I can hear the early morning sound of your coffee
grinder chopping beans to a pulp. Is it Guatemalan, Ethiopian, or is it Kenyan
today? The delicious smell wafts through the house as you invite the hot nectar
to stir you awake. On your way to the clothing that would protect you from the
cold, you kiss my cheek and whisper words of love. Our boy sleeps in the bedroom
nearby. Ready to make the hour-long journey, one last kiss.
Ten.
Ten has been rather unkind to me, dear Ricky, always
lurking. Ten brought with him uninvited guests, Guilt and Remorse. But Guilt
and Remorse would not tease me about our marriage. No. Instead they found my
weaker place and torment me about our boy. About the very specific memories of
me failing him as a mother beginning with yesterday, traveling through that knock
on the door, weaving through his childhood, and coming to rest at his birth.
Our sweet, sensitive boy. Every moment of failure replayed in slow motion as
though time was filled only with Guilt and Remorse, those selfish guests.
Ten.
The presence of Ten throughout the year differs from
Nine and Eight and the rest. Those others appeared mostly around November, but
Ten has been with me all year long. Ten is so very big. The enormity of Ten
strikes me more deeply than the enormity of your absence. That’s a funny thing.
Perhaps the peaceful satisfaction of our lives well lived, and the joy that is
this new creation…this surprise of hope, provides some sense of freedom. But
Ten, why must you be so heavy? What are you trying to tell me?
Ten.
While indeed Ten is heavy and those uninvited guests
occupy far too much space, I trust that “…the very act of voicing our trouble
to God begins a conversation in which we have opened ourselves up to his care,
his mercy, and his provision” (Manion, 2010, p. 79). I simply marvel at how my
heavenly Father gave individual attention to this existence of mine and intricately
designed a beautiful life of unswerving faith and that he continues to go ahead
of me weaving even Ten and his friends into something glorious.
Ten.
