The Walk

After my last post, I wanted to share this more positive story.

This is how Ben usually handles my suffering:

This morning when my husband found me sobbing over my computer desk, he invited me to join him on a walk through the rain. I had complained earlier that just last night I had committed myself to walking every morning, and then woke up to an eternal rain. He knows that walks usually help me when I’m wretched. So I dried my tears, put on my corduroy jacket and the striped gloves he’d given me for Christmas, and headed out with him.

“This reminds me of England,” he said gently as we walked. I smiled a little because it reminded me of England, too. My thoughts turned to that blessed week, when we’d traipsed thought the rainy Oxford streets together, clutching our umbrellas in the gray drizzle — me with my plaid umbrella with the hooked handle, and him with his standard black compact. This time we didn’t have the adorable Headington cottages with their tangled gardens to look at, but we did have the occasional blooming magnolia. Blooming magnolias look glorious any time of day, but in the rain they are absolute miracles — beacons of beauty in a crushingly dismal world.

On days like this I thank God for magnolias and a husband who knows how to fix me.

Photo courtesy of StarbuckGuy.

P.S. I don’t just cry all the time. I also laugh a lot. Most of the time I’m just mildly gloomy.

Tagged as: marriage, marriage and caring, Oxford