Heart Spark

“What’s the matter, Frank? You’ve hardly touched your meatloaf.”

“Huh? Oh… it’s…. it’s nothing. I just ain’t too hungry right now. I’m gonna go grab a beer from the fridge, you want anything?”

“Frank… sit down. Tell me what’s wrong.”

How could Frank even begin to tell Beverly, his wife of twenty-seven years that after everything they had gone through for the majority of both their lives, all the blood, sweat and tears they both have poured into assuring their marriage was going to stand up to the test of time, that he had unwittingly thrown it all away thanks to a temporary lapse in judgment? They’ve managed to survive a long-standing loathing of each others’ families, two miscarriages, three state-wide moves and, most pressing, a drastic disagreement over the ending of Seinfeld (“I thought it stunk, they didn’t do nothing,” claimed Frank while Beverly asserted that it meshed well with the personality of the revered sitcom resulting in Frank’s temporary move to the couch for an entire weekend).  But through it all, not once did Frank ever consider that the damage would be so lasting that it would crush the structure that he and Beverly worked so hard to build. And never did it happen. The love prevailed, and for every vital dispute they both knew how insignificant it was in the grand scheme of things.

But Frank also knew that there was a limit. He also understood that there is a fine line between appreciating an understanding spouse and taking advantage of a spouse’s understanding. Most importantly, Frank was well aware that he had chosen the path of the latter. He has already allowed himself to accept the consequences of his guilty conscious, but he wasn’t quite ready to accept the consequences of watching his loving wife fall helplessly apart because of his selfishness. It’s hard enough to see someone you love so dearly in a complete state of emotional shambles, but to have you be the cause of such disarray, it’s the emptiest feeling in the world.  He had always been there for her, he loved being her shoulder to cry on when her family would scold her for the career choices she’s made and he loved being her friend who she wanted to talk to about work whether frustratingly or gleefully. He fell in love with her for being all the things he wanted in a woman, but more impressively he fell in love with her for introducing him to her unique quirkiness and spirituality – two traits he had previously scoffed at, claiming they were just procrastinations from the real world. In fact, when they first met, there was no spark, no love at first sight, not even a yearning to be introduced to one another.

She was still a High School senior, who, even in her teens, had already accepted her calling in the arts. She loved to write, particularly poetry, but even though she wasn’t very good at it, she still continued to scribble endlessly, working to make romantic metaphors that flowed melodically with the rhyme schemes.

Frank, on the other hand, was a year older than her and had no idea where his life was going. He was great with numbers, and had a knack of understanding all things that fit in the realm of quantitative.  He was urged by teachers to follow a plethora of different paths: law, science, medicine… the options were plentiful and regardless of where life took him, the results were no doubt going to be bountiful. He liked having options and had he had his way, he would have dabbled in them all, becoming a veritable Swiss army knife for the 21^st century. He dreamt of being Time Magazine’s man of the year while also envisioning himself as the man The Economist proclaims as being the one redefining how we viewed and perceived politics and economics. He wanted it all; the fame, the glory and, most importantly, the riches.

No one could have predicted what would eventually blossom between these two. She was the type of gal Frank would shake his head at, internally questioning how she could squander her youth with alliteration, metrical patterns and symbolism. To him, what mattered was what was said and said in the most straight-forward manner possible, not how something was expressed, and no doubt ambiguously. And for her, she felt sympathetic for his inability to escape the black and white.

There was, however, one common bond the two shared and that was their curiosity. She aspired to know what made his heart beat faster while for his itch to be scratched he yearned to know how she thought about things, not just how she felt about them.

Over time the two became close and he found that her heart and mind flowed together effortlessly like the words of the poetry she adored. She, much to his surprise, was extremely astute to current events and was very diligent in her opinions, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with them.  At the same time, he had become infatuated with her ability to create ideas so effortlessly. He loved her imagination and how simple it was for her to establish heroes and villains to escape the humdrum-ness of the world they both knew they lived in.

And for close to three decades they continued to envelop their own hearts and souls into the other’s world, establish a deeper understanding and appreciation for not just what they shared, but for the world and all of the individuals inhabiting it.

Three decades, boiling down to one moment of weakness. The past three decades were magical, and Frank knew anytime after would be borrowed time if he was lucky. She had forgiven his occasional bout of ignorance and even rarer bout of a bad temper, but this was unchartered territory for both.

“Honey, there’s something I need to tell you…”