My Parent's Reconciliation Vacation (excerpt from Proverbial Woman), Part X

And of course he would bring Amy and me alone as an excuse to wait in the car when we would get too loud. As little girls she and I were brought up in the Parish. We often attended when they decided to go. Though as we got older and family life got more complicated, we started attending on our own occasionally.

It was not until a short time after mother had left him that he had gotten back to attending services on a regular basis. Amy said he had started spending most of his time with Father Gaillardia. It was all news to me until during one of my visits he tried explaining to me how he believed as a result of slipping away from his faith he was being tested. I thought he was just looking for answers to help him get beyond his trials.

But then he also mentioned that he confided in Mother Celia. And she told him that God would return mother to him if they were meant to be together for the rest of their lives. At the time I imagined he was just searching for a way to repress his frustrations. Though amazingly, he did find comfort in what he considered to be one of the toughest times in his life.

Out of the depths of contemplation he slowly murmured, “You know, I now realize the answers are not always inside of us as we often hear others say.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Sometimes we have to go beyond the realm of what we believe to be of our control and turn it over to a higher power. I gave everything I’ve accomplished, and own, and have in my heart over to God as a way of getting rid some of the pain I was feeling. There was no way I could have possibly brought myself back to sanity without doing so. It was when we talked over the phone it became clear to me that the human heart truly doesn’t have any boundaries. It can break, bend, and even emotionally solidify itself into a hardening form. But in the end, it can be redeemed and returned to happiness. My world feels like it has undergone a transformation. A metamorphosis. It feels like we needed this for the strengthening of ourselves for the next chapter of our lives.”

“Why would you say that?” she asked. With a dismal look shadowing her face, as she once again turned and looked away from him.

“I love you,” he whispered, as he reached across the table, grasping her hand as her fingers began to tremble.

“I love you too,” she replied, as she faintly glanced into his eyes before lowering her head and withdrawing her hand.

Tracing the rim of the glass with her forefinger as tears twinkled down from her watery eyes, again he reached over to hold her hand. Startled by his touch, out of a fading stupor she glanced up with a dissuasive look upon her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Maybe we should go upstairs,” she replied.

“Okay. But first there is just one other thing I have to share with you,” he implored as he slid his seat around the table, closer to her. Suddenly a haunting silence came over them as they both peered down at their hands as they held one another.

“Rose,” he tenderly whispered. “Honey, I know.”

“How?” she asked, as tears fell profusely from her eyes.

“Your mother called me just a few hours before we spoke about making this trip. She said it was cervical cancer. Only God knows how bad I wanted to see you the moment she told me. But she suggested that I wait until we got away from everybody. I want to be by your side. You are my wife, and I love you. My beautiful Rose, we’re going to make it through this…together.”