Life on the Other Side

My previous post ended with the prayer, Help us live well in light of death, as well as the life after. Amen.

And here we are, a few weeks into life after the best funeral of my life. 

The wedding itself exceeded the far limits of my imagination. Between guests’ happy chatter, my hula sisters’ graceful dips and sways, and splashes of color against ivory tablecloths, the day oozed with vibrant joy. I have never felt more beautiful in my life. It was surreal to stand, dance, and laugh before God with my new husband at my side, surrounded by a wide community of people from all legs of our journey. 

Honeymoon was full of twists and turns: delightful most of the time and adventurous always. We quickly embraced the emerald slopes that vanished into fog. Stone ruins and tinkling streams enraptured us. And I gripped the side of my seat for dear life as my husband of less than a week entered roundabouts, missed (most) potholes, and managed to avoid sideswiping the cars lining the left side of the narrow roads. We returned with Scottish sweets, an antibiotic whose name does not register on any U.S. pharmacy list, a sprained ankle, and stories that will last us a lifetime. 

And now, I’m back, relearning how to settle into normalcy. It has been close to a year since that word has held any enduring meaning. 

I can resonate with the words of the prophet Isaiah: 

Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border? For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.  [Isaiah 28:23-26 | English Standard Version]

Leading up to the wedding, I certainly felt like furrowed ground. Event details were smeared across my mind, physical belongings were scattered between two places, and grief once buried lay bare and exposed. But now, it is time to settle. It is time to put things in their places. It is time to plod through the dirt and monitor for growth. 

Life on the other side of the best funeral of my life feels like watching a seedling grow. Fuzzy roots are fingering their way through the freshly-tilled soil. Wiggling out of its seed and unfurling in the open air is a vibrant shoot of green. These signs of new growth bear with them a sense of excitement. There is a presence and a promise of new life. At the same time, this seedling is marked by fragility. If it is to survive the elements of human selfishness and unforeseen circumstances, it must be diligently nurtured. 

The thought of nurturing the seedling of our marriage is–if I pause to ponder too long–daunting. Yet, the practical expression is delightfully mundane. Here are a few snapshots: 

• I head out for a solitary morning walk, eager to absorb the jacaranda trees and feel the cool against my skin before the arid heat sets in. I try to leave as quietly as I can, between my bare feet clomping on the laminate flooring and the bedroom door squeaking. He starts as I bend down to kiss his cheek, releases a sigh, and turns over. 

• We continue our ongoing debate about the correct way to pronounce “preferably.” This time, the context is my need for a new loofah. From the other side of the shower curtain, I giggle as he refuses to concede to my request: “PreFERably not a hot pink loofah.” The jury is still out for the correct pronunciation (preFERably or PREFerably?), but I am relieved to report that he, in his good humor, opted to get me charcoal gray.

• He sits at the dining room table and reads aloud a chapter of Winnie the Pooh as I wash dishes not six feet away from him. As he reads, artwork from his latest project drifts into my mind, and I hold the images with silent, happy awe. 

• We argue over how to take out the trash, and I reluctantly repent of calling his idea “B.S.” It’s a tense 5 minutes. After taking a deep breath, he invites me to cuddle and proceeds to introduce me to his favorite video game, Gris. Not surprisingly, we connect over the aesthetic of the game and its vivid exploration of the various stages of grief. 

• We are in the midst of conversations to determine how to settle adult things like car insurance, the budget, and Spotify accounts. I wonder how solidifying these practical matters will affect my perception of myself as a married woman.  

So there you have it: the beginning of this peculiar, delightful, and at times aggravating thing called “married life.” Only time will tell how this seedling will develop. My prayer is that we become a mighty oak that endures for generations to come, one mundane moment at a time.

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All images in this post have been shared with the permission of those in them.

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