Together Transcends

Some days it amazes me how even with him on the other side of the world I can feel very close to my husband.

Admittedly, other days I feel like I'm forgetting how to be a wife--what it feels like to interact with my husband... how to talk to him... how to touch him.


But I'd rather talk about the first statement. Husband called yesterday because it would be the last time he'd be able to for a while. The first phone card he used which should have been for 500 minutes if used in the U.S. was only going to allow him 13 minutes of phone time. So, he called back later after scrounging up a free AT&T card. We weren't sure how many minutes it would have.

After a while he told me he loved me. But he said it differently this time. In the last couple of conversations when he said those most precious words the longing wasn't veiled--it was right on the surface. They were soft enough that I felt like I could curl into them like his big, comfy sweater... or the crook of his neck. I told him that they sounded different, and he explained that he's been thinking a lot about our marriage.... How unique it is and how grateful he is for the goodness of it. And then he said a few other wonderful things... that I couldn't do justice to by trying to relay them. And when he was finished saying these wonderful things he said, "I'd have blown through a stack of phone cards just to tell you that."

How can I explain the power of a simple exchange like that except to say that we couldn't have been closer if he'd been right by my side in the very same room?

My favorite author, Madeleine L'Engle talks about the sacred lines between people, and places, and times in her time trilogy books. She says over and over again, "Where doesn't matter." It's a difficult paradigm to shift into, and even more difficult to be completely convinced that it's true when distance seems such an obstacle.

But what I find in rare moments like the ones we shared yesterday, is that she is right. Where doesn't matter. Who matters. Us matters. Together matters. And together isn't changed by distance--even when the distance is the opposite side of the world.