Loyal to the Living

I was just reading -- devouring -- a new novel by one of my top three authors and came to a passage that literally stopped me in my tracks.  Like I had to just put the book down and think about it.  And it's not even one of "those" books.  It's a novel.  Not a self-help book, not a memoir, not anything except a long-awaited story from an author I have loved for a few years.

The premise was a conversation among a mother and her two grown children.  The much-loved father died two years ago.  The daughter (32) had just experienced her first feeling of her father's presence and had shared it with her brother.  The mother took off for an unexpected international escape soon after her husband's death and was back with her son and daughter.  She told them, with great trepidation and blushing that she had "found somebody."

The kids, fiercely loyal characters, were both taken by surprise by their mother's announcement and the scene unfolded from a trite "was somebody lost?" to a touching realization that "the winner is the one who is alive."

What that means is that the kids were not being disloyal to their father by supporting their mother's new relationship.  Their loyalty, by default, belongs exclusively to the living parent.  To her happiness and her well-being.

That really struck a nerve with me as I apply it to Dad and his relationship(?) with Lynn.  He deserves my loyalty because he's the one who is here.  He deserves happiness and comfort and love.  He is not -- I am not -- disloyal to Mom if he finds that happiness and comfort and love again.  It is almost disloyal if he doesn't.

If WE don't.

We are here and going on and Mom taught us all how to love.  And how not to.  And how to relate to others and how to let others in and help and be helped.  It is disloyal for us not to live out those lessons.

So, then I thought, this also applies to me in another way:  if I am not going to LIVE my live, to the best and fullest and most I can, then I don't win.  I'm not alive, so I can't.  Incentive to really engage -- with my husband, my friends, my kids, my life.  Because I am here to LIVE, and if I don't do my part, well, I can't expect the benefits of winning.  I can't feel pride and happiness and accomplishment and joy and fulfillment.

Jesus said He came that we might have life and have it abundantly.  That seems to play into this whole revelation, too.

Now it's up to me.  It's time to wrap all those pieces up in a neat package and LIVE.

Look out, world.  I'm here.  I'm coming back.

Yea!