Nearing my wife’s birthday I’ve been thinking about love, the real deal kind that goes through thick and thin, better or worse, richer or…you know the rest. I’ve also been thinking of examples I’ve seen of the kind of love I’ve been contemplating and I thought about Bonnie and Carl.
They weren’t what you’d call a “churchie” couple but they wore their own special religion like a comfortable pair of jeans…nothing fancy, but very practical and nearly impossible to wear out.
Although they didn’t come to church much, anyone who knew them wasn’t all that worried about their immortal souls. That may have been because Bonnie would do anything for anyone at any time you needed it…and she’d make you feel like you were doing her a favor if you let her. She was just good, and you felt it when you were around her. Nobody knew that goodness more than Carl.
It must have been twenty years that Carl’s legs didn’t work. But that didn’t mean he didn’t get around. Bonnie made sure of that. Wherever Carl was, whether it was on a tractor or in a car running errands or puttering around somewhere on their farm, Bonnie made sure her Carl got there with full dignity intact. Maybe that’s why such a big part of her tiny little frame felt so empty when Carl passed away about four years ago. In her case, it has been more literal than figurative: part of her was missing.
Sadly that emptiness filled with cancer. It wasn’t clear whether she had chosen to fight it with a passion Spartacus would envy, or just ignore it like a yoga master at a meditation retreat. It’s unbelievable how tough this woman was. With full-on cancer she insisted on moving her own sprinkler pipes. It’s like the woman found her own unique treatment in the form of a game: if she personally gets her crops to grow faster than the cancer, she wins.
Well, she wasn’t winning the day I visited her in the hospital, and the pain was so overwhelming she begged for a morphine shot. Seeing her in that hospital bed, curled up in a fetal position and weeping in pain, I didn’t think she’d see another Sunday. The most compassionate part of me hoped she wouldn’t have to.
But she rallied. Survived an operation to remove the obstruction and greeted me the next Sunday when I visited with her trademark smile.
“They won’t let me eat anything yet…and I’m so hungry I could eat the north end of a south bound skunk.”
She was back. Classic Bonnie, trying to figure out how to get home sooner and take care of her animals.
We chatted a while. I hadn’t known her that well for that long, and I felt like I was being cheated out of something quite wonderful. Most of what I knew about her I learned from lifelong friends who adored her.
I asked her to tell me a little bit about Carl, and it was as if you asked a teenager to talk about her first love. She was proud and shy at the same time. Wanted me to understand just how wonderful he was, and how much she missed him.
“When I got sick, about a year before he died, he stopped eating”…her eyes showed just a hint of tears…not so much that he’d be embarrassed if he were listening, but enough that let me know she was telling her most precious truth.
“He just barely ate enough to stay alive. When I got well enough to help him around again he was nothing but heart and bones. I said, ‘Carl, we’ve gotta get some meat on you…you’re practically wasting away………”
She paused…perhaps she wondered if what she was about to say was too private or too sacred to share with someone outside the family’s innermost circle…I don’t know why, but I’m grateful she carried on….
“Then he told me… ‘I thought I’d be a little easier to lift if I didn’t eat so much’…”
Bonnie didn’t say anything else about her relationship with Carl….she didn’t have to.
IT WASN’T THAT A LIED, ALL THOSE TIMES I SAID I LOVE
I REALLY LOVED YOU
I MEANT IT WHEN I SAID BEFORE I COULDN’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE
IT WASN’T THAT I LIED BUT TIME HAS BROUGHT NEW MEANING TO
THIS I LOVE YOU
AND COMPARED TO HOW I LOVE YOU NOW
IT’S ALMOST LIKE IT WASN’T LOVE BEFORE
Listen to the song here.
