making it about me...

[Gerda]

sjohn, please remember how you feel when you do fun stuff with the kids. It's awesome and wonderful but you feel a huge hole there. She feels like that times a thousand because the hole is going all the way through down to the bottom of her soul. She thinks you are the cause of the hole and can't figure out why it's still there even when she is doing fun stuff with the kids. She will keep covering up the hole, but I assure you that she is not having a perfectly awesome family time with them without you. It's like your man without the hand. And as a woman, let me double assure you that it is awful to be without a man when you are off with family. There is a feeling we women get when a man is doing simple things -- driving or pumping the gas or when you can put your hand on his arm in the front seat or even when he helps get the kids to stop being bratty in the back seat -- there is no way to replace that feeling of protection and comfort that only a man's presence can provide. There is also the feeling we get taking out the snacks we made and our man enjoying exactly the thing we knew he would like. And even if she tries to stick another man in there, it will feel weird, like a fake hand. You are the only one who can fit in that spot, even if she refuses to admit that now, later, forever.

Also I wanted to say that your two literary references -- to the film, about beauty, and to this one, about the hand, were very touching and allowed us to see what a deep thinker you are, and how much you feel things creatively. That is a rare trait and I want to tell you it is a wonderful thing about you!

And then you really took it over the top with your box idea. It is an amazing idea, a beautiful idea, a creative idea. Do it for sure! I would also put in the box a list of your expectations of her and your marriage so that you can let those go too. I did that once in the beginning and i found it recently. Cried my head off but was happy to see how many of them I really had let go now, many years later.

I keep a little envelope of my H's old letters. We used to just give each other letters at gift times because I prefer that and we never had much money. I read them a lot in the first years, then it became too painful, now i look at them and it seems impossible. But last year for our anniversary, I color copied a particularly amazing one that had brought me a lot of comfort over the years (because it talked about waiting for the last word on our love, the truest and most beautiful word) and gave it to him as a card. I didn't want to give him the original for obvious reasons. He never said a word or acknowledged our anniversary but I was happy I did it.

Maybe one day you will even be able to take the box out with W. I know we have to let go of that expectation but I will still pray that for you while you let those things go into the box. I know that's what happened for Charlyne, from Rejoice, and how it blew her husband's mind to read all her journals from while he was gone and to see that she was praying for him and loving him no matter what he did. I also always have an assignment with my students, they have to write a letter to themselves, a year from today. And I always mail them a year later -- it's very powerful to write it and then to receive it a year later. Anyway, the point is for you to do it for you, it is an act of love and hope and also a way to heal. Let us know how it goes.