Alone...November 2014

"I doubt I'd ever want to live here alone," I said to Bill as we strolled hand-in-hand along a Loja street.  It was a sunny August afternoon…the beginning of our second year in Ecuador. We were both feeling more settled and seasoned. Bill had new goals for his Spanish language study and I was going to write. We anticipated exploring yet undiscovered parts of the country together in the coming months.

Then in early September came a phone call that every parent dreads...our son Owen was struggling with some serious growing pains in Texas, where he had just begun his second year at a Bible institute. I flew up to be with him the next day and Bill followed a week later. 

Owen came through the crisis a stronger and wiser person. He has returned to Colorado, where he is working and thriving. But marital harmony was the casualty in the whole business...not uncommon where conflicts over the perceived needs of children are concerned. 

So my beloved Bill remains in Colorado for now, and I am alone in Loja. He needs some space; I need to learn deeper lessons about the truth that I cannot fix everything. I'm also learning that I can be alone in Ecuador and experience joy! But that learning has come through pain.

Some insights came to me recently while reading the story of a young Chinese woman--Fang Hui--who became the first person to ride a bicycle "for thirteen hundred miles over one of China's worst roads, a sawtooth of rock tracks and mountain passes which reach altitudes above 15,000 feet." One of the chroniclers of her experience, Fred Strebeigh, writes that "Not just the road's pain but also its loneliness changed Fang Hui." She came to appreciate in new ways the beauty of human interactions, which were with strangers who reached out to her. "When I came back, people all said I had changed," she said, "Now I can find something new in every day."

I've made a new walking loop along the river behind our apartment. Sometimes I sit on the riverbank and just listen to the sounds of the water. I enjoy longer interactions with my favorite "donitas" (women vendors) at the market. A few days ago a stranger I encountered on one of my walks--a woman about my age--took time to ask about my life and led me on a short detour to introduce me to her sister.

Our several Ecuadorean friends are compassionate and understanding about our situation. They have shared much with me...meals and prayers and tears and laughter. Soon, I hope, I will get back to my writing. And my heart, I trust, will learn more about love. Henri Nouwen offers this encouragement:

"The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer for your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart, even when they depart from you. The pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. As you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit."

The diplodenia plant thrives on the terrace…my morning view to the Andes