Unconditional

I heard a new part of the story last week.  A part I had never heard before.

It’s an old story – probably not particularly interesting to anyone but the two involved.

It began on a high school band bus four decades ago…

I was really too young to be there. I was only in the 7^th grade. We had stopped at a gas station for a break. Since I was usually the first one off the bus, I was the first one back on the bus that day. At least I thought I was.

Then I heard laughter. Uncontrollable laughter.

I walked to the back of the bus to see who it was and discovered a curly-haired boy not much older than me, reading a MAD Magazine.

“What’s so funny?” I asked. I had never heard of MAD Magazine and I’d never even noticed this boy before.

He handed me the magazine. It was a cartoon about Rapunzel letting down her hair. When the prince climbed to the top, he discovered it was armpit hair and was horrified.

“Gross,” I said, thrusting the magazine back in his hand. “That’s sick.”

“Yeah, but it’s funny,” he said, still laughing.

I walked away, disgusted. I’m not sure even sure if I learned his name.

I didn’t realize it then, but I had just met my husband.

What happened after that is too long to tell in a single blog post. Over the next eight years we attended church and school together – liked each other off and on, and eventually became good friends. We attended the same college, had the same friends, traveled in the same singing group and were even cheerleading partners one year.

We joked that if we ever actually started dating we would probably end up getting married because we knew each other so well. We had a sure and solid connection.

Our first date happened on February 15th. (So we celebrate Valentine’s the day after everyone else) However, it wasn’t actually a date, or it wasn’t supposed to be.

We had gone with another couple to watch the Winter Olympics at a friend’s house. American figure skaters Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner were scheduled to skate that night. (Due to injury they didn’t, but that doesn’t really matter to my story.) The couple we were with sat close together on the sofa.  They were dating.

Larry and I sat far apart. He was in a chair on one side of the room; I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV. We were not dating.

Somehow, some way, before the night was over and the last ice skating pair had finished, we were sitting side by side, wedged onto the sofa with our friends.

When we got in the car to head home Dave, the driver, asked, “Am I taking you two back to the dorm?” We just looked at each other waiting on the other to speak first.

“No,” Larry said, “Take us to my car.”

I remember thinking, He is my best friend, I don’t want to mess this up. But I knew what was getting ready to happen – we were going to kiss for the first time. (Because we don’t count the kiss we shared in Junior High when we bumped noses.) 

We made it to his car and headed out to a quiet place. We didn’t need to have a bunch of dates to do all that I-have-to-get-to-know-you-before-I-kiss-you-stuff. We  already knew each other inside and out. It was an awkward moment.

I knew he was getting ready to kiss me. He knew I knew he was getting ready to kiss me. I knew he knew that I knew he was getting ready to kiss me. And my mouth knew not to stop talking or it would happen. I couldn’t help it. I was nervous. I was getting ready to kiss my best friend, this guy I’d grown up with. What if he didn’t like it? So I kept talking and talking and talking.

He sat with his arm around me and listened to my nervous chatter. Finally he wrapped me in a big hug and said with a smile, “Claudine, just shut up and kiss me.”

We dated for about a year. We both knew it was special.

Then something happened. All of a sudden he wasn’t calling. He was preoccupied. He wasn’t around as much as before.

I chalked it up to us being too busy. It was toward the end of a school year, we were getting ready to be separated for the summer, he was going overseas on a mission trip, I was going to work at a summer camp. Life was just crazy.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that he told me that he had been struggling with our relationship. He just wasn’t sure if it was right. He knew he loved me. But he was not sure if we should marry. (He had not popped the question yet, but I sort of was expecting it eventually.) In fact, he said, “I thought I was going to have to break up with you.”

He wouldn’t give me much of a reason, other than that there were some things that were bugging him. “Nothing important now,” he said. He was kind as always and reassured me that he had worked through his fears.

That was over thirty-four years ago. Obviously we eventually got married, had a child, lived our lives, and fought through some ugly times.

Last weekend, over Sunday dinner, we were discussing that time.

“Do I still bug you?” I asked with a grin.

“Actually, I don’t even remember what the things were that I felt that way about.”

That was when I heard the rest of the story. The part he had never told me.

“I remember praying and asking God what I should do. I knew I loved you and would get tears in my eyes when I’d think about my life with you not in it. But there were things that just kept me from feeling like I could live with you for the rest of my life.”

“What changed?” I asked him.

“I felt like God said, ‘I want you to love her unconditionally.’ It was one of the few times that I heard his voice so clearly. I know other people hear him often. I don’t. But I know I did that day. So I decided that that was what I would do.  I would love you unconditionally.”

I felt a warmth envelope me at his words. He was confirming something I had felt for a long time. That in the beginning — he had loved me with a far more sacrificial spirit than I had loved him.

I was young and hyper and spoiled and insecure. I wanted life to be all romance-novel and flowers.

He understood that it wasn’t going to be like that. He already knew that there would be things that each of us would struggle with about the other and that we would have a choice to continue to love. He had already made up his mind how to respond to those moments. I would not understand it until years later.

When I got home from lunch I went to my office, pulled out the book I had written over a decade ago, and read the dedication.

“To Larry, who has loved me unconditionally for over twenty-three years. You have made it easy to believe that God can love me too!”

“It’s true,” I whispered, wiping away a tear. “He has modeled the love that God has for me.” (Something I struggled with believing through all my early adult years. How like God to give me an example of the very love I didn’t understand.)

I had been its recipient for years. Yet, until that moment I had never understood the intentionality behind it. His love is purposely unconditional for as long as I have breath. It mirrors the very image of God.

I’ve discovered that love isn’t always about flowers and candlelight and silk sheets. Those things are special and wonderful and good.

Most days it’s about dirty laundry and the yard not being mowed.

It’s about emergency room visits with our son, cleaning up dog waste, or taking care of a sick parent.

It’s about depression and illness and being broke and not giving up.

It’s about middle age, and sagging skin and saying good-bye to people we hold dear.

It’s about learning to look at each other in the chaos of everyday moments, (especially the moments that don’t seem so lovely), and choosing to love anyway.

That’s the real story.  Unconditional.

I like that.

(I like him, too!)