LIFE LOVES

There was a man at my old city church (back when I used to attend regularly) who would introduce his wife as “the love of my life and the life of my love.” He would state it time after time when meeting someone, and she just about glowed every time he said it, forty years later.

The church is gone now, recently closed due to the ravages of the economy and lack of attendance. It doesn’t seem real, hearing a church would close – after all, its God’s house, isn’t it? But God’s house, like everything else, needs money to pay the heating bill, keep the lights on, and pay the lay staff that worked within it.

It was a shame and it happened three more times within the span of five years at three other church buildings. Gone, too, are the elementary schools that were attached to them. No more CYO basketball games, no class reunions. I felt like a part of my heart was ripped out, and I only attended for twenty years. I can’t imagine the pain felt by those who family history is entrenched within the walls and on the grounds.

My husband has begun what to his thinking is a necessary leg of yet another journey, a short term assignment working in nuclear power once again. Thankfully, it is a desk job and he no longer will feel the brunt of the physical side of this business, wearing his already overworked body into the ground. As Martha would say, “it’s a good thing” and I’m glad he’s doing it. But I miss him terribly this go round, and I don’t really understand why. He’s been gone before, on the road performing his comedy act and building a nice career in that business. He’s been gone two days and it feels like two weeks.

I think part of my missing him is the realization of what we have and how long it took for us to find it. Recently seeing my children’s fathers again (yes, you read that right, there are two before him) confirmed what I had recently come to realize. These men were placed in my life at strategic times, to help me raise the children we would have and to perhaps allow me to help them in their lives as well. Although it flies in the face of religious sanctimonious tradition, I did not live out my life committed to only one person. I think God wanted it this way, because my last and final husband truly is the love of my life. He saved him for last. Although I loved the others in my own way, I have been moved to see what the truest form of love really is.

My children are grown now and have found their loves as well, moving towards the direction to which they know they are destined. They seem so much smarter than I was in matters of the heart, not making the mistakes I did. I can’t help but think they learned by osmosis, hearing the gospel on Sunday in the churches that would not be there when they were old enough to want to attend.

Our lives are what we make it, I guess. We must learn to stand on our own, whether or not there are old church buildings still standing or strong shoulders of the men we marry to lean on. I think that’s the way its really supposed to be. The love of my life has been both the church and a man who finally found me after forty two years of searching. I miss both of them terribly, but understand the reasoning behind their leaving. Perhaps I needed one to fall in order to find the other. The Church is not dead, God is everywhere, and there will be other buildings in which he'll build his house. I’ll be here when they return, offering up praise and thanksgiving, and grateful for another day to do it all over again tomorrow.