Mark and I learnt on this Wednesday last that he may have cancer, lymphoma, actually. We've determined not to be worried until we know after the testing this coming week; but nevertheless, just the thought of one more burden at the moment feels as though I'm sinking slowly into a flithy mire filled with a zillion eery insects and packs of slimy poison snakes sailing about throught the decaying leaves of the stagnant water all about and coming at you without you're even seeing them... all while you're still just trying to keep thy nose above the stagnant liquid - yes, that is how it feels to me. It is the tell-tale moment in the movie where either the hero will swoop down and rescue you, pulling you free, covered in dead leaves and muck from the salient pool OR the villain will will just continue to laugh while you go under. Which, I wondered, will it be for Mark and me?
Unexpectedly for me we e spent today at the house Mark is supervising an update of systems on and we had a grand few hours together. The best time we've both had in so many, many months. We explored the property and fell into our best well-worn comfy memories of building our own homes over the years we've been in love. Falling into that pleasent cool clear pool of clarity we looked at colors and spoke of structure and examined systems of this house while unwittingly we added colour, structure and operating systems back within our life together.
Athenais came with us, full of that curiosity of not just the cat, but of youth, and more still of her faith in her own safety with the two big furr-balls she trusts to keep her safe. As the light dimmed we drove home, but wound through the hilly streets of the neighborhood, looking at lovely old brick and stone homes, with lights beginning to warm the windowpanes. Athenais had pushed herself up through the top of her carrier and was darting her eyes all over, taking in the sounds and smells and views from the slow moving Bimmer. Mark chattered on about each house, and I, half listening to my darling husband and half making certain Athenais didn't make a leap towards a foot pedal or a window, suddenly realized that here I was, with the family I chose, and whom chose me, and I was full of love. Full to the brim, bouying above any depression or threat of loss or worried hours in a hospital room for now, for just now, I have, in my ol' black car my whole mysterious, miraculous world!
This dear blessed little cat, Athenais, who it can only be said is a gift of God to us. Her cheer, her youth, her detrmination, her love of play: her soul, her deep, starlit soul brightens each day for me, and for Mark. A pair of clear copper eyes into which you look and lose your saddness for they glow with the bright polish of her knowledge of us - a more profound knowing of us than I can explain - and in the deep blue-grey velvet coat which we comb and brush, stroke and nuzzle and most of all kisses, especially upon her brow and ears, whispering: my precious baby, I love you, I love you, I love you! O're and over again... until she bleats in her low key grrr of a purr her peace and contentment - her acceptance of our love.
Still driving old George is my dearest husband, Mark, the man whom without my knowledge has taken the stony, coal lump of a heart I've had and made it warm, even hot, molten passion in his hands as he kisses me on my lips and brow, then tells a wretched in-bad-taste story at which he laughs and I grimmance, though rather falsely these days, because this man, this sapphire eyed, ruby lipped and strawberry coloured locks fellow has given to me, some silly boy from a rural town, a life of so much joy, laughter and love. A daughter he's given to me! A fair and lovely girl who took me to her ballet lessons and to her computer room and to her friends houses and to a place in my life where I grew up, at least a little bit, and learned to place another's needs before of my own. My darling daughter Jo. An incomprehensible gift from the man I love: my family. Yet, not enough, to give me all of this, no; with it he gave me the world he saw and knew, a world not bounded by walls but braced with pillared dreams of possibilities that we, as a married couple, could build into a life, stone by stone. We have, I now know, built well.
And when in this blessed life of ours, Mark's and mine together, our good Creator chooses to test our hearts, molten passion or not, with trial, we find we have the mettle, we have the courage, we have the strength of the Truth He gives us as we face these next challenges of income, of health, of spirit and of hope and we find, somehow just in a little drive to an old house in the woods, who we are, really are, one more time. And finding that today is the fabulous, marvelous and star littered present Jesus gave us this old Saturday afternoon...
Unexpectedly for me we e spent today at the house Mark is supervising an update of systems on and we had a grand few hours together. The best time we've both had in so many, many months. We explored the property and fell into our best well-worn comfy memories of building our own homes over the years we've been in love. Falling into that pleasent cool clear pool of clarity we looked at colors and spoke of structure and examined systems of this house while unwittingly we added colour, structure and operating systems back within our life together.
Athenais came with us, full of that curiosity of not just the cat, but of youth, and more still of her faith in her own safety with the two big furr-balls she trusts to keep her safe. As the light dimmed we drove home, but wound through the hilly streets of the neighborhood, looking at lovely old brick and stone homes, with lights beginning to warm the windowpanes. Athenais had pushed herself up through the top of her carrier and was darting her eyes all over, taking in the sounds and smells and views from the slow moving Bimmer. Mark chattered on about each house, and I, half listening to my darling husband and half making certain Athenais didn't make a leap towards a foot pedal or a window, suddenly realized that here I was, with the family I chose, and whom chose me, and I was full of love. Full to the brim, bouying above any depression or threat of loss or worried hours in a hospital room for now, for just now, I have, in my ol' black car my whole mysterious, miraculous world!
This dear blessed little cat, Athenais, who it can only be said is a gift of God to us. Her cheer, her youth, her detrmination, her love of play: her soul, her deep, starlit soul brightens each day for me, and for Mark. A pair of clear copper eyes into which you look and lose your saddness for they glow with the bright polish of her knowledge of us - a more profound knowing of us than I can explain - and in the deep blue-grey velvet coat which we comb and brush, stroke and nuzzle and most of all kisses, especially upon her brow and ears, whispering: my precious baby, I love you, I love you, I love you! O're and over again... until she bleats in her low key grrr of a purr her peace and contentment - her acceptance of our love.
Still driving old George is my dearest husband, Mark, the man whom without my knowledge has taken the stony, coal lump of a heart I've had and made it warm, even hot, molten passion in his hands as he kisses me on my lips and brow, then tells a wretched in-bad-taste story at which he laughs and I grimmance, though rather falsely these days, because this man, this sapphire eyed, ruby lipped and strawberry coloured locks fellow has given to me, some silly boy from a rural town, a life of so much joy, laughter and love. A daughter he's given to me! A fair and lovely girl who took me to her ballet lessons and to her computer room and to her friends houses and to a place in my life where I grew up, at least a little bit, and learned to place another's needs before of my own. My darling daughter Jo. An incomprehensible gift from the man I love: my family. Yet, not enough, to give me all of this, no; with it he gave me the world he saw and knew, a world not bounded by walls but braced with pillared dreams of possibilities that we, as a married couple, could build into a life, stone by stone. We have, I now know, built well.
And when in this blessed life of ours, Mark's and mine together, our good Creator chooses to test our hearts, molten passion or not, with trial, we find we have the mettle, we have the courage, we have the strength of the Truth He gives us as we face these next challenges of income, of health, of spirit and of hope and we find, somehow just in a little drive to an old house in the woods, who we are, really are, one more time. And finding that today is the fabulous, marvelous and star littered present Jesus gave us this old Saturday afternoon...
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