Tough Love

Tough love

 I looked over my shoulder. My husband's dad was watching us leave, he stood in the middle of the yard, tears forming in his eyes. My husband was too ashamed to look back. We had been asked to leave because of a silly misunderstanding. Basically it was a "you're under my roof so you follow my rules," disagreement. Well, we slipped up, now we were being shipped out. It was obviously hurting dad more than he'd admit. This had been my only home since I got married and I would miss it.

 We marched on through the gate and into the jungle carrying what little luggage we owned, forming a path as we went, cutting down vines and crawling over logs, or pushing them aside. It was a path we'd never find again. It would grow wild and overgrown with more bushes in time. We'd never find our way back, but even if we did dad was placing sentries around the parameters to keep us out. How cold hearted,  how brutal.

 We kept on going and going, looking for the perfect place to restart our lives. I doubt we would find it. Home had been picture perfect, Husband's dad had spent years cultivating and landscaping it before Hubby was even born. All we had to do was the upkeep, which was easy. Sometimes living easy, living off your parents prevents you from growing up.

 Something hit me on the back. Glancing up into the trees I saw a monkey hanging from a branch with one hand. The other hand was holding an apple.

"Look, its Mixy". I announced.

 Hubby looked to where I was pointing and tried to coax Mixy down. "She must have followed us all this way. Come here girl." Another apple came flying down and pummeled off Hubby's chest, forming a bruise next to a scar he'd had for as long as I could remember. "Hey, what are you doing." he yelled. Then the strangest thing happened. Mixy narrowed her eyes, curled the right side of her lip up and showed us her teeth. She was snarling. I've never seen a snarl before; it was ugly. She vanished back into the trees. Hubby had named Mixy, how odd she turned on him like that. What did she have to be angry about?

 We trudged on and stopped midday to rest and eat some berries. There was a river nearby I went to get a drink from. The liquid in my cupped hands looked horrible filled with dirt and sediment and little wiggly things. What happened to the clear fresh water from home? Wasn't this the same river? Upstream we came upon a bear lying strangely still on its left side. Curious. It didn't seem to be breathing. We nudged its body hoping it would awaken. Hubby leaned down and breathed into its mouth. His first memory of his dad was of him breathing air into his lungs so he thought he’d give it a shot with the breathless mammal. . Nothing. We've never seen an animal so listless; this must be death, we’ve never seen death before though we’d been warned of its potential.

 "What's wrong with it?" I asked Hubby, who was older and wiser than me.

 "I don't know. It must be a fake." If he was trying to not alarm me, it didn’t work. He didn’t tell me until later about the bear’s right side, a side slicked smooth of fur, an area the size of our two new coats, the coats dad gave us just before he opened the door for the last time for us.

 

 On we went, stopping for the night. We picked a cave to shelter in. I felt weird sensations in my stomach. Hunger. Another new experience for us. The table was always set at home. We grew our own food and had a ready supply.

 "Do you want this apple?" Hubby queried.

 "No, thanks, I've had enough of apples to last a life time." Apples got us into this trouble. Don't ask how, it's a long embarrassing story. We dined on what plants we could find nearby. Everything was wild and hard to pick.

 It was cold inside so we huddled together in our fur coats, placing leaves over us for more insulation till finally Hubby decided to try to get a fire started. He scratched some rocks together over dried grass till eventually we had a little blaze. We heard some growling outside so we went to the entrance and peered out. There were two lions standing feet away, showing us what huge fangs they possessed.

 "Hey, boys, glad to see you." Hubby exclaimed, but jumped back quickly when the growling grew louder and the beasts leaned forward as if to attack. Thankfully the fire kept them from getting closer. What in the world is going on? We've never been attacked by animals before. We all respected each other. We never had any trouble with the wild life around home. Food was, or should I say had been, plentiful for all, no need to get nasty. The lions stared at our fur coverings, looked us in the eyes as they backed away putting distance between us before they turned tail and loped off. They didn’t trust us; after all we’d been to each other for years, mutual trust had crumbled.

 Several days, many scratches and blisters later we found a location to settle down and maybe call home. There was a large field and waterfall handy. We explored a gigantic cave that I added some home touches to, a few ferns, some flowers, and wall art depicting the wild life nearby. Hubby started the only life he knew. Farming. Things weren't as easy for him here, thorns and weeds strangled out most of the vegetables. He came back every night exhausted, scratched and sun burnt. Discouragement hit us hard. We had difficulty facing each other, I silently blamed him for us being here and he blamed me.

 Then one day I bent over in severe pain. The pain lasted forever and I believed it was ripping me in two. Hubby was frantic. We may have had some issues with each other but we were all we had. I lay on the cave floor writhing and screaming while Hubby stayed by me holding my hand and crying. Something was awfully wrong. Hours and hours past with minutes of respite. Sweat was pooling on the floor. I was bleeding. Suddenly something popped. I screamed as my innards tumbled out of me. Ahhhhh.

 Hubby stared and stared. Then he picked up whatever it was and brought it to my head where I could get a good view of it. My "innards" made noises, gurgly-cooey sounds. It appeared to be a miniature duplicate of us. It had arms and legs and a face similar to us, but it was dwarfish and bloody. I pushed it away in terror.

 Hubby held it close to him and it reached for his breast with its tiny mouth. Boy, if my painful condition scared Hubby this thing licking his breast startled the pee out of him.

 Some natural instinct in me finally rose to the surface and I reached for the creature and held it to my breast where it started suckling, I could see milk oozing out of the corners of a little mouth. "I think this is the beginning of our family. Do you think we should give it a name? I like the sound of 'Cain' "

 "A family? We don't have time for a family. I don't know if we're even "able" to raise Cain." Was Hubby's response before he passed out cold.

Gen 3:21-24

Romans 8:22