“We fell in love when the snow was just falling, and silver was just touching our hair,” she told me.
“I didn’t expect him, but God did, and He filled our remaining years with a lifetime of love.”
Her voice trailed into memories that left no footpath for me to follow.
She spoke to me for another half hour before telling me she had grown tired and needed a nap. I left the hospital with medical records in one hand and my heart in the other.
I could not stop thinking about her for the rest of the day, and I doubt I will ever forget her.
I remembered that she caught my attention as I walked into the foyer. I nearly missed the office door as I was pulled toward her, like a child following the scent of cookies.
Her burnt orange sweater fit loosely on her frame against the stiff chestnut couch; she appeared as if she should be sipping apple cider despite it being 90 degrees outside.
She was the softest person in the whole room, and I knew this before she ever spoke.
After collecting my records, I approached her. I simply wanted to tell her that she brightens up the room. But before the words could reach her ears, I smiled.
“You have a lovely smile,” she told me, introducing herself as Mary.
I think I held onto that smile for most of the conversation that followed, except for a few parts that, even if bittersweet, deserved a tear.
Mary was waiting for her daughter to come pick her up. She had been dropped off for a routine follow-up after a recent knee replacement surgery, telling me that she had been staying with her daughter since surgery.
“I really don’t have a home to go to anymore. Now, I just have places to live,” she said. “Home was my Ben.”
My Ben.
I thought of how many things we claim, some lasting longer than others: my job, my house, my pet, my spouse, my children.
Some, like Ben to Mary, outlast even death. Our bodies and minds are temporary, but the spirit is eternal. Scripture tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and that God is eternal (Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 40:28; 1 Timothy 1:17).
As we are made in His image (Genesis 1:26–27), perhaps the truest love carries something eternal within it, too.
Maybe that is why, even after Ben was gone, she still referred to him as “my Ben.”
Gone.
That’s the wrong word. Mary made that clear in our short time together.
“He is still here,” she said, pointing to her heart. “And here,” she said, tapping her head. “And when my mind is gone, my heart will remember.”
That evening, as I sorted through laundry, I stopped and held my husband’s shirt. The same shirt I had washed a hundred times. For the same man I had loved in a way I thought we were only meant to aspire to, not fully experience with any consistency.
“What are you doing?” I heard him ask me. His hands upon my shoulders felt warm and strong.
“Loving you,” I replied. “Loving you, my Gabe.”
A kiss landed on my neck before I heard him walk into the kitchen. The moment was brief; each knew the exchange rested on a foundation forged well beyond our time.
There is comfort in eternal love as it holds space for us to grow freely with another; not afraid of what might be lost, because a beginning births upon each ending.
I suppose that, in this, flight upon flight in every life and death, eventually gifts us a new perspective on grieving.
As Mary told me, “I cry for me, but my thanks is the cup which holds my tears.”
I looked at my Gabe. I am so very thankful for him. In just thinking about it, I tear up.
Perhaps the cup of thanks holds all, from goodness to grief, when the Lord is the giver of the gift of love.
This column was originally published by CherryRoad Media. For more faith-based columns and inspirational writing by Tiffany Kaye Chartier, follow her on Facebook. Her devotional collection “The 4-Minute Reset: For Cultivating Peace, Purpose, and Positivity” is available on Amazon and other major online retailers.
