Last night we were crazy.
We went on a date. The kind where you SPEND
MONEY.
The kind where you LEAVE THE HOUSE.
We had a gift card to Olive Garden, and instead of waiting
for some special occasion, we decided to just go out and spend it. We
both went nuts and ordered drinks. Not water, my friends. Not
water.
As insane as it sounds, we were not finished after that.
We didn't just do one fun thing yesterday night, we did two fun things.
I'll give you a hint.
One of them entails wearing someone else's
shoes.
You'll notice I'm also wearing a skirt and tights. Not very
many people can pull off bowling in a skirt and tights, but I like to flatter
myself that I am one of them. I wore a skirt to work yesterday for no
particular reason except I wanted to feel pretty. I just wanted to be
cute. It's been awhile, you know?
We bowled two games. Greg won both of them, but I'd
like to submit Photographic Evidence A that at one point, I was beating
him:
And that’s pretty much the only time I was ahead.
Here is Greg in all his bowling glory:
You will notice the semi-freaky hair on his upper lip. Yeah.
Greg is doing that no-shave November thing. I am not the kind of wife who forbids facial
hair. But I’m also not the kind of wife
who feels any obligation to make him feel good about it.
When he says something like “Doesn’t it look good?” I usually say
something like “No. It looks bad. Super bad.
Anyways I still like you.” And then Greg laughs.
Our date to an (overpriced) Italian restaurant and the BYU
bowling alley has got me thinking about some other things. If this post could
have a secondary title, I think it would be something like “The Purpose of
Sorrow.” I’ve been musing on that for the last few days. Sometimes I feel guilty that we are
recovering. I wonder if guilt is something
that always hangs over the people who are left over when something scary
happens to a family. Or maybe it’s just me.
But I’m learning that there is a purpose to sorrow. I remember a few days after Danny and Austin
were born, I was sitting on the bed, crying.
I think my stomach still felt strange and empty and like all the muscles
were missing. I still looked pregnant,
because somewhere around 14 weeks a bump showed up that was larger than I
thought it would be and wonderfully full and round. Newsflash: It doesn’t go away immediately. Everyone at the funeral home will know that
you are the mother of the two little boys as soon as you walk in. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
But anyway, I remember sitting on the bed and crying, but saying to Greg, We don’t have to feel despair.
We never have to feel that, because that is never something God intends
for us. It isn’t constructive. It isn’t purposeful. Despair accomplishes nothing. Greg agreed
with me. After all, Greg is the one who
taught me that.
There are two kinds of sorrow: the kind that is from God,
and the kind that is not. God intends
for sorrow to teach us things. It
teaches us to be more like Him. It
teaches us to be compassionate. It
teaches us to feel grateful for our blessings.
It allows us the capacity to see blessings in our lives we would not
have noticed otherwise. It teaches us
how to find strength within ourselves, a strength that comes only when you say
to God, This is hard for me, but I’ll do
it if you want me to. And I won’t even be mad about it. In short, Sorrow is
the thing that allows us to be older—not older and weary, but older and
wise.
I do not know if I would call myself wise, but I would say
that Greg and I have had very purposeful sorrow. And, funnily enough, one of the purposes of
sorrow is to teach you to be happy. I am finally understanding at a meaningful
level what the scriptures mean when they say, if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet. My little family has imparted a kind of sweetness to my life that I have never had before. And it's so hard, but so worth it.
Greg and I don’t know what will happen. I don’t even know what I want to have
happen. Sometimes I feel like I don’t
know anything. But, we know enough. I am
not happy every second of the day. I am
not even Okay every second of the day, but I remind myself that Sorrow has a
purpose, and the kind of Sorrow that does not have a purpose—the kind of Sorrow
that is mostly discouragement and despair and hopelessness and anger—has no
place in my life.
This is why Greg and I went to Olive Garden. This is why we went bowling. Because it’s okay to be happy, even though
something bad happened. It’s also okay
to be sorrowful, but only if there’s a purpose in that. There is an opposition in all things only
because these two great extremes—Happiness and Sorrow—are actually so
interconnected. Like Greg says, I would
go through anything to feel what it’s like to hold my own child again.
Anything. I would handle this kind of Sorrow as
long as I was asked to if it meant bringing our children to our family in the way
God wants us to. It makes us
happy. It has a purpose.
If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my musings. Who knew one date could be so abstractly
meaningful? I suppose finding meaning in smaller things is the epitome of
parenthood, especially the kind of parenthood that Greg and I know.
Okay. Cheesy musings done. Have a great weekend. Love, Heather