Tender Grace by Jackina Stark Read Free Book Online

walked into the impressive lobby of the Hyatt and felt somewhat conspicuous, wearing crop jeans and a tank top and carrying a box containing a small pizza, thin-crust beef with extra cheese.
    I am glad I saw the Alamo, but I am also glad to be back in my room.
    It is remarkable that I left the room at all today. Besides watching television from my bed and the canoe races from my window this morning, I opened Tom’s Bible to John 4 and found notes tucked in the pages. When I unfolded them and saw Tom’s neat handwriting, a blend of printing and cursive, I drew in my breath.
    Quite unexpectedly, I was taken to a place I’ve been avoiding for so long. I woke up that early morning aware that Tom’s side of the bed was empty. The lighted digital numbers on the clock radio said 3:15. I hated sleeping without him and was surprised I hadn’t awakened sooner. I got up and went to the bathroom and then started for the living room, where I assumed Tom had fallen asleep, like he did a good many nights, watching a ball game or reading a book.
    “Tom,” I called as I came out of our bedroom and into the living room. He was sitting in the recliner, just as I had suspected.
    But immediately, I knew everything had changed. I could tell by looking at him in the soft lamplight that he had left his mortal body behind to put on an immortality that I am not yet privileged to see. I stood across the room from him and shut my eyes, hoping it wasn’t true.
    “Not yet,” I whispered.
    But I knew our time together was over. I walked over to him, placed my palm on his cold face, kissed the corner of his mouth, folded his notes, and closed his Bible and placed it on the ottoman. Then, before I phoned 9-1-1 and before I made the wretched calls to the children, I backed away from Tom, looking at his beautiful, peaceful face, and dropped into my overstuffed chair across the room.
    Three short words reminiscent of a line from a Frost poem came to me: All is ruined.

    I have not cried since I found Tom that morning. I have felt numb, and I have preferred it that way. Or maybe instead of insensibility it is a case of Wordsworth’s “thoughts that . . . lie too deep for tears.”
    I never had trouble crying before he died; it was not difficult to touch or even break my heart. Tom said my sensitivity was one of the qualities that drew him to me. He said he was too objective, too black and white, too businesslike. He said I was his complement. He would be so surprised to hear me talk of insensibility, listlessness, stupor. I think he’d be glad I am making this journey.
    I scoured his notes looking for anything remotely personal, but all I found was a lesson outline on the first section of John 4, where Jesus speaks with the woman at the well, a woman who might have been miserable enough to take off like I have if she could have managed such a thing. Tom listed three things their encounter tells us about God and his people: (1) he knows everything about us, (2) he still wants relationship with us, and (3) he offers us what no one else has to give, living water. Jesus says this water is like a “spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Tom’s notes say he’s offering “vigorous, abundant life.” That is a strange group of words, as mysterious to me these days as hieroglyphics.
    If I were sitting on the edge of Jacob’s well, looking into the eyes of Life himself, would I believe that all is not ruined, that something so glorious as abundant life is possible? Can I muster up enough wisdom and trust and courage to accept his offer of living water?
    I thought of something this morning as I sat holding Tom’s Bible, trying to recover from thoughts of finding Tom that April morning. The fourth of April, two days before Tom died, we spent the afternoon working in the yard. That night, invigorated by a day of spring sunshine and manual labor, we made love, candlelight flickering on the golden yellow walls. Afterward, instead of falling quickly