After they were all gone, I was mourning over them to Nathan.
I said, "I just wanted them to have a better chance than I had."
Nathan said, "Don't complain about the chances you had,"
in the same way exactly that he used to tell the boys, "Don't cuss the weather."
Sometimes you can say dreadful things without knowing it.
Nathan understood this better than I did.
Like several of his one-sentence conversations, this one stuck in my mind and finally changed it.
The change came too late, maybe, but it turned my mind inside out like a sock.
Was I sorry that I had known my parents and Grandmam and Ora Finley and the Catletts and the Feltners, and that I had married Virgil and come to live in Port William, and that I had lived on after Virgil's death to marry Nathan and come to our place to raise our family and live among the Coulters and the rest of our membership?
Well, that was the chance I had.
And so Nathan required me to think a thought that has stayed with me a long time and has traveled a long way.
It passed through everything I know and changed it all.
The chance you had is the life you've got.
You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people's lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn't wish for another life.
You mustn't want to be somebody else.
What you must do is this:
"Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks."
I am not all the way capable of doing so much, but those are the right instructions.
...But did we tell the stories in such a way as to suggest that we needed a better chance or a better life or a better place than we had?
Suppose your stories, instead of mourning and rejoicing over the past,
say that everything should have been different.
Suppose you encourage or even just allow your children to believe that their parents ought to have been different people...with a better chance, born in a better place....
Doesn't that finally unmake everything that has been made?
Isn't that the loose thread that unravels the whole garment?
Sometimes you can say dreadful things without knowing it.
From me:
And I wondered.
Have I said those things?
Without speaking them.
Have I unknowingly said?
I would've, could've, should've, might've.
Have I made them feel?
There was something more--
Something missing--
Unclaimed, thwarted ground--
I'm longing for?
Because if I've said those unsaid words..
I didn't mean to.
I don't want to.
I would reel them all back in if I could.
This.
Is what I want.
This.
Is what He's given me.
In His intimate knowing-ness.
Because He sees that deep part of me...
Of what would really make me--
Live.
And love.
And give.
And learn.
And need.
And trust.
And grow.
And shine for Him.
He knew it would be--
This.
So....
If you (sweet child)
Ever think you've heard me say--
Or want.
Or claim.
Or desire.
Or strive for....
Something else.
Something different than--
This.
Just know that--
This
Is what He gave me.
And I want nothing else (not more)...
And all else is less.
than...
This.
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