Something Beautiful Remains

Theme Song: What Doesn't Belong To Me

Friends, I am allowing myself a pleasure, right now, that I have not allowed myself in what feels like far too long.

Friends, I am having a cup of hot fragrant, fair trade, jasmine pearl tea, writing with a pen, on paper, watching hummingbirds do their juicy, nectary work right outside my big, bright window.

Exhale.

This room is void of electronic devices, save a single burning light bulb.

Exhale.

The chair holding me is one I found abandoned in the Giving Lobby.

I discovered the Giving Lobby in the building I moved to fresh from my marriage. It was a giddy time filled with unexpected and unwanted yet exciting wonders even including the wonder of the unwanted: books, lamps, brand new salad spinners, trash cans, organizers of all kinds, decorative items, and, yes, furniture. They all flowed through the giving lobby with surprising abundance -- just like I did.

Losing love, and marriages, brings many things. I was reminded of this at my son's middle school showcase. A young girl read this poem, by Anonymous:

The tide recedes but leaves behind
Bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down but gentle
Warmth still lingers on the land.
The music stops, and yet it echos
In sweet refrains. . . .
For every joy that passes
Something beautiful remains.

I know, in the midst of passing joy it can be hard to see what beautiful remains -- or what you have gained. But I have faith that it is there.

Not everyone likes to hear this, but it is our duty to uncover these treasures and and hold them to the light.

Why?

It is an unspoken covenant, intrinsic to being human, that we cultivate our personal best and brightest and then share these gifts generously and with wild abandon.

Maybe, you say, it is a covenant, unspoken and intrinsic, to do your worst and hog everything you have.

Remember, though, that we are not separate from the natural world around us (no matter how many machines we build) and though the moon has phases, she always shines her best and brightest.

I have never seen the tides hold back, or the trees not blossom -- given weather and soil.

Yet being human involves what we call choice. It's a concept I believe is misunderstood and even sometimes used as a weapon, but, still, human beings have it. (Maybe more than the moon does, maybe not.) In any case, this idea of choice is what brings me to the question that moved me to write today.

First, a memory. Long ago, before I had children, I was visiting friends and playing with their children. Their father smiled at me and said, "I love people who love my children."

It stuck with me, and, now that I have children, I understand quite intimately what he meant.

One of the beauties of a loving marriage is that your children, if you have them, live with two people people who love each other and who love them as much as you do (yes, silly, you are one of the two).

I think children value and understand that, at least intuitively, because, when I was starting to let the children know that I was dating someone new, this time a woman, the little one said, "Mommy, I don't care if you date a man or a woman, I just don't want you to date anybody."

And he is the one who, still, very occasionally, will tell me that if I wanted to I could "marry Daddy again." It's a little heart stopping to hear, but I say, "That's sweet," because it expresses a very innocent and loyal type of love.

Enter The Step Parent

Well, at least "step parent" has a ring of commitment to it.

But you also have the people who do not like children, though they love you, or consider children an inconvenience, or the ones your children do not like -- all matter of unpleasant combinations.

In all these cases, these people do not love your children the way you do -- or maybe not at all. How could they?

This issue begs all the questions of contemporary parenting. In a nutshell, you want what's best for your children and it is best for them that you are stable and happy. Does a relationship with someone who does not love your children, or who loves them kind of, or a little, bring real happiness or even stability?

I do not know the answers to these questions.

And so the tide recedes.

But what remains?