I was, let’s say, around six when the sweet little spy show -Hart to Hart- premiered. Being so young, I have no idea if I actually watched the Harts in the early ’80’s or just caught up with them in reruns but somehow, their jet setting attitude, fabulous adventures and beautiful lifestyle caught my attention. And their names.
Oh their names.
Jonathan Hart
Jennifer Hart
Hart to Hart
In my playtime, I was something exotic like Katerina or Mercedes (Mercedes Lane, to be exact), but when I planned out my life (and oh how I planned out my life), the names I always, always chose for my future children were theirs.
It was going to go like this: I was going to meet my future husband at eighteen
I was going to marry him at twenty
I was going to have my first child (a boy) at twenty two
My second child (a girl) would be born during my twenty fourth year
And then somewhere along the way, I would adopt boy/girl twins whom I didn’t bother to name because I figured they would already have some
I didn’t take into account any kind of education (very few people have graduated from any sort of higher learning by their twentieth year) or profession (I was going to be a stay at home mom) or the fact that I could not (and still can’t) cook or sew.
I didn’t take into account that my future husband might have other ideas, and he did. I met him at seventeen. I didn’t begin dating him until twenty. And he wouldn’t marry me until I was a graduate.
I didn’t take much of anything into account, to be honest. I was going to have -Pachabel’s Canon- in my wedding. I was going to have a cute little house with a nice yard out back. And I was going to have my Jonathan. And my Jennifer.
The music I got. The house came a few years later. The yard? Well, out back is a steep bank that WOULD be a nice yard if it were flat, but there is a grassy area on either side should the desire to play ever overcome us.
Jonathan Frederic and Jennifer Rose?
Well, it’s like this: At first, our marriage was a disaster. I am still very much a princess, but at twenty three I was nothing but a selfish, selfish…well, brat. I didn’t want to be around my parents because they took away from my “Me and Kenny time”. I didn’t wanna be around Kenny’s parents because his dad smoked and I would spend the first part of every week sick…and milking it. Kenny was both taking and teaching classes and I spent a lot of time alone in our trailer, mad and bored. I could have made cards for a nursing home. I could have baked cookies for the Homeless Shelter. I could have done a million things, but I was selfish and stupid.
And God, in his infinite wisdom, saw that me being a mother in my early twenties would have resulted in a screwed up me, a screwed up Kenny and a badly screwed up kid.
And there were no babies.
Then came the deaths. His mother, my grandmother, great grandparents, aunts and uncles. Our first five years were part confusion and grief and part wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.
And, mad as I was that I had no children, I can look back now and be grateful that there were no babies.
Today however?
There are still no babies.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There are babies. There are the five most beautiful, adorable, talented kids in the world, but they are my brother’s, not mine. There are the hugs I claim every Sunday from my “weren’t you little just a couple of weeks ago?/why are you growing up so fast?” two year old class, but they aren’t mine either. Not really.
There is no Jonathan.
There is no Jennifer.
No little boy who is doomed to wear glasses because there is nearsightedness on both sides of the family.
No little girl with my songs and her father’s dark hair that curls the longer it gets.
I’m thirty six now. Kenny’s a decade older. We’re calmer. We’re somewhat wiser. We’re not as angry, not as crazy and much more in love.
But there are no babies.
And I want to be Hannah. I want to be faithful in my belief. I want to be persistent in my prayers. I want to love God more than I desire a family.
I’m not Hannah, however. I never have been.
I’m calmer. I’m wiser. I can see patterns emerging that I never thought I would.
But I’m still Rachel. Remember Rachel? Beautiful but childless? Loved but barren? Crazy jealous?
I’m not beautiful. I have no idea if I’m barren. But the crazy part? The jealousy chapter? I’m right there with her.
The screaming of “Give me children or I shall die”? Been there. Not to my husband, but to my God.
God who has blessed me with a man so much more faithful than I deserve, so much more wonderful than I could have planned for.
God who has given me children in class after class for so long that some of them are out of college now with marriages of their own.
God who has loved me through the crazies and the tears and the heartbreaks.
God
God knows I’m Rachel.
But he also knows my heart and how I long to be like Hannah. Faithful, gentle, promise keeping Hannah.
He’s seen me through the past thirteen years of this mixed up marriage. He’ll see me through the thirteen after that. And the thirteen after that.
And He’ll hold me. And He’ll love me. And He’ll meet my needs.
Even if I never have my babies.
But I hope He knows how sad I’ll be if that never happens.
And how much I don’t want to have to give up that part of the dream.
Not now.
Not ever.