The Joyful Widower

“I didn’t sign up for this.”

You may not have read the fine print, but yes, yes, you did.

Years ago, when Melinda and I were doing pre-marital counseling with Fr. Stephen Freeman, he pointed out to us the hard truth that most people don’t (or don’t want to) think about when they are planning to get married. Unless you die together in an accident or one of those occasionally-on-the-news-old-couple-dies-within-hours-of-each-other-in-the-nursing-home-after-seventy-years-of-blissful-marriage human interest stories, one of you is going to die and one of you is going to live as a widow or widower for a time, be it months or years. Little did we know at the time that, less than two and a half years later, we would be there already.

Notably absent from the Orthodox marriage service is the “until death do you part” part, precisely because death does not end a marriage. When Christ transformed life through his cross and resurrection, he transformed all of it–marriage included. Christ takes the miracle that is marriage, of bonding two people together as one flesh, and uses it to show that love is stronger than death.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 KJV

In him, there is still communion between husband and wife, even after death. I can pray for both of my wives, that they experience the mercy of God. That they can have the grace to do whatever work He still has for them to do. And I know that they pray the same for me. Heaven is not the “celestial vacation” or “retirement plan” where you just check out. If anything, it is where you finally see most clearly what God has created you for. I am nowhere near as faithful as I ought to be in praying for my wives. I know that they are faithful in praying for me and my kids.

However…

This is hope, but it is not an easy, comfortable hope. This hope in Christ transforms grief, but transformed grief is still grief. Widowerhood is living in Holy Saturday. I’ve been through Good Friday, watching my loved ones die. I’m waiting for Pascha, for the joy of reunion. But for now I’m living in that time of physical separation, in anticipation. It’s tough. It’s lonely. In marriage, two are made one flesh, and just as death is the separation of soul and body, widowerhood is the tearing apart at the roots of two-become-one-flesh. It’s agonizing. There is that one particular person you grew accustomed to being with in celebrations and in sorrows, and that tearing apart rips through all aspects of being–physical, emotional, spiritual. Death, and separation from the body, are not natural for us. Death is not what we were created for. For the widow and the widower, every day, almost every moment, this separation is a reminder of the tragedy of death, and it’s driven home by the cruel irony that the one person we’ve grown used to turning to for solace is precisely the one person who is in the urn or six feet underground and out of our reach. It’s a lonely time of waiting for body and soul to be reunited in the long-hoped-for resurrection Christ will one day fully share with us.

There is comfort in knowing that Christ suffers alongside us in this. Scripture speaks of his love for us as being the love of a bridegroom for his bride:

John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.

St. John, 3:27-30 KJV

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Ephesians 5:22-33 KJV

He can empathize because he, too, is waiting for creation’s consummation. Marriage points to a truth deeper than itself, but it is more than a pointer; it participates in that longing for fulfillment and by grace becomes a means to draw us into that deeper reality. I’m reminded of Charles Williams’ frequent observation about such symbols that participate in the deeper reality they signify–“This also is thou: neither is this thou.”

So, here is the cross. To carry that grief that is transformed by hope. To wait in patience. To trust that, though we are physically separated, there is still work for each of us to do for each other’s salvation. There are moments of respite. There are others who come alongside to help carry this cross. Even Jesus didn’t carry his cross alone, and if he couldn’t, who would I be to think that I could carry mine alone? And there are times I can and must help others carry their crosses. There is joy in that. I refuse to play a passive waiting game. I need to be about the work God has given me to do.

However, Friday and Saturday don’t last forever. He is not slow, as some understand slowness to be. Sunday is a-comin’. I’ll be ready for it when it gets here.