart on my door. This covert op took a lot of careful planning. We all snuggled for a bit as we planned our special day out. We would surely miss Daddy, as he is serving the beautiful people of Haiti this week, but we were going to celebrate Valentine's Day with a heartfelt bang anyway.

The boys decided that they wanted chocolate chip pancakes from IHOP, so we piled into the car and set out on this ridiculously blustery cold day. I turned on the radio as we were rolling down the drive way. The first song that played was John Legend's All Of Me. I really hope no one saw this blubbering mess as I drove down Main Street. I really wasn't prepared for the onslaught of emotions that forced their way out of me as I listened to the words of this song. I like the song, sure. But for the next 25 minutes as I drove us to the restaurant, I thought about what the song was really triggering in me...

Eric and I were close friends for a long time before we started dating. In fact, I often assumed the role of matchmaker, setting him up on dates with my friends. When he first introduced the idea of us dating, I actually shot him down flat. Poor guy. He confessed that he knew I was the one he was going to marry and that he would wait for me. He never stopped pursuing me. Love letters, home cooked dinners (for a college guy, they were really impressive), sweet gestures, and poetic invitations to the spring fling boat dance... Eric was good. Real good. We had been dating for only a month when summer vacation rolled around and we had to say good bye for a while. He was taking a class in Michigan for the summer, and I was headed home to Memphis. One day I received a beautiful love letter, written on a piece of birch wood that he had peeled off of a tree near his campus. Dried Michigan wild flowers were glued around his words, words that blended in with the grain of the wood. The letter is currently displayed in my living room. It's one of my most favorite gifts he's ever given to me.

Our dating relationship was primarily long-distance based. He had graduated college a year ahead of me. That brought obstacles and hardships of their own kind. But Eric knew how to woo. I will never forget our date at Harry's Velvet Room in downtown Chicago, where we needed to purchase a $100 bottle of champagne just to sit down at a table. A huge bowl of the most luscious strawberries and sweet chocolate indulgences to dip them in accompanied the bubbly. That night I felt expensive, like I was really WORTH something of high value to this guy sitting next to me. I also thought he was a bit crazy for spending that much, but I didn't tell him that.

After a beautiful proposal, our roller coaster engagement followed. I had actually returned my ring to him at one point and called off the wedding. Somehow we survived, had a beautiful wedding, and entered into our covenant of marriage. Our first year and a half of marriage was spent living in the beautiful city of Denver. One of my favorite dates that we had living in Colorado, was when we ate at the Red Lion, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. We sat outside next to a creek running with cool mountain water, indulging in filet and fine wine. We loved camping and would often drive to Vail for a few nights of sleeping in a tent and hiking. We would make some shrimp skewers and filet kabobs for our campfire. Even our sweet puppy, Zoya, would get to partake in the feast. So many nights, Eric and I would fall asleep to the sight of stars overhead, and the sounds of crickets and babbling brooks, laying in each other's arms.

Then there were the days I threatened to leave him. You see, I was a flighter. I hated fighting. Some of our worst fights happened when we lived in Huntsville. Eric was unhappy in his job, and desperately longed to join his family in the farming business in Illinois. I had no desire to leave my family. By the time our family of two grew into a family of four, our relationship was tense. A year of intense marriage counseling helped bring us together on some key issues, though some problems clung to us like leeches and followed us to Illinois.

Our family has thrived in Illinois. Here we have friends who are like family. Our boys are in their element. But our marriage has continued to be hard work. Just over a year ago Eric and I decided - we would either fight for our marriage or end it. There were so many good things in the life we had built together... but there were so many hard things that we were enduring too. In that moment, when we faced a choice, I recalled an old friend's wise words which had shaped the way I viewed love a long, long time ago. The words had prompted me to end a very destructive relationship I had been wrestling with in college. In the moment when Eric and I faced a similar decision, those words came back to me, and saved our marriage.

Love is a choice.

I look back and marvel at the memories I share with Eric. Swimming in sparkling, cascading waterfalls in Fiji, camping on the beach in Key West, dancing with beautiful African children on the dusty streets of Ghana, holding our first and second child just minutes after they were born, sitting on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building as we clanked our martini glasses to the city below us - the city where we fell in love, and walking through the gates of Disney World with two excited little boys who believed in magic and dreams coming true. All of these memories... just proof that mine and Eric's dreams HAD come true. And all of these moments had been based on a single choice - to love.

It's so hard when Eric is gone. When he's gone, I long for the snoring next to me - because it means that I am safe, and I can sleep peacefully. When he's gone, I long for my help to come home at 6 pm every night to help me deal with unruly boys that I just don't have the energy to yell at anymore. When he's gone, I long to be held, kissed, and told that I'm doing just fine. When he's gone, I realize more than ever that no matter how hard it gets sometimes, I never want to choose life without him. When he's gone, I remember all the things I love about him, and why I have been choosing to love him for the past 13 years.

God commands us to love one another. God doesn't tell us that we will feel all warm and fuzzy towards our spouse all the days of our lives. He COMMANDS us to love each other - as in, its a choice. We can follow the command or not. As I heard that song on the radio this morning, I thought about the journey Eric and I have been on... a journey filled with ups and downs, blessings and hardships, challenges that have helped us grow, and an immeasurable amount of love. When we choose to love our spouse, we choose to love ALL of them - all their curves and all their edges, all their perfect imperfections. And through it all, we continue to make that same choice, even when the risk is high, when we have no control, when we are broken and hurt. We choose to love.

I get a glimpse of what life is like when he's gone... and it's a life I never want to choose.