Seven Years Ago...
A few nights ago, Jonathan and I had the privilege of going back to the town that we were married in. Actually, we go there often as it is where my parents live, but we actually got to go back to the hotel that we had our wedding pictures taken in...and spent our first married night in. Well, actually, we didn't get to STAY there this week, but my dear cousin bought us a gift certificate so were able to at least eat there, on the veranda. It was awesome. Walking into the the Boulevard was like walking into a time capsule. I could hear my girls voices and I could almost see them posing for pictures. And then I saw the library...the library where Jonathan and I had our private moment when he first saw me in my dress. And the excitement and the wonder and the love that filled that day just came rushing back to me at breakneck speed.
After dinner we went on a walk down on the beach, just like we did on our honeymoon night. It was all very nostalgic. The next morning we took the kids down to St.Joe and got them donuts and ate them on the bluff overlooking the lake. Then we let them play on the playset on the beach and Jonathan and I got to sit on a park bench and drink coffee and relax in the most gorgeous weather you can possibly imagine. From there I took them all to my office to meet the people I work with. It was a morning straight out of a storybook...beautiful in everyway.
Good thing we had that a few days ago, because today was our actual anniversary, and I was gone for all of it. I got a call this morning that my grandpa had been taken to the hospital last night. He has congestive heart failure and they thought he had had another heart attack and pneumonia. My mama takes care of my grandparents and she was on a plane on her way home from Florida. So I knew I had to go be with Grandma. So I spent my day there...and you know...in many ways, I learned so very much about love. I have always been in awe of how my grandma loves my grandpa (long story here, ask me about it sometime!), but today I got to see that love become tangible once again. The way she tucked him in, the way she fed him, worried about him, talked to him. But the most precious conversation of the day went something like this: Grandma, "Ray, you are being awfully quiet, what are you thinking about?" Grandpa, looking at her lovingly, "You, dear, I am thinking about you."
Grandpa was in and out of lucid thought all day. He was doing pretty well this afternoon, and then around dinner time he seemed to take a little dip back down, at least mentally. But somewhere in the midst of it, he had the clarity of mind to love her the only way he could at that moment.
Love truly does go through seasons. Seasons of marriage..new love, responsibility, children, letting children go, retirement, and late life. It changes and grows deeper and deeper until when you look at a couple such as my grandparents, who have been married for 64 years, you have to wonder how one will ever survive without the other. The love is so deeply rooted...so strong that it can face any storm. So SELFLESS that nothing, absolutely nothing can destroy it.
I have much to learn from them. And if they could get to this place, this beautiful self-sacrificing place of true love...then we can to. I am talking about deep, true, strong, selfless, pure, gentle, LOVE. My grandparents have a goal they have set before themselves: May 28, 2010. It will mark their 65th year of marriage. Pray they can make it, please. Grandpa is 86, and he is undoubtedly weakening...and his mind is not good. But his heart is still there, and in the moments that everything works together just right...he can still look at her lovingly and say, "I am thinking of you, my dear."
And that makes everything worth it. Everything.
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