Threshold

I met him at the threshold, the place that opens into our home and closes out the world. Arms reach and we press tight. I know the width of his back and he the emotion soaking my damp cheeks. Our lips meet, not with the lust-filled lip lock of youth or the quick peck of peaked parents, but with the assurance and strength of mutual days, weeks, and years.

It’s a goodbye kiss overflowing with gratitude at beautiful, difficult years gone by, love built with a foundation of laughter and struggles and common dreams and little ones who wiggle and question and expand hearts beyond measure. It’s love framed with loyalty and respect, steeped in shared faith that He who began a good work in us will complete it until we see Jesus (Phil. 1:6).

It is patience and understanding and bright memories like raindrops falling on a stormy summer afternoon.

There’s healing in our embrace too, from difficult months and from life’s stampeding busyness. Too many missed moments and angry glares and sharp words, mostly mine. The threshold kiss acknowledges tough trials and personal hurt and selfishness just as it welcomes grace-filled promises of new mornings and new mercies. 

Sometimes, forgiveness tastes likes salty tears.

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance…love will last forever!”

~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

We separate slowly, my tears coursing down cheeks he’s creased with smiles for nearly two decades.

“Here, honey.” I hand him the gray sweater jacket he forgot to pack, the one I dropped on the shoe basket as arms reached. The one he came back for, gifting me with a threshold kiss. He was soon boarding an airplane to New Orleans, climbing and tying ropes and learning how to inspect the entirety of bridges under his engineering care, and I’m still, always so proud of him.

But these 6 days are the longest we’ve been apart in 11 ½ years of marriage, and I grab his shirt one more time, press in close. Time reminds, always hurrying and sometimes unkind, and the echo and murmur of ‘I love you’ dance by my ear as he turns to leave.

I feel a moment of pained panic as I whisper ‘bye’ and shut the door, fighting back with the words of the apostle Paul, words inked on the Valentines card hiding inside his suitcase.

“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” (Phil. 1:3)

Thank You, Lord, for Trev. Thank You that through our imperfection and selfishness, You shine through to guide us in this beautiful covenant relationship, marriage. It’s so tough, so difficult at times to love like we’re supposed to, like Your Word tells us to, but it’s also beautiful and wonderful and worth it. Always worth fighting for. Thank You for the days and years of marriage that fill our hearts and keep turning us to You and make us realize that we’re better as one in You.    

Shared Tears

I held the shoebox tightly in my hands, watching the trees pass in a blur. The car was thick with silence and sad anticipation. A tiny pink nose appeared between the box and its lid, followed by another. My index finger gently pressed the lid closed.

“Do you think they’re getting enough air?”

At 9 years old, I was learning if I kept my eyes wide open and blinked as fast as I could, tears dried up more quickly.

“They’re f-fine. You made lots of holes.”

I noticed mom kept her face straight ahead as she answered. Were her eyes wide open too? As heaviness settled over me at what was to come, I looked back down at the box. Liquid immediately pooled in the corner of my eyes.

Wiggly bodies shook the cardboard in my hands and I couldn’t help myself. Lifting the lid, I lovingly took in six sets of beady brown eyes, myriad whiskers arching out from pointed, sniffing noses and fur ranging from white to black with splashes of tan and caramel.

My babies.

Six hamsters, barely two months old. We were headed to a pet store in a nearby town because we simply couldn’t keep 10 hamsters. I understood the logic of what we were doing even as my sensitive heart throbbed at having to give them up.

Our parents allowed us to keep two of the baby hamsters, as well as their parents. We were giving the remaining six to a pet store to be sold to someone else.

Someone who might not love them as much as I did.

I lifted my wide-eyed gaze, taking in the green and brown New England hills as I blinked rapidly.

I thought back to Christmas, nearly 6 months ago. The frozen Connecticut morning had been warmed by the sight of two large cages with cedar shavings and silver hamster wheels next to hanging plastic water bottles.

Santa had gotten the hamster memo! 

Mindy and I each received a hamster that Christmas morning. We thought they’d be happiest together, so they began sharing a cage. Uh oh. To our childish eyes our two hamsters looked very similar, but they had one major difference.

“Mom, the hamsters are fighting!”

I’m sure visions of wiggly pink baby hamsters danced through mom’s mind as she came in my room and saw the hamsters “fighting.”

“We need to keep them separate. Starting now.”

It was too late. A few short weeks later eight tiny, bald, pinkish hamster babies squeaked and squalled from under a fluffy nest of tissue and cedar. We loved them immediately.

Mom pulled into the pet store parking lot, jarring me back to reality. I gripped the box tightly. Understanding why didn’t erase the pain of letting go of something – things – I loved.

“Can’t we just keep them?”

“We don’t have room, Kerry. I wish we could keep them all, too. I’m sorry.” Mom’s words caught and she hiccupped on a soft sob.

Mom was crying?

I took in my mom’s tears and felt the comfort of our shared sadness envelope me. It didn’t make giving our young hamsters away any easier, but it created an emotional bond with my mom that exists in my heart today.

Shared tears eased the pain.

Throughout my childhood I shared many tears with my mom…tears from the deaths of our beloved animals, from childhood hurts, from the upheaval of moving, from the pain of high school break-ups, from losing loved ones, and from the pain of others’ suffering. These memories are vibrant experiences seared in my soul because our grief was mutual and the tears shared.  

There is inexpressible joy in laughing together, and there is unforgettable poignancy in crying together.

As mothers, we watch tears trace down our children’s faces so many times that we lose count. And when we cry with them their pain becomes our own. Burdens are shared. We offer solace with a tender touch, our listening ear, fervent prayers for healing and through words of love and encouragement.

On earth we have the daunting privilege of being first responders to our childrens’ pain through all of life’s trials. We wipe tears and soothe the hurt away. Although we can’t be Jesus to our children, mothers can live out His perfect love through our imperfect lives.

Sometimes, that love comes in the form of grief and pain shared through tears.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13