Chicken Pox Marriage

Below is my re-telling of a conversation Ophelia and I had yesterday afternoon. Parts of it are verbatim because they just stood out so clearly during the conversation and other sections are just to the best of my memory. Please understand, I am judging no one in this post but sharing an experience and some of our beliefs.

"Mommy, can you only have one wedding?" Ophelia asked me while we were still at the table after lunch yesterday afternoon.

"Well, yes, I guess. Or no. I'm not sure, what do you mean?" I answer looking up from the piece of art Helena had made and given me to examine.

"Is having a wedding and getting married like chicken pox, you can only have it once?" She asks again rephrasing her question using a metaphor so I could understand better. It worked too.

Before school was out Ophelia had developed a few blisters that made me concerned that she may have had chicken pox. She didn't but by the time we figured that out we had already learned about chicken pox and that most people can only get them once and never get them again.

Her metaphor made perfect sense.

"Ah, I see. I guess you could have as many weddings as you want to, you probably wouldn't want more than one since they are a lot of work and people will get tired of coming to your wedding over and over again. But that's just weddings. When it comes to actually getting married, yes, it's kind of like Chicken Pox, you should only get that once. Remember how we learned that with Chicken Pox you don't get sick from it again because a little bit of it always stays in your body so your body doesn't have to attack those germs again, making you sick?"

She nods her head.

"It's not exactly the same as Chicken Pox, but when you get married you stay with that same person for as long as you are alive. You don't marry another man later because you stay with the one that God put you with." I try to explain using her Chicken Pox analogy.

"But what if you split up?" Ophelia counters in a very grown-up and concerned way.

"That does happen sometimes (I don't bother to point out that it's actually about 50% of the time.) but that really isn't what God planned for us. God wants us to stay with the person that we marry because God says when we get married we aren't just two people any more, it's like we're one." This was the best explanation I could come up with on the spot to explain what we believe to be a Biblical view of marriage/divorce to a 7 year old.

"But what about grandma? She and grandpa split up and now she can't get married again?"

Bombshell.

I take a moment to asses and figure out how to dodge shrapnel while inwardly complaining about Jeremy going to be with a friend that was having a tough time. We knew aspects of this conversation would come one day, I had just planned on Jeremy getting to be here for it.

"I'm not really sure Ophelia, you'd have to ask grandma but I think that grandma has decided not to get married again because she believes that you should only be married once unless your husband dies but if you split up she believes that you shouldn't get married again to somebody else. I don't really know what grandpa has decided about this." I try to ward off what would likely be her next question and I legitimately don't know.

"But she's going to be sad and I don't want her to be alone!" She starts to cry.

If I could I would redirect the conversation to a happier topic or distract her with the promise of a cookie and a DVD but this is our sensitive one who would never leave another's pain for something as trivial as a cookie. I beckon her to come sit next to me and put my arm around her. Unsure of what to say I take a deep breath and plunge back in praying something will come to me as we talk.

"Sometimes people that love each other make choices that hurt the ones they love, we all do it. In a marriage sometimes that means the people will split up, it's not what God wants but He allows it to happen. When that happens it is between God and each individual, some may feel it's ok to marry someone else and others may not but whatever they believe and choose is for them to decide, we can't fix it for them. We can pray though and that's one of the things Daddy and I pray about for grandma and grandpa, that they will know that no matter what God is with them and they aren't alone." My words sound a little feeble to my own ears as I grasp for a simple and clear explanation for this difficult issue.

She presses: "But why did grandma and grandpa split up if God didn't want them to? Do they still love each other?"

As if the previous questions hadn't been hard enough. But there is no way I'm going here without Jeremy so I take a deep breath and muster up the best closing-this-conversation-now tone I can and tilt her chin so I can look directly into her eyes.

"I think grandma and grandpa do still love each other and I know they both still love God, your daddy, and you and I don't think that's going to change. People make choices that hurt others, we need to try not to but when it happens God helps us forgive and love and that is the most important part. Ok?"

Ophelia nods and wipes the tears from her pink cheeks and from behind her glasses. She pushes away from me and gets off the chair to go play. Just as I start to congratulate myself on closing out this difficult conversation she turns around and asks me a question that betrays the fear in her 7 year old heart.

"Are you and daddy like Chicken Pox? Are you going to split up or stay forever?"

Tears spring to my eyes when I hear her concern for Jeremy and I to stay forever. I remember this feeling from when I was little and the worst thing I thought could happen to my world would be for my parents to split up. In two steps I'm on my knees in front of her.

"Ophelia, I would love to promise you that Daddy and I will stay forever but I know we are people and we may not be able to do that. What I can tell you is that we believe that God put us together and we don't want to mess that up so we will do whatever it takes to stay together and that's why we both put God first, because He's better at that than we are. Every day God gives me more love for your Daddy and I promise you, I will always love and forgive him and Daddy does the same for me. Daddy and I both made a promise to God that we wouldn't leave each other, that we would have to die to not be married any more and we ask God every day to help us keep that promise. And we are going to try, really, really hard. So what do you think, do you think Daddy and I can stay forever?"

I was a concerned that I came across a little too intense but she gave me a huge smile and said:

"I hope I get married just like you and Daddy and have it stay forever." She nearly knocked me over with her hug.

I hope so too, Ophelia, I hope so too.