A second chance at love: sealed by sacred vows of commitment.
She stayed true through good and bad, and many hard years. She endured and God graced her with love; a love that served and stayed committed.
Now, she has the flutter in the stomach kind of love: one that makes the heart beat rapidly, as if it is trying to escape the confines of the chest. It is the kind of love where knees suddenly become weak at the sight or touch of her love.
In their fifties, just married this weekend, they are barely able to contain themselves. They steal kisses and send loving looks between the spaces between their star struck eyes.
She, whose husband is gone less than one year, has been graced by a love she never dreamed possible. Months of tears and loneliness are replaced by the union of a match made in heaven.
I watch their stolen glances and the way he gently caresses her arm as she tells their loves story. My heart bubbles over in joy.
Dare I admit to the longing in my heart for that new love feeling: a love born of weeks not years? I do not desire an end to my marriage or the family we have birthed. However, I want us to look at each other as they do. I want him to caress my arm; run his fingers through my hair and speak of how blessed he is to have found me.
She steals kisses and her eyes light up as she tells me he is the perfect man and is everything she has ever dreamed of. Then she grabs his arm and says, “But you can’t have him because he is mine!”
What if I kissed my man as many times as she does? What if I proudly told others, in his presence, how he is the perfect man for me and I am so thankful he is mine? What if I caressed his arm and ran my fingers through his hair as we talked?
Then, would he also speak of how blessed he is to have found me, and kept me, for twenty-five years?
I know one cannot live on feelings of falling in love. Its sustainability is like the earth’s natural resources. Yet, there is no reason for barren land when one can build a well.
I am going home to dig a well and draw out water. For, a little water can bring vitality and color back to any dry or wilting plant. I pray that many well-chosen words and gentle caresses can make him look at me again the way he looks at her.
A wedding and watching older people act like teenagers in love has challenged me to aim at regaining a bit of that ‘first love’ kind of feeling.