The summer before I turned 32 most of what I had known and trusted for a lifetime came tumbling down. With the dissolution of the Kingdom, my faith lost its resting place. And, I was left in the rubble of a doctrine that had dictated so much of who I had become.
Last night after we climbed into bed, Jim rolled over and bumped his backside against mine.
"Butt check," he declared.
I smiled in the dark. It had been so long since I had heard him say those words. When you have been with someone for 23 years, you forget to remember the shorthand you created when love was fresh and young. And, suddenly, I wanted more than anything to pull those lost phrases, one by one, from the shadows of time.
In the early days, "butt check" was used when there had been a slight stand-off between the two of us. It was used when we wanted to connect, but needed to build a bridge between his side of the bed and mine. With a simple "butt check," you could say you were sorry; and, by accepting a "butt check," you could agree to let go and move forward. A "butt check" smoothed the differences; and, it served as a gentle reminder that we were still playing on "the same team."
Some of my other favorites:
Tapping: Three taps meant "I love you." The correct response was four taps: "I love you too." One very long tap with sufficient pressure meant, "I want you NOW." Our own version of Morse code dotted and dashed us through those early years of marriage.
Nap clothes: These were the clothes we wore on Sunday afternoon after church to unwind. Sometimes we actually slept in our nap clothes. Sometimes we watched football in our nap clothes. And, almost always we ate Italian subs loaded with hot peppers in our nap clothes. My nap clothes for years consisted of an oversized t-shirt with a Big Boy on the front.
Buggle: The word "buggle" was born one evening after we had both worked long hours. I was exhausted to the point of tears when Jim leaned over me on his hands and knees to tuck me under the shelter of his body. He said, "Snuggle in, little bug." Snuggle became "buggle." And, so it remains a part of our family lexicon. Jayna told me a couple months ago that she didn't realize it was not a real word until she asked her boyfriend to "buggle" her, and he looked confused.
"I'll say! I am going to start a paper route right now!" This line comes from our favorite movie, Pee Wee's Big Adventure. It is used sparingly when one or the other of us is too fired up about something. It brings a sense of reality about what is important.
When you take wedding vows, you say... "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health." I remember wondering even as I repeated those words what they would mean for us.
As it turned out, they meant everything.
The morning after I turned 25, Jim woke me up to tell me that he was having trouble breathing. We went straight to the emergency room. A series of tests showed that he had congestive heart failure due to a congenital heart defect. His heart was enlarged and there was an aneurism the size of a man's fist in his aortic arch. His open -heart surgery was scheduled before the end of the week.
He did recover, but that process was the turning point. Jim, who had always believed in God, began to prioritize how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. And, he put his foot on a path of service that has taken our family from the heart of the midwest to the mountains of New Hampshire to settle on the coastline of Massachusetts.
