A Hand To Hold

This is part of my April prompts series from the blog The Habit of Being. Each of the posts in this series will feature the prompt for that post as the post title. While I may sometimes use the current day's prompt, it is more likely that I will pick and choose as inspiration dictates. If you are interested in following along with the prompts or writing some of your own, here's the link to the page with April's prompts: http://thehabitofbeing.com/writealm/

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The nature of life is that we all sometimes need a hand to hold. 

When we are children, we need parents and other adults to hold our hands as we cross the street, learn to write our letters, and tie our shoes. As teenagers and young adults, we yearn for a boyfriend or girlfriend to hold our hands as a display of affection and exclusive belonging to one another. 

As adults, we may still want that affectionate hand holding, but more often the kind of hand holding we need and want is that of support. This may take the form of actual hand holding as a gesture of caring concern in a difficult time or it may be the life support we receive when we are at a place where we cannot support ourselves. This last kind of hand holding can be as simple as someone bringing a meal to a newly postpartum mom so she doesn't have to cook dinner for her family or it can be as critical as sitting with a friend or family member who is suicidal to keep them from attempting suicide. Of course, it can be somewhere in between as well.

Me and my sweet husband, Gray, who has held my hand for the last 12 years through friendship, dating, engagement and with marriage, the one who will hold my hand until death parts us one day. I love him more than I can say!

My beloved Gray has been holding my hand both literally and in a supportive way almost since the day we met some 12 years ago. When we first met and were initially getting to know one another, I figured out pretty quickly that he was someone I could trust with my authentic self. I knew I could be really real with him and that he wouldn't flinch. I can't explain exactly how I knew this except to say that he possessed all of the qualities that my closest and most trustworthy friends have always possessed. Knowing this, I let down my walls around him and was intensely honest about my struggles with depression and self-injury. He was not only understanding, but was transparent about his own struggles with depression. He was kind and compassionate and never judgmental. 

I remember well the morning that I told him. We were sitting across a table from each other after having had breakfast with our parish high school youth group at a local Chick-Fil-A. The students, youth minister, and other adults had left and it was just the two of us, sipping coffee and talking. I don't know exactly how the conversation got around to that subject, but it did and as I confessed how badly I was hurting and struggling, I began to get teary-eyed. That's when he reached across the table and held my hand.

As the past 12 years have unfolded, Gray has held my hand to show support, as a sign of affection, and as a means of life support by way of helping me find my way through the darkness of depression. He has held me as I've cried. He has held me up in prayer. He has held me with his words which have brought me back to my senses. He has held me to keep me from falling because I was faint with a lack of food. He has held me close so many times and has steadfastly refused to let go even when I have tried to force him to let me go amidst a blinding, feverish depression and a deluge of suicidal thoughts. 

The day we married, his "I do" was his promise to hold my hand and hold me close until death do us part. To that end, he has reminded me on more than one occasion of one of my favourite quotes from a favourite sci-fi series, Firefly: 

Sometimes you need more than a hand to hold. Sometimes you need someone to carry you because you can't run or crawl. I am so grateful that when I can't crawl, I have Gray to hold my hand and carry me. I am grateful too that I can hold his hand when he needs it and carry him in those moments when he can't crawl. We may have begun our relationship as two, but we are most assuredly now one flesh, cleaving to one another and holding hands and each other always.