Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A student of mine today gave me some good news: he and his girlfriend became engaged this past weekend. I congratulated him and told him that this Thanksgiving will certainly be one where he'll have plenty to be thankful for and he agreed. I patted him on the back and wished he and his fiancee all the best. I'm happy for him.

At the same time, there's something that saddens me. I think about the Richard Russo quote that I put on my blog awhile back: Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must, not where we want them to. How I envy my student! He's 23 and he'll probably be married when he's 24. By my age, he'll have been married 13 years, assuming he and his wife stay together, which I think is a safe assumption. For me to be married for 13 years, I'd be 50. How I wish I had found my wife at an earlier age, but this is a useless exercise. The river of my life has taken me where it must while the river of his life has led him at an early age to the woman he will share his life. Why this happens to some and not to others we will never know--only God knows. All I know is that I desperately long for the companionship of a wife and hope and pray that she might be found just around the next bend.

I think this is more keenly felt by me when the holidays approach. I made an apple tart today for a meeting and everyone enjoyed it. I made sure to leave a piece for our host's wife who appeared in the kitchen at the end of our meeting. She was beginning to prepare for Thanksgiving and was planning to make a cranberry coffee cake tonight. While watching my friend's wife prepare dessert I was suddenly struck with the beauty of that domestic scene. What hit me at that moment was how much I would have enjoyed celebrating the holidays with Meg, a woman who enjoys food and cooking as much as I do, and who enjoys planning for a celebration as much as I do too. It caused me to heave some heavy sighs.

I still miss Meg immensely, though I realize that we will never be together. I'm trying to come to terms with this, but on days like today, and in moments like this one, I feel nothing but a gaping void which I feel can only be filled by her. It's tremendously sad for me.

Sometimes I wonder if Meg rejecting me is a blessing in disguise. I think I'll love the woman who chooses me all the more because of it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes I wonder if Meg rejecting me is a blessing in disguise. I think I'll love the woman who chooses me all the more because of it."

I would anticipate things will turn out exactly as you suspect.

Anonymous said...

NO SCAR?
Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?
- Amy Carmichael, Irish missionary to India for 55 years (not Elizabeth E. as I thought...)

Anonymous said...

this one actually got me a little choked up, dan. you are a wonderful man, and the woman who finds you will be so blessed.

Dan said...

Thanks for the kind words, Ali. I'm looking forward to when I find her!