In Love All Over Again

With our youngest out of the house,

Nancy and I are learning to live together again - with just each other.

It has been thirty years since Nancy and I haven't had a child in our home to occupy our time and attentions. When I am counseling folks who are preparing for the Covenant of Marriage, I always ask them what their plans are for children in their relationship precisely for that reason. Children are such a permanent fixture in the lives of their parents, whether they are home or away, for a child never is out of your heart and to have a child is more than a moment of birthing: it is a commitment to a lifetime of parenting. For those blessed to have children in their lives, you are never 'just a couple' again. You are always a family, however perfect or dysfunctional that definition may be.

Now Nancy and I find ourselves inexplicably becoming part of a new reality series whimsically known as 'Married, with Children, but None of Them In the Home'. It is a 24/7 program with absolutely no commercial breaks, sort of like The Truman Show, but without the hype and direction. Periodically we have a flurry of visits from children and grandchildren, but with no regular boarders, and even our refrigerator is suddenly, inexplicably staying stocked with all sorts of goodies for those evenings when I come home from the office with the munchies. Lights are magically being turned out in rooms where we are not presently doing something. Laundry is miraculously finding its way to the basement instead of laying strewn in the bedrooms. The dishwasher doesn't run for days on end because of a low volume of dirty dishes. Chip bags are actually closed with a 'Chip Clip' on them, keeping the contents fresh rather than letting the air make everything stale. There is hot water in the shower and little or no water on the bathroom floor. We can turn on the TV whenever we want and watch whatever we want . . . sometimes the channel never changes between the times we watch it (I had forgotten that happens!). Items placed on the counter for use later . . . remain on the counter until we are ready to use them. Imagine?!

Yet, even as I write of the irony of these changes, regarding the mundane as ridiculous, there isn't a moment I wouldn't gladly take back all of the differences and return to the hectic schedule of school, sports, friends, Scouts, band, and family, just to have our kids back home . . . which isn't going to happen, so I had better get over it and move on. Right? Well, the walls of our home maybe be quieter now without children there making the sounds that only children can appreciate, but Nancy and I are finding that our hearts continue to grow with love of those who still make us a family, wherever they may be. Our children are always our children, whether in our home or not, and their lives, their schedules, their interests still are our own, though now from miles away.

We begin a new journey, Nancy and I, a new experience in our relationship that we hadn't thought of until now, a part of the vows spoken 34 years ago that must have been lost in the fine print, as all over again we recover what it means to be just 'she and me'. I have always loved my curly-haired girl, my 'Sweetie', my best friend, yet I am finding in the latest turn of the chapter a new type of love, a sonnet of sorts, that only deepens what we have shared before. I cannot imagine life without children, for our kids have been, and continue to be, such blessings to us, but I am grateful to God for the moments into which Nancy and I are entering together. The days which some have termed the 'late-Summer' or 'early-Fall' of life I am coming to appreciate as the 'Savor of the Fine Wine' or the 'Wonder of the Evening'. We are learning to love all over again and I know now, as I have always known, there is no one with whom I would rather be, just she and me, setting course on a whole new sea.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don