To Her

Spoiler Alert: This blog will tell you about the ending of the book/movie Safe Haven, so if you have any intention of reading/watching, you might not want to continue. However, if you are a true Nicholas Sparks fan, you know it's going to be a tearjerker...

I sit in the movie theatre and the tears fall, just a couple, and barely noticeable, but I think how it is a good thing that Caleb isn't with me, because he gets tired of me crying during movies.  And I do it more and more these days...

Anyway, it's at the very end of the movie, when the hero has swooped in and saved the girl and proclaimed his love for her, where you know they are going to live happily ever after.  He hands her an envelope, with two words: "To Her"

This is a letter from his dead wife, written as she succumbed to cancer, the mom of two little kids and a husband who she loved enough to let go.  In this letter, she writes how she wishes she could see the new girl with her family, that she could see the love between her and the kids. She writes about hope, provided because he has gone on to love again.

And as I wipe the tears away, I think of how hard that would be to write.  I'm not sure I'd be quite as gracious. I'd like to think I would be... and isn't that the very definition of love?

Of letting go when you have to, for happiness sake?  And more importantly, of knowing when to hang on when the timing is right?

What would I write?  Would I write about how I hope her handles are grown out like mine, and that she can bear split ends? Would I write that I'm glad he found someone else to listen to his basketball plans, and that I would hope that her heart would leap in her chest as he paces the sidelines? That she, too, would grow to know that loving this crazy guy means knowing when he'd tell his guards to "jump" and "trap"?  Or that I am hoping Caleb would have someone more soft spoken, someone sunny and willing to laugh?  What would I write, other than "Love them well"?

Deep questions on this Saturday, and I drive home in the snow.  I think of this as I lean forward on the bleacher, studying his profile as he watches these girls pull up for a three.  I think of it as I sing out loud on the way home, laughing as Caleb tells us to hurry because our music is too loud.  I think of it now, as I sit and type as my hair is twirling, twirling.  Less than a month, and we'll see about letting go, at least for 9 weeks. 

Love hurts.  But is is also the best gift in the world.  And His grace is sufficient to let us keep loving, the best way we know how.