I woke up this morning remembering bad dreams. And yet suddenly Bob was there, in his kindness and surprising tenderness, comforting my family because my mother had jumped off a cliff, killing herself.

The funeral was underway and my sister and I were inventing and ad libbing how things would go. Frustration was the theme.

And then I woke up and was overcome with tenderness and stirrings for my husband. The hot tears drowned my eyelashes and I just lay there wrapped in longing.

If this is how the search for lost love goes, just imagine how the search for God must be. For He cannot be found, only realized.

Just so, my marriage is a thing of the past but love, eh, not so much. It seems to go right on.

Vicki Woodyard