Marriage: On a Monday, On Oneness

On a Monday, our feet don't stop moving in opposite directions until we're about to bid the day farewell and welcome in the night.

He was up and out the door before my eyes even opened this morning and our paths spread out over miles and miles of unshared terrain.

It's quite unlike the day we shared seven years ago, gripping each other's hands, eyes locked, voicing vows of love and respect, honesty and loyalty and, most importantly, oneness for all of our days together on Earth; even the clean, crisp air of today is a drastic difference from that day's thick humidity.

Today whirlwinds by, and to the untrained eye we seem anything but one as we quickly exchange a hello via phone bidding each other a happy anniversary, one brief email with a written sentiment and then a small face-to-face and kiss before work beckons me to return just as he arrives home, his capable hands taking the reigns of the household.

I tease him and smile, "What? No time for flowers today?" before walking out the door for work.

In a miracle of sorts, I arrive home in time for a late dinner that he's struggled to prepare amid boy-wrangling and unexpected-necessary errands and poop-splosion clean up.

We all find a space at the table and fall into a stillness of body as we recount our days.

Our oldest talks about school and then his little brother explains the basic tenants of good applesauce {"it yummy and it mushy"} as we listen and smile.

After the littles are talked out, he gives voice to his day's adventures and I can't help but laugh at the raucous of his grill catching fire at the same time our oldest reported that our youngest was mooning the neighbors with a poop-covered butt in the backyard.

As he recounts the craziness, he ends with the scene I unknowingly walked in on just a little bit ago.

"Then we sat down at the table and I exhaled and we thanked God for our food and our day ... and for mommy. And we asked Him that mommy would please come home, um, soon."

And with that prayer shared, he unknowingly unwraps for me the best anniversary present ever.

Because those heart cries are ones I pray everyday, too -- that we would just come back together at the end of days long and alive and filled to the brim with goodness and hardness and everything in between after being stretched so out of shape

and enter back into that oneness we knew in the most physical sense the day we promised it

but now know with our hearts seven years beyond.



Happy anniversary, John. I tried not to sing out of key for you. :-)

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