People tell me I’m lucky to have Cindy. People tell me Cindy is lucky to have me. People tell me we are lucky to have each other. I appreciate these comments for why they were made and what they really mean, but when you consider the evolution of our relationship luck has had little to do with it. Oh sure, in a world with billions of people you can consider luck to explain the meeting of any two people. Yet for the sake of either making a marriage work or being a caregiver it is best not to be counting on luck.
I was 25 when I first met Cindy, having dated a few women before then. I was 32 when we married, after we were engaged for over a year, with much of that time spent hiking the Continental Divide Trail with my future wife. Through this prolonged trial (trail?) period either of us had plenty of time to back out, but we still married for other reasons than feeling lucky.
Cindy’s dating background is different than mine. When she was 20 I became her first and, to this date, only boyfriend. One might consider that, rather than making a wise decision based on comparisons, Cindy latched onto me without knowing any better. Either she or I (or both) were lucky because of that.
Yet Cindy always was attractive and social. She could have had boyfriends from high school on if she wanted. Instead she waited for the right man for her. I believe there are other right men for her in addition to me, but precisely because I do not believe there is only one soulmate for everyone out there do I believe that luck does not determine whether a relationship works. I sufficiently met Cindy’s criteria, as she met mine; we both could proceed at making things work, independently of luck.
So what were our criteria? What is the secret to our relationship? Our secret to marriage, my secret to caregiving, in reality a secret to life? You’ve already guessed from the title:
Seek beauty. Love kindness. Embrace joy.
With this as our criteria, there should be no surprise that long-distance hiking has been so good for us: the beautiful landscapes, the joy of nature, the kindness of strangers met along the way. Aside from nurturing each other, we have been nurtured as well by our journeys together.
Maybe you already have beauty, kindness and joy in abundance. Maybe you pursue different criteria, equally valid for making marriage or caregiving work. Ah, but here is a further tip for seeking and nurturing relationships. Do not think you will be the one to “save” the other. Rather, look to be saved by the other in some measure. For in reality only you can determine whether you will “seek beauty, love kindness and embrace joy.” If you look for that in others you allow yourself to make progress with your own journey. If you think you will “fix” others, you instead might fail, feeling used or abused, justifiably or not, as a result.
This is similar to the oxygen mask analogy. How can you fulfill the life of another, when there is no fulfillment of your own? When you both seek to be buoyed by the other is when you know you have a relationship that will work, even for a caregiver.
Cindy and I work well together, independently of luck, because we both valued beauty, love and joy throughout our lives, with the faith that each of us could help the other grow in what we already valued. Cindy helped me, a person who already believed in the virtues of kindness, to grow and delight in kindness more. In return I helped Cindy, who already had a positive view of others, to embrace the joy of life. Let’s just call beauty a toss-up between us, as we grew together in seeking and observing all the beauty that the world has to offer. Even now, under the most trying of situations, do we find beauty, kindness and joy together. Indeed, Cindy’s smile delivers all three, providing just the type of sustenance a caregiver needs.
The timing of this post is no coincidence. The one word most associated with God is Love. To me, the one word to associate with Easter is Joy. The Joy of Easter may center around conquering death, but why conquer death unless there is beauty, kindness and joy to behold in life? Beauty engages love that is sensual; kindness, expressed love of others; joy, overwhelming love of life itself.
How symbolic that Easter comes in the spring, a season where we get back out to witness the beauty of flowers and joyful rays of sunshine. Fortunate are we if we can experience this beauty and joy in the kindness of a loved one. Fortunate but, if by intent, not lucky.
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