I found a stick of butter I didn’t know I had
Hiding in the far back corner of my freezer
And I held its frozen self in my hand
And suddenly knew that everything was going to be ok.
I realized that it was not,
after all,
The End Of The World;
It was only Tuesday, and I could forgive myself for that.
I’ve been dreading it for 13 lessons, the final assignment and exam of The Creative Writing Workshop, and I had no idea what it was going to be except that other students posted their final ‘exams’ in the forums and they were all lengthy, well-worded short fiction stories having to do with a man named David in tears. Oh my.
Have I ever said how bad I am with fiction?
Nevertheless, I pressed through the course and did every little bit of extra ‘stuff’ I could find in order to delay the inevitable. And then I waiting. And fretted. And moaned to my dear husband. And finally, clicked the “Start Assignment” button on my class screen.
“Using all the elements you have studied, write a 1,000 plus word short story in which one of three themes is the base:
1)David sat down on the side of the road and began to cry
2) I was asked the most peculiar question last Wednesday
3) A woman who won’t leave her house due to an extreme phobia of dogs
Be as creative as you wish. Pay attention to dialog, plot, character development and setting. Final piece should have no errors, please proofread and edit carefully.”
I must say that this course has greatly improved my opinion of fiction. *Gasp* It’s been incredibly good for me to be forced to write things I would never choose, and to be forced to write them well – or at least try. Although it ground a little hard at first, I have enjoyed writing made-up dialog between sisters who haven’t spoken in seven years, or describing the short jog of a man on an early spring morning, or understanding the character of a woman who never leaves her house because she is afraid of being bitten.
So here it is, after weeks of teeth-wearing anxiety 
My Short Story…
***I still dream of teeth, yellow, pointed teeth sharpened into daggers, shining wet rows in dark red mouths, and they say I am crazy. This is the third reason why I decided to stay.
My world consists of one bedroom, a kitchen, bathroom and a smallish sort of parlor where I do my deep-relaxation breathing in the evening. Everything is on one floor, connected by door-less doorways (I had the doors removed the winter I decided to stay) and short, picture-less halls (Why is it that no one thinks it strange that we frame dead images and use them as decoration?) but I like it. I know where everything is at all times. I don’t remember what color the house is outside, or what kind of landscaping clutters up the yard, nor do I care. My house is the last one you pass before you reach the dead end of the road, the one pre-teen boys come and stand in front of each Halloween, eggs held tight in trembling hands, taunting each other to throw the first one and earn their manhood. I watch them from behind my curtain, silently agonizing, always wishing they wouldn’t make the youngest, scrawniest of the group go first – he looks so petrified. But that’s the way it goes. The scrawny ones go first. Always. That’s the first reason why I decided to stay.
I live here by myself.
My name is Meg and I am, strangely enough, not as old as everyone says. I look in the mirror and see, not an old person, but a quiet one with smooth, pale skin and eyes that have always been too dark – like small, perfectly round holes. My hair is black and straight and long and usually tied up in a bun on the back of my neck. I don’t think I am very tall, I fit in the house well and the sheets cover my feet, nor am I too short to reach things resting on the edge of the top shelf in the kitchen. The person staring back at me in the mornings is very clean and very calm. This is the second reason why I decided to stay – I like things to be orderly and calm. Noise distracts me. People disturb me. I don’t like how the world moves so fast, rushing over the calm, slow ones like me and the scrawny, young ones like the boy with the egg, tearing us apart with its teeth.
The third reason, as I mentioned before, are the dreams. I dream about teeth and the gaping wounds they cause. Foaming fangs, and the blocky ivory-colored ones you find in old cow skulls, and the smooth thin ones old people can no longer use – they all invade my sleep and my memory, and they say I am crazy. But I’m not. I’m just very quiet and calm and that’s what I remember best. The teeth.
Every Tuesday someone brings me food. I’ve forgotten his name, but I think it was something like Henry or Frank. Sometimes I think about it and try to remember, but it doesn’t really matter. He comes and brings big bags full of vegetables and eggs and some milk or fruit and Captain Crunch cereal in its orange cardboard box. I like the peanut butter kind.
“Hey Meg.” He says, and smiles too loudly. His name is Charles. Charlie. I look away. I don’t like him, I don’t like his smile and I suddenly remember why I have forgotten his name. He doesn’t fit in my house with his long limbs and messy hair, dark like mine, and gleaming teeth in two perfect rows. His boots are leaving crumbs of outside on my floor with every step. I think when he leaves I will forget him again.
“How’s it going? You keeping well in here? Sure enough, it’s a lovely day out, you should get some sun!” He sets the bags down on the kitchen floor with a bang and eyes me from his squatting position, his knees askew as if he hadn’t a place to fold them properly, neatly. “You’re looking mighty thin, there, Meg. You eating enough? You need some more eggs or something?” He stands back up and stares at me. His checkered shirt is unbuttoned at the neck and his jeans have large, worn spots at the knees. The hems are frayed around his brown boots.
“No.” I said, quietly, calmly. If there was a fourth reason for staying in here, it would be Charles and people like him. Every one out there is like him. Either loud or smiling or scrawny or pushy or mean and they’re all obsessed with the sun. And they all have teeth, and dogs with fangs that bite and leave bloody wounds. I think I will stay here.
“You sure? Cuz I could get you some more eggs. I know this real nice farm, the people on the other side of town with the round barn, remember?” He waits for me to act as though I do.
“No.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, they just got another batch of little hens that are laying up a storm! I could get you all the eggs you want, we could run those chicks dry…” He must think this is funny because he bursts into a disorderly laugh and then wipes his eyes. His brown face seems young and wrinkled at the same time. He moves so fast. He goes from calm to hysterics to calm again in a matter of minutes. I don’t understand him. He is quiet now and looks around. “You want me to open these curtains for you? It really is a nice day out, I think you’d like the sun…”
“No.” I keep the curtains closed for a reason. There are windows in the bedroom, sky lights, and that is all the sun I need. I wish he would leave. The air feels crowded and upset around him.
“Ok. Well then. If you ever want to go see those chickens, you just let me know, I’ll take you to get your eggs if you want… if you ever want, you know? I told them about you and they’d love to meet you…” He makes long movements through the hall to the front door as he talks. I stay standing in the kitchen, I don’t like being near the door when it opens. I wait until it closes, and then a moment longer to hear the lock slide into place from the outside before I come out of the kitchen. I walk over to the bathroom and look in the mirror.
“I look thin.” I think. Dark eyes. Black hair. White skin. Quiet. Calm. Clean. Thin.
Another week passes as they usually do. I clean and read and eat and paint, watch the sun in the skylight in the afternoons and breathe in the evenings, at night I dream and then it’s Tuesday again.
“Hey Sis!” It’s that noisy man again, he appears suddenly in the hallway and I can never remember his name. Doug. Robert. John. He smells warm and damp, it must be raining outside and he is carrying wet bags of groceries, they’re dripping over every inch of the kitchen floor. Cucumbers, milk, apples, peanut butter Captain Crunch cereal, and eggs. I start to unpack the bags and see that the carton of eggs has been re-labeled, there is a white sticker with a name and address on the top,
“McNoughton Farm
1436 Merried Lane
Oakwood, Ohio”
The name seems familiar, I reach out to touch it, but it seems dirty and not quite right so I stop. Charlie watches me read it.
“McNoughton. Remember? That’s mom and dad’s place, with the round barn – remember we used to play in it? They just got the new hens I was telling you about last week?” It all seems so real, as if I could remember it if it were, but I am not sure. I think I would rather stay here than remember.
“No.”
“Ok. Yep. Well I gotta run, ok? Try and get some sun now, you hear?”
Sun obsessed. And the dreams say that I’m crazy.***
You heard it.
No recipes, no witty stories about my past (“Wait,” I hear you say, “there were witty stories about your past?”)
No cute pictures (Ok, maybe one or two)
Just random thoughts from me in the middle of the night because after listening to me read four chapters in Luke and a good chunk of God’s discourse in Job, my husband has fallen dead asleep on the couch and I am left alone.
Alone with you, dear reader, for company. I’m sorry.
I dislike talking on the phone. Intensely. If you are reading this, and you are someone I talk to on the phone, don’t be downcast, I probably love talking to *you*, even on the phone. It isn’t *you*, it’s the phone. I don’t know why. Maybe because my phone interrupts me by making random phone calls to *other* people while I am in the middle of a conversation. Maybe because my phone thinks that I am Carl Miller (if you are reading this, Carl Miller- there is some home security company who wants to protect your home. They keep calling me but I feel I can’t set something up for you since I don’t know your address..) and lies to people’s caller id, sending them into mild panic, wondering about this ‘Carl Miller’ fellow and why he would be calling them. I am not Carl Miller, but let’s face it, I have always had a problem with phones, just like I have had problems with vacuum cleaners and blenders. I don’t know why- it has always been thus, it isn’t my new phone’s fault at all.
And maybe I am just not technically advanced enough to work the things. Maybe. Maybe I need a personal upgrade. Ann, version 2.0.
Retro is much more my style…. dig it?
My husband and I are threatening to take up running. I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to write, I love the *idea* of being thin and in shape; I wish I loved to exercise as much. We *both* hate to run- so why did we pick this as a recreation? Because we’re too stinking happy, that’s why! Something had to change, and so we decided to take up- not knitting, not fishing, not polo or bridge, but running. I think we will learn to like it. After those first few thousand excruciating miles, I will probably even look forward to it and then we will have to find something else to hate. We’ll see.
I was in a semi-public place today when a semi-stranger walked up to me and said, “Aren’t you the gal that was in the paper yesterday?” I could have fallen over right there in front of him. Yes. Yes, I am the gal you saw in the paper. I am the newest columnist for our lovely local paper, writing every other week a column about- cooking. Are you surprised? I am.
I am A Writer. The semi-stranger said that he was looking forward to reading more from me in coming weeks. Did you get that? I had to go back and read it real slow- someone I don’t know liked something I wrote that was published in a newspaper. Oh. My. Word.
What does this have to do with the Manly Art of Knitting? Nothing. I just like the picture. A lot. Knitting is totally a manly art, especially if you knit while on a horse, dressed like a cowboy. Just sayin’.
That has been another episode of Random Things with Ann.
Tune in next week for more of the same!
-A
Another Valentine’s Day come and gone and you’re still single.
I’ve been there. I’ve sung the song, I’ve gotten the t-shirt, I’ve ridden the pendulum from humor to bitterness and finally settled into the middle limbo of indifference, a bland yet ever cheerful smile that occupies where desire has yet to be fulfilled. This year I have a new song, and a new shirt- it’s an old, black Harley tee I stole from my husband.
I have this to say:
Little did we know that we would meet and fall in love.
Life was just going on- me going one way, he going another, and we happened to meet for five minutes in a hardware store in a town neither of us had even heard of a year before. I was selling snow shovels, he was buying them. Simple enough.
Little did I know that a year later I would be living in this quiet man’s house, cooking him meals, sharing a friendly tube of toothpaste and a little porcelain sink. Little did he know that he would be subjected to Love and all its symptoms, that his friends would break open with surprise when he introduced the wife who developed from a girlfriend he hadn’t had four months earlier. He was just buying a shovel.
I was just volunteering downtown. Months after the snow had melted and summer was making a dramatic exit by way of Hurricane Irene, we talked for the first time. I had packed my bags and was headed West before she came and stopped my journey, leaving me with two weeks, no job, no plan, no clue. Our small town’s heart was swept away by violent waters which left mud and debris that needed to be cleaned up. I had nothing else to do, and had been inadvertently waiting for a natural disaster to come and change my life, so I donned my work clothes and showed up at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning to rescue antiques from the muddy waters of Nancy Leary’s basement.
He was simply on duty, keeping the curious populace from falling into flooded pits and being crushed by fainting buildings.
Little did I know that his face was soon to become the loveliest sight my eyes could find, or that his calm voice was going to be the music that would soothe me back to sleep after having a nightmare. He couldn’t have had any idea that in the short months ahead our conversations would get longer and longer and longer, that soon I would be sitting at his dining room table at midnight, waiting for him to come home for lunch so that we could talk some more. I said goodbye, turned and left him standing there at the bottom of the hill that first day, not knowing that I should mark this parting, for it was to be one of the very few that came that easily or without some aching deep in me I could barely stand.
How unlikely we were at that moment. Unlikely to meet, unlikely to fall in love, unlikely to marry.
We just didn’t know. There is very little that we mortals *do* know here on this earth, and since meeting Alex, my confidence in that little has lessened considerably. What do we know? Really. What do you know? What do I know of tomorrow or the next day? What do you know but that two weeks from now your life is going to be made complete? What do you know but that the stranger you sold that shovel to, the one you don’t remember- is going to be your husband in less than 12 months. What do you know but that your other half is out there, clueless, wondering, wandering right into your path at any moment. Every minute you are alive is an opportunity, a chance, and you never really know what there is a chance of until you Live. That’s the charm of it. We plan, we fret, we work, we live, we make goals and strive to accomplish them and all the while there is this grand joke being played on us all – it’s not Our Plan that stands. It’s not Our Purpose that stays, is it? In the end- what do we know?
Little did I know that I was three days, one train ticket and an old suitcase away from missing the Love of my Life when that angry storm came and pulled the tracks out from under me. How many times in the years before that moment did the choice at hand seem wrong, the path seem too hard; how often did the questions arise like thick, angry clouds and we felt a little lost, felt unsure or just Out Of Place- and yet we were right In Place. How incredible is that?
And yet, I say, there is no such thing as coincidence. I dare not leave such a close fate as mine in the hands of such a slippery idea. Many things have coincided in my life, and I could be married to the nightclub owner from Berlin who is twice my age, or the farmer who lived on the next hundred acres from where I grew up. You can’t trust coincidence.
You can, however, trust the Planner of all Fates, the Hearer of all Desires, the Great Creative Genius behind my own love story, the only One who truly has any power to make something out of nothing, to bring life from storms, hope from ruin and reality from all our ‘unlikelys’. We like to think we have everything formulated and contained and sterilized and thoroughly understood, we like to think we know whom we would like to marry, or how it will happen, or when. We like to direct God with our prayers, suggesting and desiring only what we can feel and think and hold. Have you ever prayed the words, “Lord- I’m game.”? Have you ever asked Him what HE would like to do with a situation? We like to visualize our lives and then head towards the picture we’ve painted using only the colors that we know well. Step back for just a minute and think about what you truly do know, and then walk on, well-assured that the palette you have to work from is limited, small, finite, color-blind and underestimating to the extreme. God- He is the One to let work, otherwise you are simply living on the little that we know, and that is the surest way to lose a great deal of the wonder, intense beauty and supreme blessing of life.
Little did we know what that day would start…. You don’t know what is going to start with tomorrow’s sunrise, do you?
“Mmmmmmm, Sheri, I like these sweet potato fries.”
*Said in delight*
“Good! I think a lot of people are going to like them, make sure customers know that we have them.”
*Said with assurance*
“Oh yeah! And they’re probably much better for you than regular fries… right?”
*Said in Great Hope*
“Andi. I don’t think anything is healthy for you once it has been deep fried.
I don’t think broccoli would be healthy if you deep fried it.
Sorry.”
*Dejection*
I mean, really- how long can happily ever after go on?
It’s been two months of absolute married bliss- something had to give. Something *always* gives.
Well.
Something gave.
“Thank you for not dousing this broccoli in butter, love.” My husband was collecting a forest of greenery from the pan while I sat on the opposite side of our little table in an apologetic attitude over the *lack* of butter on the broccoli. ”You know, I just don’t really like the taste of butter.”
The world stopped.
What?
You don’t what?
You don’t like the taste of What?
Of Butter?
Youdon’tlikethetasteofbutter?
I said it really fast inside my head, frantically trying to discern his joke- but he was contentedly munching away on his vegetables, like a decent person and ordinary Christian, there wasn’t a trace of cruel humor or bitter irony in his tone.
He wasn’t joking.
My entire life flashed before my eyes. Late night snacks of butter-drenched popcorn; warm, fluffy biscuits drenched in butter; oatmeal with brown sugar, drenched in butter; baked potatoes, elegantly drenched in butter; my mother and I convinced that starches were created for the sole purpose of carrying butter from the plate to our mouths. I Love Butter, it has been such a part of my life, up until now.
I could hear my cooking muse, her usually calm and light-hearted voice now desperately crying out-
“But- BUTTER IS A SAUCE!!”
It was all I could think to say; Julia is right. I believe in this. Butter *is* a sauce.
It is.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, I mean, come on- this is the same guy who in earlier posts declared that he disliked bacon AND cheese. I should have seen The Great Butter Confession coming, but I didn’t. It took the wind right out of me.
Now how do we live? The one my soul loves uses olive oil to fry his eggs.
I’m going to tell him that every time someone says that they don’t like butter, another French gourmet dies.
Maybe then he’ll keep his anarchist comments to himself.
Oh my.
The truth is that I love the boy too much to care for very long about most things, even things like Butter. I don’t know how or why, but I calmly served myself some vibrant, green, butter-less broccoli and enjoyed every heart-healthy bite, the now familiar feeling of happily-ever-after sneaking back over me as he smiled.
Someday it’s going to come.
It’s going to come.
We’ve had our time of tears,
we’ve come to love the marks our bands have made upon our wrists,
but it’s close to being over,
this bondage.
This fearful song we’ve sung over and over again like it was the chorus of life itself-
it’s almost played out.
I hear the final notes being wept over in the back row seats.
Can you feel it?
Don’t your feet ache to move and dig naked toes into free soil?
The ghosts and skeletons are enjoying their last hour of haunting.
The chains are getting heavy and limp as link by link their strength melts away-
It cannot last for long now, we are in the final moments of our captivity.
Soon you can leave.
Your arms will miss the weight at first,
Your legs will tremble and your feet will be bewildered by the choices-
right or left
back or forth
north or south.
Your eyes will sting in the light and your lungs will burn with every new breath you take.
It will be a fearsome thing, but you’ll get through it.
I know because that is how it was for me
when it came.
When that first shackle broke and fell and startled me awake with its noise.
I felt afraid and empty and naked.
But that’s the last thing to go, that angry empty feeling,
The final sign that what you’ve been waiting for all this time has really come.
I expect
Someday you’ll be writing a random poem about the marks on your wrist where bondage used to be.
Someday you will bathe in the sun instead of turning from it.
Someday you will dance instead of shuffle.
It’s going to come.
Hang on.
basking in the aftermath of five, cheap hours of sleep;
love has stolen all my time, and i don’t care.
the fellas at table number five tease me endlessly about the ‘glow’, the ‘smile’, the way i tend to sing out loud, songs i’ve never heard before. i ask them, “what planet are we on now, anyway?” the only answer they have is wrong. why can’t they see how different everything is?
the gravity is different, but the clouds do seem to have the same shapes, i can see how they would be confused. time moves forward, as we do, which is familiar, but hours and days mean something different under this sun. the earth feels soft and forgiving to my feet and i just discovered that my new world is round. Will i fall off as it turns to face the moon come nightfall?
what is the name of the place we’ve found? what shall we call this world of ours, dear one? this sphere, this planet- no one will understand, will they, that we have slipped off into an atmosphere all our own. if they could only see the colors of the sky where we are now, if they could only feel the press, the music, the needing to dance and just be together, if they could only hear the future with its sweetly worded promises- they would understand. they would gather with their bottles of grocery store champange and christen us as we settle into our new world and hang up the plaque that says, ”We Live Here.”
we do live here now. we’ve packed our bags with memories, ideals and knick-knacks to clutter the walls and flown off to own our planet. we’re going to colonize and explore and plant apple trees and wildflowers in every corner. it’s going to be lovely. roots will run tangled and wild under the crust and love is going to flourish.
they’ll see. we’ll send them postcards- everyone will get postcards, as soon as we figure out the name of our new world……
I eloped, as the world all knows. I said my vows in a hushed college chapel in New Hampshire under the loveliest stained glass window I have ever beheld, barely lit by the very full and silvery moon outside.
The bachelor party consisted of watching Finding Nemo with my betrothed at his mom’s house and the honeymoon was barely a day long before we had to head home for work on Monday morning and yet, and yet, it was perfect.
We ‘hit the ground running’, as they say, having to wake up at an ungodly hour on Monday, there was work to go to, groceries to be bought, all of my stuff that needed to be moved, and I think we were both still quite dizzy from the fact that we were actually, factually, hard-core, absolutely, till-death-do-us-part MARRIED. Delirious happiness- does that exist? Because I think we may have found a new species of it if it does, and if it didn’t exist- then it sure does now!
Monday was the best day of work of my entire life. I claimed our little diner as a my own private hall, and every customer was my personal guest to the wedding reception, it was wonderful. The more I told people the reason for my joy- the happier I got. People were laughing and even crying as I rehearsed the details of my special day over and over again- heck, I was laughing and crying as well! My heart thrilled as person after person told me their love story in return, from our regular people who know me well to tourists who’ve never seen me before in their lives. I became thoroughly convinced that people don’t let themselves be in love *nearly* enough. People don’t talk about it enough, people don’t celebrate it enough. People should buy strangers coffee in the name of the ones they love best, not only does it feel absolutely *amazing*, but it makes the person on the other end a little happier as well. I couldn’t help but feel that this- *this* is how our wedding, our Love should be celebrated, not with pomp and circumstance and production, but by taking the sacred bliss and sharing it with the moments of everyday; over coffee, while eating scrambled eggs, in between doctor’s appointments and on road trips. What could be more fitting for a cop and his waitress?
“My love,” I told my husband when I got off that day, “The entire town is happy for us and everyone left that diner absolutely in love because of our story- isn’t that incredible?”
It is incredible. I am in no way incredible as a person, but the Lord has given me an incredible Man, and an incredible story and as I sit down in our kitchen at the end of this first week of marriage, I am stunned by the weight and the glory of what has been given me.
“Andi,” my boss said to me, “Do you realize that you have what every body is looking for? Isn’t that what every one wants, what every one is looking for- to be loved absolutely unconditionally, committedly, determinedly, utterly, with no strings? And you’ve got it. That’s quite a gift.”
My God, is it ever.
I am a questioning person. I can’t think of a single moment in my life that has not been examined and pondered and questioned to the utmost of my ability.
In my days, I have asked and sought out the answers to many questions great and small, profound and ridiculous, vital and peripheral.
“What does mud taste like?”
“How did my eyebrows get to be so dang vicious and ambitious?”
“What does grass taste like?”
“Where would I end up if I just started walking, following the telephone wires?”
“Does God really exist?”
“Does He love me?”
“If I jump hard enough, can I fly?”
“Should I take algebra?”
“Why must there be war?”
“Why don’t all the rich people give their money to poor children?”
“What if I am not strong enough?”
“What if I can’t stop crying?”
“Did dragons exist?”
“What do you think”
“Am I crazy?”
“What’s the Queen’s last name?”
“What is the point?”
“What about spontaneous combustion?”
“Why am I afraid?”
“What *really* happens if you kiss a frog?”
Or, my perennial favorite;
“What would this taste like deep-fried?”
I write a lot of my ponderings down in journals, on blackboards, scraps of paper or even in the dirt beside the sidewalk, wonderings left for others to take up and think for a while. As life changes, so do the questions. The older I get, the more direct and complex they become, the less time I have to really sit and wonder whether or not my toad will turn into a prince. I need good, strong questions that will bring me sturdy, faithful answers. What about love? Should I keep this job? What happens if I fail? How do I show kindness to this person? How do I know the truth? What happens if I am not sure? What happens if I don’t find the right answer? What happens if there is no answer? What then?
In a way, that’s all life is, a series of questions. Some of them you have to answer, some of them you must ask. Each day begins with a question, each dawn gently but persistently interrogates our hours and asks us what will be. Each event demands a response- our answer. Will you harden, will you break, will you bend or shift or give or love or hate or live or die, or won’t you? The wills and the whys and the hows and the whats surround each breath we take and life is waiting- what will the answer be?
I met a young man who seems to be as questioning as I. We have talked for hours, days, weeks, months, mostly asking and answering questions- hundreds of them. We swore to be honest, we promised to be fair even if it was painful or we didn’t get the answer we desired. Nearly any and every query or quandary ever dangled in front of my mind has at some point been dissected and discussed. “Dogs or no dogs?” ”What about children?” “What about homeschooling?” “Cow or no cow?” “Town or country?” “Dragons? Frogs? Goats? Maine?” “Wood stove or gas?”
Notes were taken, lists made to make sure no question was ignored, and through all the answerings and askings, I began to love the wondering soul behind his dark eyes, walking beside me on the road, or sitting with me on the couch. I started to see questions we had in common, answers we were both looking for- a fellow Asker. I saw inquiries we had made in our separate lives which had produced kindred results- a fellow Answerer. I started to ask different questions- no longer issues swarming around a nucleus of ”Could I possibly live with this man for the rest of my life?” but very strongly, very surely, “What life could there be *without* him? What could the ‘rest of my life’ possibly be if he is not in it?”
He began to ask different questions as well. “Silver, or gold?” “Big or small?” “Diamond, or no diamond?” “Bridesmaids, or no bridesmaids?” “Winter or Spring?”
Then, one warm evening after we walked and talked over that day’s batch of inquiries, he turned and asked me perhaps the simplest, strongest, most direct question of my life after, “Will you accept Christ?”, and that was-
“Will you marry me?”
What a question.
Yes, I will. The answer is Yes.
Through all the questions that life will ask of us, through all the demands and decisions, Yes. Through the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘how evers’ and the ‘what fors’ – Yes. Through all the good times when answers are sweet and warm and easy- Yes. Through all the rough times when we won’t be sure, we won’t know, we can’t find answers or don’t like the ones given to us- it will still be Yes.
I look forward to a life of questing and searching and seeking and rejoicing in what is found. Every question has an answer and I look forward to hunting them down side by side with this man who has asked me to be his.
So there you have it, folks. That’s the answer.
