five

My wife and I have been married for five years as of Saturday. Living were we live (a county with only 7000 people), and being in our particular stage of life (three children ages four and under), and grandma having just started a new job on the other side of the state (the only kind of babysitting we can afford), we weren’t able to do anything particularly “memorable.” No bed-and-breakfast, no cruise, not even dinner-and-a-movie.

And yet, I’ll never forget this anniversary.

I think, for many modern couples, love requires context. And that context is often nothing more than a culmination of discrete experiences, the sum of all the “good times” minus the sum of all the “bad times.” So long as the bottom line is in the black (i.e. the “good times” outweigh the “bad times”), the relationship continues, and if in the red, it doesn’t. No, people usually don’t create spreadsheets that track the net effect of their experiences as a couple. Usually it just happens in the background, subconsciously, and all that rises to the surface are vague feelings: the spark is gone, you aren’t who you used to be, this isn’t working anymore.

Perhaps we can say for many modern couples – especially American couples – the context for love is really just a collection of vacations and date-nights and socio-economic milestones such as purchasing a first home. Or the lack thereof.

My wife and I don’t have such a context. I can count on one hand the number of true vacations we’ve had, and the number of date-nights isn’t much better (and therefore all the more precious). For us, money, travel and high-entertainment have been experienced too seldom to define our relationship. And in this economy, you can forget all about the socio-economic milestones.

All we really have is what we are. And “we are what we do when it counts,” someone wise once said. Which is why, even though our anniversary was on July 28, I keep thinking about something that took place in the middle of March.

Tax season was in full swing, which meant 60-hour work weeks. The winter had been long and wet, and the chill was still in our bones. And the kids were sick. Eventually all three kids would be taken to the ER, two would be admitted and diagnosed with what was basically pneumonia, and one of them would spend the night. But in the few days leading up to that hospital visit we did all we could to treat them at home.

Around three in the morning, my oldest (not yet four at the time) woke with a tight cough, the kind that usually works up her gag reflex and causes her to vomit up copious amounts of phlegm. I heard that tell-tale cough over the baby-monitor and lost little time slipping into the children’s bedroom and scooping my daughter out of bed. A nebulizer was already waiting in the living room. I strapped the mask to my daughter’s face, leaned back across the loveseat, and pulled her close.

There I sat. Nebulizer hum-rattling. Daughter curled up against my chest with a clear plastic tube snaking up to her mouth, steaming. The only light in the house came from the open bathroom door, just enough to see. And suddenly I wasn’t sleepy anymore. I felt in tune with everything in the house: the purr of the nebulizer, the shadows from the bathroom light, the boys sleeping unawares, the job I was to return to in the morning, my wife stirring in her sleep. It was a moment of objective calm. Everything at peace. Nothing taken for granted. Giving thanks for everything. Feeling the voice of God saying, “At this moment, however brief, you are fully (finally) reflecting My image, and I am illuminated.”

And it was during that moment of peace when my wife realized I was no longer beside her in bed. The buzz of the nebulizer drowned the squeak of the bedroom door and the squeak of the floorboards, and suddenly she was in the corner of my eye. Her curls fell in the wrong places, and there was still sleep behind her glasses, but the look on her face was a Mona Lisa smile. Concern giving way to peace.

And for that moment, as she stood on the living room rug watching, I stepped outside of time. I’ve always known how wonderful my wife is, but for that moment I could see it from the outside. I “realized” (though I already knew) how beautiful she was, how wonderful a mother she was, how much she loved me. I knew all these things well, and yet I found myself surprised, as if, only moments before, everything she was had been taken from me, tied up in a box, and reopened on the living room rug.

And after I assured her everything was fine and she returned to bed, I sat there wondering if Jesus – fully God and fully man – ever had the same revelations about His Bride, the Church. If I, a sinful man, can love my wife so (though she deserves more), then surely He, being perfect, can be perpetually and joyfully surprised at the loveliness of his Bride. Perhaps every Sunday morning He experiences this.

And if the Church, being unfaithful and often unlovely (though Christ makes her lovely whenever He is present) can be worthy of such adoration, how much more my wife, who is always faithful and always lovely?

But it seems such revelations of adoration only come in the eyes of certain storms. I would almost wish for more storms, if only for more opportunities to express such adoration to her. But I don’t want my children to catch pneumonia just so I can wax romantic. After all, as I said before, I always know how wonderful she is. It’s just that, sometimes, most times, I need a heightened experience to properly express my love.

Perhaps next year we can just go on a cruise.