Marriage Moats-Waiting for Spring

Published: Fri, 03/01/13

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

There have been a slew of comments recently about warmer weather. One friend declared she has never wanted spring as much as she does this year. That is how it feels. But memory can be selective.

One winter in New Mexico I was driving through a horizontal snowstorm. I was creeping along a lonely highway to pick up John from western clergy meetings, and had four sleeping kids in the back. I was terrified. Visibility was nil and I wondered how long it would take for the emergency vehicles to find us if I drove off the road. Freezing to death might be a painless way to die. Perhaps you just sleep and never wake up. If I could find a pen I would write John a note goodbye. The image of a white windshield comes back to me when I wonder if I will be able to slog through a Pennsylvania snowstorm. The recollection, yellow with age, reboots my hope.

It can be hard to yank ourselves from the current catastrophe to realize that today's pain may be tomorrow's benchmark. There was a morning when the twins were wailing and Benjamin's autism was still a churning force that I was dragging myself and two armfuls of babies up the stairs. I was at the last dregs of any capacity to keep slogging, sleep starved and numb with exhaustion. But I kept plodding.

I still walk those stairs every day, though the fatigue has passed. I am not currently bone weary, but I remember that I once was, and survived.

Mercifully marriage has seasons of sunshine and winter. Occasionally they arrive on the same day.

Photo by Joy Feerrar

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