I didn’t know in that moment, or many to follow, my hero was in the room. I looked for him in the words of the song I sang beside Papa’s hospital bed, “Mighty to save,” tears coating the neck of my guitar and sobs like distant thunder in my chest. And days later, I looked for him in a different room, in the basement of the hospital, watching Papa’s body in violent struggle to let go, until my whole soul, it seemed, was drained of sound and breath, and all was finally quiet.
I looked for him in Guatemala, where I stayed with my friend for one month, Papa freshly gone. Alone in her apartment with its high ceilings and cement floors I screamed bloody rage, “Where are you now!” I heard no reply, only reverberations of my voice, and sank to the floor against the wall.
I looked for him in love, in the arms of a friend who grew to be more. And for one sweet breath of a season, I thought I found him there. But the love collapsed from the weight of all it had taken on, and with it, I found myself falling again into grief.
The lights went out again and my songs mocked me with their unanswered prayers, but this time, he broke my fall. He lit a match and cradled me, all the pieces of me, singing low and deep and strong.
Do not be afraid, sweet one. You thought I died, too, but I never left you. I’m always in the room.
And when I sat in the tiny room at urgent care, four days before my wedding, and heard them say, “Ruptured achilles,” he was there. I felt him this time, rubbing my arms through my soon-to-be husband as I buried my face and sobbed, whispering, “It’s ok, we’ll get through this. I love you.”
He was there, all those nights on the bathroom floor with the door shut, when I feared there would be no end to this pain, that my heart might disintegrate in salty tears and be swept away forever. When he gave me answers, not in words but in presence, and his love was all that filled that space of room and my cavernous heart.
And when I thought we’d lose our home, month after month, and when my stomach growled with hunger and the food barely stretched far enough and I just needed to make it one more day.
He was in the room. He was always in the room.
My hero. My sweet Jesus, mighty to save, even when the saving is through the winding valley, the darkened cave, the rocky floor and sound reverberating off walls, accusations flung from a wounded heart. Even when the notices posted on doors churn fear and the mail turns up only more bills and the cupboards seem bare and the nights long and troubled, my hero grips tight my hand and whispers, “I’ve got you.” He awakens barren days with songs of hope and teaches me to sing them back, in my own voice, until they are mine.
He’s the only One who’s ever stuck it out with me, through it all, feeding love into the bottomless pit of my need.
And with time, through changing landscapes, I’m beginning to see more than an empty room, but him, in all his beautiful but not often desirable disguises.
And he, oh, I need not look further. What a sight for sore eyes, my hero.
. . . . . . . . . . .
I'm over at Lisa Jo's today for Five-Minute Friday. The prompt is "Hero," and once again, this did not unfold in five minutes. But I'm grateful to share it, all the same.
We stand outside the security checkpoint as long as they are in our sight and wave. Annecy's head of curly black hair bobbing in and out of view and Ivan's tear-streaked face breaking into smiles between soulful glances at Ricardo. My husband is quiet, watching his older sister and nephew disappear in the airport. His face doesn't betray much emotion, but I see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he leans against me.
He is sad.
His huge heart is spread between Mexico and Seattle, and while he says goodbye to one he turns to embrace the other.
We are family now.
Finally we move away, arms around each other, and he whispers, "Thank you. Thank you for loving my family, for making them feel welcome."
My eyes sting at the corners. "Of course," I say. Of course. "They are my family, too." I love them, even in my failures to love them as well as I want to, and I marvel at the grace of this reality. I squeeze my arm around his waist and kiss his stubbled cheek and we head home on the train.
At home, he opens a letter from Ivan and reads it aloud until his voice trails off, hoarse. He looks at me with eyes a pool of pink mist, buries his face for a moment in my shoulder. I smell the onion on his breath from our sandwiches and think how much I love this man. Just for who he is. How love kind of crept up on me throughout the year, surprising me with its depth in moments like these.
We have not come by marriage easy.
My memories flash, oh so briefly, to all the long nights. The fights, the tears, the aloneness. The eventual coming back together, talking, forgiving, letting go. To the depression, the heavy lack of hope, the raw sorrow, the anger, the buried longing, the struggle to trust. We have crossed many bridges together and we have fallen in the waters. But we have not drowned.
Ours has never been a morning-makeout-with-minty-fresh-breath kind of marriage. It's only been this, gradual drawing close to onion breath and holding each other's gaze. This refusal to let go, even as everything seems to repel us away. I do not love him for how he excites me, how he satisfies my passion. I love him for the depth in those twinkling eyes, right down to his soul.
I love him, because to love him is to love God, and somehow this steadies my weak heart.
How this Mexican boy and Seattle girl became family remains a mystery to me. But as this year stretches ahead, just four days old, I know one thing. I will love him even more by the end of it.
We light three candles on our makeshift altar, flames dancing across Jesus, La Virgen de Guadalupe and Papa's obituary, and slip beneath a blanket on our sofa. Our bodies huddle side by side, holding the silence as a cup between us.
Thinking of her. Of her brief life, a flame flickering in the darkness, unwilling to be snuffed out.
In Spanish, her name means "pigeon," but ivory flowers lay across our altar and I think instead of a dove. I think of peace, and pray, that soon she'll be at rest.
I ask my husband for memories of his cousin. One year younger than him, they grew up more as brother and sister, getting into all kinds of mischief, but those stories are not for tonight. She lost her Mami when she was only five. He chokes up when he speaks, recalling with admiration the cousin he remembers as having every reason to be sad and yet somehow, always smiling.
The quiet enfolds us. I think of her eight-year old son, of her husband, as I watch the candle flames and pray.
"She doesn't want to die," he whispers, shaking his head. And though I've never met her, I feel her sorrow, her struggle to let go of this brief episode that is life, and I weep.
How hard it must be, to let go, how thirty-six years must feel like the blink of an eye, a sweep of the lashes dropping a tear to the dust. How even as a body is overtaken with cancer, this disease cannot take the spirit, and still she fights. She loves, to the final breath.
And then, soon, leans back into the arms of God.
I stand up, reach down to pull my husband to his feet, wrap my arms around his neck and lay my cheek against his skin. That I can do all this, feel his warm body and pulse and inhalation of breath, is pure gift. I hold him, quiet, drinking the moment like a sweet red wine, because I'm not sure why I have been given this and not her. Because I'm not sure how long I will have this to hold. But as long as I do, I must savor and inhale the scent of him and speak the words that I dare not hold back, for life is too brief and anything less than love is not enough.
And still the candles flicker, refusing to be swallowed by the dark, and somewhere in the light of glory, a dove prepares to fly home.
Linking up today with Tuesday's Just Write group over at Heather King's blog.
