Hugging Hubby

A few nights ago I was putting away dishes in the kitchen, when Hubby came up behind me, and hugged me. I turned to him, and hugged him back, I mean, really, really bear hugged him back, the way we only hug each other and our children. "I love you," he whispered. "I love you, too," I shared, "but that's not why I was hugging you like that." He stood about a foot in front of me and just looked at me, somewhat puzzled. I excitedly went on to explain something I had read in A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis. The book is taken from his personal journal after his wife's death. "Oh no, this is going to make me sad, isn't it?" I assured him it would not.

C.S. Lewis writes, "The earthly beloved, even in this life incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness...And this, not an image or a memory, is what we are to love still, after she is dead."

These words gave me great pause. Hmm. When I read this my mind went other places than identifying with C.S. Lewis's grief. I pondered thoughts of human intimacy and our earthly relationships. When Hubby is traveling, sometimes I close my eyes and squeeze them shut and imagine his arms around me, holding me tight. There is nothing like having him absolutely present in front of me. I can think about it all I want, imagine it, wish for it, but there is nothing like his human physical presence or hug. I cannot substitute it with a thought or a memory. But when it actually happens, my body remembers the all too familiar feeling of being embraced by my husband. And the same thing happens with my boys. Over the last few months I have willed myself to remember what it felt like to hold Son1 as a baby. I know it happened, I know I enjoyed it, I know I have pictures. But there is no substitute for being physically present in that exact moment. I have willed myself to remember how it happened that he took his first steps, the excitement when he started to use a string of words to speak, and when he ran for his shoes to go and see the Christmas lights in the neighborhood every night two Christmases ago. I imagine these things. I play the video in my head. It is not that I have forgotten. There is no substitute for being intimately involved with that other person, right there, in the very moment. Now when Son2 is imitating me, and goes into fits of giggles when he gets me to copy him, the memory of Son1 doing the very same thing comes alive to me in a very real way, a way that isn't accessible without physical human intimacy. It cannot be replicated in a picture or in a memory of the past. This week I am purposely drinking in the moments with my kids and my husband. I have no idea if I will tire of this purposefulness. I hope not. I am adoring the physical seconds, the minutes, and the days of the joys and challenges of being home with my kids, and investing in my marriage.