WHEN LIFE DOESN'T MAKE SENSE

Saturday, September 20, 2008

This is the story of an incredible love of a woman for a man. After twenty-three years of marriage, her heart still skipped a beat when he came home from work. She knew she was the luckiest woman n town, for he returned all this wonderful love. He was sent to Okinawa on a government assignment. It was to be for only a few months but it turned into a year and more. One day a letter came saying he had secured a divorce from Mexico by mail. The girl? A Japanese maid assigned to his quarters. She was nineteen; his wife was forty-eight. It doesn’t make sense, but Edith, the wife, did not immediately begin to scheme revenge; she was persuaded that in some way her husband still loved her, although she recognized that in some way he must also love this girl. He wrote and urged him to continue writing her occasionally, telling her of his new life. He did. He told of two children born to them and then one day a letter came saying he was dying of cancer. He was worried about what would happen to his little wife and the two daughters. The illness was taking all of his savings.

It doesn’t make sense, but Edith now realized the one thing her love could do for him in his last days would be to give him peace of mind. She wrote saying she would like for the two girls Mary and Helen to come live with her in America. It was after his death that they came. Edith was now fifty-five; the children were four and six. Again, it doesn’t make sense…but this is what she did. And with the help of the immigration authorities and many others, one day Aiko, the Japanese girl, frail and fearful, came down the steps of a plane at Idlewild in New York and into Edith’s arms. They have made their home together and now, once again, Edith feels she is the most fortunate woman in town.

None of it makes sense. A love like that seems crazy, foolish! But I wonder if it doesn’t make as much sense as the love of God for you or me, considering what we have been and what we are.

(Originally printed in Guideposts magazine, later retold by Robert Goodrich in Reach for the Sky)