Today John and I went out with a young couple to touch base with them. It is a small gesture, to spend an hour in a coffee shop chatting over smoothies. We have had them in our home before, and they went on a marriage retreat with us in the Catskills years ago. I took them a meal after their first baby was born and I will again after the second. Each memory is no bigger than a thumbnail, easily trampled in the stampede of marriagejobparentingfriendshipcommutingspiritualitybreathing. But our heart takes a picture, and it becomes part of the collage. All alone, each interaction can seem inadequate. Yet if each isolated moment fits together it takes some of the pressure off of any one piece to be magnificent.

 

In some religions parents ask a close friend to be a godparent for their baby. It is an honor to be chosen. It is also a responsibility. The extra stability is in place long before the child has a chance to wobble. 

 

There are also circles where young couples are linked with an older mentor couple. The fierce independence endemic to the American lifestyle is not prone to asking for help. Marriages die a stone's throw away from people who have both the skills and the passion to help them traverse the breach. I have never lived in another country, but I have an inkling that there are societies where multigenerational bridges are a given. Those tethers can keep lonely people from falling into dark waters, and children tumbling after them.

 

It is not a complicated notion, really. Two couples meet for coffee a few times a year. In between they check in by phone or Facebook. The older one listens with compassion, the younger one feels the warmth of attention. It need not require a committee, or corporate funding.

 

But when I dream with my eyes wide open, I see pairs of couples holding each other's covenant as holy and whole.