I don't remember too many details of that day, except that I was picked up at the campground in a police car with a female office who wouldn't say a word. At the hospital I sat in the waiting room for hours not knowing what was going on. My brother with me, neither of us said much for the time we were there. Someone finally called to see what was going on and asked to talk to the nurse for me. A little while later, I went into ICU and he was strapped to a board and dazed. We didn't say much to each other, he couldn't move and was barely alert. The doctors didn't tell me anything, or at least I don't remember them saying his jaw was dislocated, his arm and shoulder had lacerations or even that he was struggling to remember anything.
We were at the hospital for a long time and I have no idea what happened that weekend. Our stuff at the campground, getting home. It was my first year teaching and I had to call in and didn't know how so I called the principal while I was there. I took Monday off. And maybe Tuesday.
Twenty one years later, we just celebrated twenty four years since our wedding day, but for Rob, it is only twenty one. That day changed everything. I got a new husband and he woke up with a wife. He didn't leave, although he may have wanted to wondering how the heck he ended up with me. He probably figured this was his life, so he stuck around and tried figuring it out. His mouth was wired shut for a few months so he had a lot of time to observe. To watch people come and visit him. Our friends at the time and little did they or I know, he had no idea who we were. Eventually, they moved on and it was just us. And after that he thought he had me fooled. But I knew something was different. Even years later, his parents came for the first time and they noticed. We started over, sorta. We made new friends, we opened a business, we changed churches...over and over again.
But regardless of all this, I loved him from the day I married him and love him more today than ever before. We've been through a lot together, he and I. Secrets for years of the memory loss and brain damage but I have never stopped loving him. No accident, no memory loss, no change in behavior altered how I felt about the love we had, even if he didn't fully grasp it. I knew God had me here to love and be faithful to him from the beginning. He is still Rob, the guy with compassion for others, who is kind and does things to makes others comfortable. The guy who is often misunderstood but loves anyway. The dad who would do anything for his son. The husband who wants the best for his wife.
Life sometimes takes a turn on us and we don't expect it. Maybe we had a dream of a career that went a different direction. Maybe we thought we would have kids, only to find out we can't. Maybe we wanted to live in a big house overlooking the ocean only to find that the job we have doesn't allow it. No matter what I have ever wanted in life, God has always given me far more than I could ever imagine.
My "new" husband in 1995, changed who I was. He made me love more, have more faith, and he taught me about perspective and living life every day the best you can. To be your best even when others suck. Even when circumstances aren't what you want. To appreciate the day we have and the time we get each day because we know more than anyone that today could be the last.
The story of Naomi and Ruth reminds me that our circumstances aren't always what we planned. Both of these women had a loss and one was young and could go on without the other but she stuck by her. I love the trust and care Ruth has in Naomi and her willingness to stay by her side in this time.
"But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severly, if even death separates you and me. When Naomi realizes that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her."
Ruth 1: 16-18
No comments:
Post a Comment