“I Adam, take you Eve, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward until death do us part.”
The groom swooned over his bride and tried not to reveal his confusion about the vows he had made.
How could it get any better than this? What is worse?
I live in paradise and every day is sublime!
God provided all his needs: he walked in the midst of riches, fruits and even gold was easily gathered. He never even gave a thought to being poor. He enjoyed perfect health and had never been a witness to death.
“Eve, I take you as my bride.”
Eve remembered that commitment and wondered how she could have been so naive as to believe the serpents lies. Eve would experience worse than she could have imagined. God banished them from the garden, Adam toiled endlessly, food was scarce, and labor pains in birth for two sons were nearly unbearable.
She craved more of Adam’s love.
The love for Adam, Cain and Abel sustained her. As both wife and mother, she felt needed. God had promised death for disobedience; what was death?
She learned death was the cruelty of Cain, the victimization of Abel, blood crying out from the ground and an emptiness even the love of Adam could not fill.
Eva placed a bookmark in the Genesis chapter, closed the Bible and placed it on the nightstand next to her bed in the cramped Nursing Home room. She had been daydreaming again.
The characters in scripture were as real to her as the nurses who kindly cared for her. The Bible was not merely history; writers shared details of lives of real people. She had empathy for Eve.
Her own heart had felt the joy of becoming a bride and the wedding vows still rung in her ears though she could hardly hear a rap at her door.
Eva slowly turned her head to the left and saw her mate of over 65 years with his head slumped over on his chest. He was asleep setting up in his wheel chair, in front of the window, where the nurse left him. .
He had paid no attention to birds outside and little to Eva during the last three years. The doctors diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease and he slipped away to a world of his own. To Eva, the walls of separation were formidable. She felt the heartache of death long before any preacher would share a eulogy.
Preacher Gray knocked on the open door, entered and greeted Eva with a smile, saying, “Good morning Eva. What have you been up to?”
“I’ve just been reading from Genesis, thinking about Adam and Eve, the vows a man and wife make to each other during their wedding service and how little they understand what they mean. It seems like just yesterday… “I, Eva take thee Charles.”
Her vow trailed off across space and time.
The squeaking of a small movement of a wheel chair broke the silence and preceded Charles’ faltering voice declaring, “Till death do us part.”
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