Please Mr. Postman...

Where has your lover gone, O most beautiful among women?

Where has your lover gone that we may seek him with you? .....

My lover belongs to me and I to him....

~The Song of Songs 6:1, 3

I received another three letters from my beloved yesterday. I actually postponed driving back from PA to MD for about three hours (and had to wait out a longer than usual nap, and then have dinner!) just to make sure I didn't miss the mailman. Because, the pain of waiting and having no letter arrive would have paled in comparison to that of leaving and then missing a letter. And, saints be praised, three came, together in one envelope!

The best part of the letters is that I can almost hear his voice in my head, like he is sitting right beside me, telling me these things (and ironically, he is getting most likely more of my full attention now, in these letters, than he would normall get in person.... ah, something to remember when he returns!). I can hear the varying cadences in his voice, the pauses, the chuckles. I start to make the same inside jokes and private language (you know, the words/phrases that husbands and families share) in my head right before I read them on the page. I laugh a little, I cry, my heart swells with pride.

And then, they're over.

And it is like he has left all over again. I almost hate to read the letters at first because I know once I have finished, they will be over. The voice will stop and there won't be anything new on the page. Thus, I actually don't rush to read them when they come. I enjoy the envelope. I imagine him carrying them around with him in one of his million pockets on that oh-so-delicious uniform that I cannot WAIT to see him in (have I mentioned that? How much I love that uniform? That I can't wait to see my handsome husband all decked out? ).


Then, I open the envelope and just look at the pages, not reading, but enjoying his small, cramped, man handwriting. As I read, I imagine him writing them, picture him talking with friends, shoveling down food in the three minutes alloted (my poor slow eating husband), bleary eyed at the oh-so-early wakeup call, and try to imagine all the new Army things he is doing that I do not have a context in which to put him.

I AM my beloved's and he is mine, and even in letters, we think the same things, have the same initial reactions, jump to make the same silly jokes at things - we truly are one flesh.

Oh Lord, where has my lover gone?

Help me to seek him in You, to feel close to him at the timeless celebration of the Mass, to be united with him in the Eucharist, especially now that we cannot be united in the marital embrace. Please, sweet and mericful Jesus, give me grace and give me strength, and remind me always that You long for me all the more, for Your whole Church, and the love I share with my beloved is merely a drop of the Divine Love between You, the magnificent Bridegroom and Your beautiful Bride, Holy Mother Church. Amen.

Jesus, I trust in You.