Nouvel

A man and a woman had a little baby...

I sat in the salmon-colored rocking chair in the living room on a weeknight sometime after Thanksgiving, quietly waiting for my parents to come home. The television was off as I rocked back and forth under the yellow glow from the lamp sitting next to me.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked my Mom as she came into the living room. It was dark outside and cold as well and I wondered why my Father, who usually worked late, but not that late, hadn’t arrived home yet.

“Your Dad isn’t coming home tonight,” my Mom said, then explaining that he wasn’t coming home ever again.

With tears flowing from my eyes, I went into their bedroom and saw the telltale signs of a divorce: The television was gone as well as my father’s clothes. It turned out that everybody knew, well, that is, everybody but me. It was at that moment that I learned the cold, hard truth about my family.

They definitely didn’t love each other-- never had, I would learn when I was a teenager—and blood, at least for my family, was not thicker than water.

I sat at a stoplight in our hometown yesterday when a song I put on a custom-made CD started to play. I had made the CD my junior year of college, one year after meeting The Hubs, only a few months before we’d become engaged.

I began to sing along to the words I hadn’t listened to in months:

“Happy times together we've been spending
I wish that every kiss was neverending
Wouldn't it be nice?

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
And then we'd be happy”

I sang the words and then looked over at our daughter, who rested quietly in the car seat next to me, and smiled. Though she looks nothing like him, she is our baby and the center of our lives.

Who would have known, four years ago while we met while studying on Valentines Day that we would have such a wonderful little girl?

I see him hugging her and changing diapers and I just smile. Here is this man who loves his little girl and his wife (his “bears”) so much, it is apparent in his eyes when he is around us. I would have never guessed that he would be such a sweetie for this baby when we were staying up late in his dorm room, talking until the sun came up.
Those were the days when I would sit and dream of being married to him and not having to be separated on holidays or at night. That we could spend every waking moment together and nobody could tell us otherwise.

Now our nights may mean he goes to sleep before I do and when I finally climb in bed he may not know who I am or where we are or how we got there, but I’m sleeping with him. And if I wanted the opportunity to do more than just sleep, which, unfortunately I can’t say I’m in the mood to do, well, I could.

That’s because I’m married to him and it is absolutely wonderful.

And one day, Ellie will grow up and realize that she is one of the lucky ones who has two parents that love her and each other very much. She won’t ever sit in the living room on a cold night during the holiday season and know what it feels like to have the rug pulled out from under her.

She will be loved and she will know what true love is.

Posted by Rachel at September 3, 2004 04:41 AM | TrackBack