Some older homes on the seacoast have a rooftop platform known as the widow's walk. From that height, women could see if their husband's ship had made it safely back to harbor. I think of that sometimes--the widow's walk--because in the back of our minds, most married women know we will spend the end of our lives alone, as widows. Statistics show it. But we are not married to statistics, statistics do not take into account how much we love our husbands. We watch our friends go through it. Two friends whose husbands dropped dead so suddenly their bodies needed a couple more days to realize it was time to shut down. A friend from church, who had two weeks with her husband between diagnosis of late stage cancer and the complications of chemo that ended his life. Some who had more time to let go, some who had less. Our minds accept it. But our hearts, our hearts are never ready. Only God can give us the grace to endure the tearing of the one flesh relationship that marriage is designed to be.
There is no turning back, no way to shelter our hearts from the pain to come. What anchors us is the truth God will never allow anything in our lives that He will not give us the grace to bear. So when our husbands travel beyond our sight, safe, but in another harbor, we enter the widow's walk. We no longer have a choice except to watch, through the storm raging around us, for the daily arrival of God's grace.
(For Pat, in the storm)
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