Waiting by the Berry Bush

This blog will be nine years old in less than two weeks, but it has been well over a year since I've written anything new in this space. Cade asked me about my writing, recently, and I think maybe that's what I needed: for him to ask. I think I've relied on his interest in my writing more than I'd realized; I think, as fellow creatives, we've nudged one another forward for a long time, and when we didn't (or couldn't), we both struggled creatively. I did, at least.

But what I told Cade when he asked about my writing is also true: that for awhile, his plot line was the most engrossing one in the story of my life, and I didn't feel free to write it; patient enough to somehow disguise it; and certainly not inauthentic enough to avoid it in my writing. I still don't.

Imagine the two of us, though, in the very back of our new yard where, at dusk, the bunnies slip from a blackberry bush to taunt Lucy the Beagle. Lucy is a hunter's reject, but maybe she's been healed in our home, as I witnessed her chasing a rabbit just two days ago. At any rate, imagine it: Lucy has darted around Cade's feet and out the door, and almost five years into our relationship with the dog, we all know her bright heart; we know she can smell her way home, that she will return if she can. But we don't know most of our neighbors (or their dogs), and there's no area code on Lucy's collar; we know no one who might find her could guess it. Meanwhile, cars zip by on Old 109.

Cade is especially close to Clementine, and Lucy is Clementine's dog. Clementine is struggling with the move more than the rest of us put together, and she's in the house sobbing at the thought of losing her one. last. friend. At the back of the yard, I recognize Cade's discomfort, although most of you wouldn't; he's quiet, as always. He could be a rabbit, himself, for the way he holds himself alert and listens for the bay of the dog, looks intently into the brush for the white tip of her tail even as I have settled down in the grass, to wait.

"Do you think I should go in after her?" he asks.

"No," I say gently, "it's not a good idea. There are sure to be snakes in there."

"Don't you care about Lucy?" he snaps, uncharacteristically. "You don't even seem upset."

"I care," I say. "I'm praying. Are you praying?"

"Yes," he says quietly, "I am."

Much later, after the dog is safely home, after Clementine has stopped crying and gone off to sleep along with her younger siblings (and Lucy, exhausted by her great bunny chase), Cade and I sit quietly among our books. "You know how, earlier, I didn't get as upset as you'd expected?" I ask him.

He looks up and nods. His great, grey eyes search my face.

"That's what parenting you has taught me," I say. "It's taught me not to get upset until I know there's something to get upset about. Papaw tried to tell me, but I had to learn it for myself. Parenting you has taught me not to make things worse by getting upset. It's taught me not to waste my energy. It's taught me that--when you're out of my hands--I need to wait and pray for you to come safely home, that maybe you will, that maybe everything will be okay."

Cade nods again, slowly, and holds my gaze long enough for me to know he knows. Then he turns his eyes back toward his book. The chemistry between us is right; it is what it was for 17.5 years and what it wasn't for two years, and in a nutshell, what I really want to share is how I understand more, now, about beauty from ashes than I ever did, before. About David's Ziklag. There were moments in which I honestly didn't know if we would survive, and you want to believe I'm being melodramatic, but even if you've been close, you haven't seen through my eyes. It has only been by God's hand that we have made our way, here, to this good place; it is a mighty hand.

I can breathe, again. Maybe even write.