Forty-six years ago, today, I walked down the aisle to become the wife of Larry Alvey. Our future lay ahead of us as we dared grasp for the golden ring. I was twenty. Larry was twenty-two. We had no idea the ups and downs that lay before us, but we jumped into the sea of matrimony.

Our risk paid off: we won the jackpot……until the time came that the two that became one had to split up and become two again. God taught us how to put together a good marriage. We followed His plan and put together the kind of marriage in fairy tales. We were the overused word, “Soulmates.” God never told us how to take it apart again, so, now, I am left with half of me torn off, with remnants of the glue that failed to hold. I must learn to walk alone, unsupported, like when I was young….but I am not young anymore.

What do you do with a big, important moment in your life, one you celebrated for many, many years, after it’s over, one that ‘dried up like a raisin in the sun’? Do you sit it on a shelf in the closet and pretend it’s not there? Do you hope that others will come to your ‘Alvey Museum’ and ask to see some artifacts? Do you do your best to ignore it, stuffing it deep inside of you?

Grief is a living, breathing thing. It is different for each person. You try things. They work for awhile or they fail miserably, but you just keep pressing forward, confronting until the angry, red sore in your life settles down into a scar. You never forget it, no matter how hard you try.

I have chosen to celebrate our wedding day, if and when I think of it. We never divorced. Personally, I feel it was worth celebrating. Today, I took myself out to breakfast and will go out to dinner with a girlfriend this evening. It isn’t the same. It’s a new kind of normal that I haven’t fully grown into yet.

Larry and I met on August 14th. His birthday was the 24th, and our anniversary was the 28th, all in August. As I go through these aches and pains on the long road toward healing, I rejoice in the fact that Larry doesn’t have to endure them. He endured chemo and the pain of an esophagus that no longer worked as well as a liver that stopped functioning. He dealt with numb feet and a pilot’s eyes that could no longer see, plus the agony of knowing that he had to say goodbye to our children and I before the party was over. He’d had so many years of having to leave on trips overseas, so, to do so again was tough, but, perhaps, it was God’s way of allowing him to practice a very difficult thing. As I go through my pain of being left behind and the triggers that threaten to break me, I am so grateful that Larry didn’t have to face what I have to face, just as I am sure that he was grateful that I didn’t have to face what he did. I cannot imagine the loneliness he would have felt, here, without me. I think that, for men, it is much more difficult because women usually have a network of available friends all set up, friends that tend to be good at nurturing.

In the end, as I reflect on my wedding, I realize that we chose our moments of exquisite over a lifetime of nothing special. I realize that, if it hasn’t worked out all right in the end, it’s because it’s not the end, and something else, too….

I rejoice over the fact that I got the proposal, the ring, the showers, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, the reception, the cake, the flowers, the bridesmaids, the flower girls and the honeymoon, followed by the building of a home and a family with the one I loved.

I should not be sad that it’s over. I should be thankful that it happened.

Many years ago, when we lived in New Hampshire (1976-1978), Larry worked with Algerians in Burlington, MA. He was training young Algerians how to set up an electronics factory in Algeria. We were originally scheduled to move there for awhile but my pregnancy with Landon changed that plan. Larry really liked these young men, so every Sunday evening we would have four or five of them over for dinner. They were exceptional young men with whom we would speak French and laugh. It was so fun! Who knows if those early talks in French didn’t seal in Lindie a desire to speak other languages? These homesick young men often told of how much they missed couscous. We thought that was a funny name and filed it in the back of our minds.

Years later, as an AA pilot, Larry flew to France and saw a restaurant that served couscous as their specialty. He walked in and began visiting with the owner and his wife. They were from Morocco. A friendship began. This new friend would help us speak French. Once, I stayed with them for ten days. They even taught me to make couscous.

Later on, Lindie would live in France for six months, in the apartment of our Moroccan friends. During her time there, she met the Akil’s, who were originally from…….Algeria. The Aboucheikh’s and the Akil’s never met.

The Akil’s visited Lindie and family for a month. Lindie’s 12 year old daughter went to their home in Paris and stayed for a month, last summer. Every time I go to France I stay with them for a bit, improving my French, and, today, their 16 year old son is here for a month, and, oh, the fun adventure we are having! We have a home in Paris and they have a home in the US!

I find it absolutely SPELLBINDING how God uses these little events in our lives to create a fountain of blessings later in life. If we hadn’t had those young men over for dinners we wouldn’t have heard the word couscous and would have lost out on a very special friendship. I couldn’t have stayed in Paris for ten days. Lindie couldn’t have stayed in Paris for six months. (Their son also stayed with us in the US for a month when he was sixteen at that same time, a sort of exchange.) One word, “couscous,” planted from Algerians led to a friendship, and, then, ended in a new friendship with roots in….Algeria. God paid us back for our kindness to those Algerian boys and put an Algerian stamp on it to let us know.

Another story would be our Russian young man who lived with us for four years. Where is he now? Paris! I still find unusual blessings in my path with a tag on them that reads, “From Russia with love.” Larry’s FREE massage therapist during chemo was from Russia. Her touch helped greatly.

The French chef who passed away a week or so ago was also from Paris and came to us simply from a conversation in French on an airplane between that little three year old girl, Lindie, now grown and speaking five languages, who was, every Sunday, shut out of the conversation in French!

Every seemingly small act you do, God repays later, tenfold. You can’t out give him. He will even put a tag on it so that you know where it came from.

If you ever wonder about our mysterious connections, they ARE mysterious. They are otherworldly, in fact. They are no less than the work of God.

We continue to walk in the blessings while God continues to whisper, “Wait until you see what I have for you around the bend!”

In life, there will be opportunities for you to reach out and help others. These decisions to do so will benefit no one more than you.

An interesting side effect: our family’s favorite meal is now couscous.