Shaun Groves
It was our first fight. No, in a fight two or more people exchange blows with each other. This was one man throwing a tantrum while the woman he loved just smiled.
I was 19 and she was 23. Becky leaned against a light pole in the church parking lot and confessed the unimaginable to me.
An avalanche of emotions came crashing down. Shock that she wasn’t the good person I’d thought she was. Sadness that we might not recover from this revelation of hers. Anger that she would…that she would…
My voice raised. My hands waved. I walked away in disgust and circled back to argue some more before walking away again and circling back…
“I just don’t understand how you could…Why?”
I regurgitated every rebuttal I’d ever heard. From Sunday school teachers and pastors, from my father and Rush Limbaugh. I flung every reasoning I could at her.
Becky just leaned, listened and waited.
Today we laugh about the night I almost traded a lifetime with her for four years with a politician.
Don’t sacrifice the ultimate for the immediate. Choose love.
Miriam Pauline says:
I am smiling. So true. One of the promises that my husband and I made to each other 21 years ago was to “cancel each other’s votes forever.” Choosing love over an election is so important. Thanks for the smile and the reminder today. (Some years we have even managed to vote the same!)
Jeremy Shannon says:
I was 18. She was 20. We dated for a brief time and had many discussions like this one, though never heated. We broke up and didn’t speak for 4 years. This December is our 5th anniversary, the first we will celebrate with our beautiful, happy, baby girl. Thank God for older, wiser, patient women who dont give up and who ask us out first!