FocusOnTheFamily

Love boat

Written by Cindy Sigler Dagnan

My husband, Greg, and I will spend 51 weeks with our children this year. It is the remaining week that consumes me with guilt.

My husband and I have decided to celebrate more than a decade of marriage with a blissful six-day cruise. White sands. Turquoise waters. Someone else to do the cooking. Relative privacy during those child-free days.

When our tax-refund cheque arrived, we used it to pay the cruise fee, five months in advance. It’s a pittance compared with what we’ve spent through the years: school supplies, shoes, clothing, braces, toothpaste, apple juice, animal crackers, underwear, training wheels, training bras, two sports and three kinds of extracurricular lessons.

Still, I’m smitten with guilt. Surely we need other things more than a trip. Then again, we’re determined to give our kids a model of healthy marriage and to remind ourselves that our husband-and-wife relationship comes above all other earthly relationships.

Packing our suitcase

A few weeks before departure, I make arrangements with my mother, who will be caring for our lively band in our absence, and leave a letter about our desired arrangements for the children should something happen to both of us. (Sharks. Shipwreck. Snorkelling malfunction. Truly, a mother’s imagination runs rampant.)

And despite the fact that my parents raised my sister and me to adulthood with only a few stitches between us, I dispatch a lengthy list. It includes acceptable snacks and bedtimes, even though I know this is a waste of time and ink; she’s a grandmother, after all, and the children will be allowed to eat forbidden foods at a much later hour than I’d prefer.

While packing, I am trailed by children and the notion that our much-anticipated departure is creeping ever closer. The girls eye me sombrely, alternating between hugging me with gusto and ignoring me completely. Both reactions pierce me with remorse.

I plop a suitcase onto the bed and fold up a new dress, purchased especially for this trip, and wonder if I still remember how to be simply a wife, instead of a wife and mother at the same time. I toss in some long-unused lingerie from the bottom drawer; I vaguely remember this being a side benefit of husband-and-wife trips. Makeup, curling iron, barrettes and assorted bottles of coconut- or lime-scented lotions tumble into a smaller bag next to Greg’s sparser collection of must-haves: deodorant, toothbrush, hairbrush. These disparities mix into a visual reminder that, with all of our differences, we are still one.

Setting sail

The morning of departure, I am busy with last-minute tasks. Laundry. Sorting little socks. Plastering mirrors and cabinets with hastily written sticky-note missives of love. We tiptoe into each girl’s room, lean over their beds and press goodbye kisses to sleepy heads.

I pray over them. Their eyelids flutter, and they smile. Once we’re by the car, I see small noses press against an upstairs window and tiny hands wave. I cry only for the first two hours.

A third of the way through our trip, my mind catches up with the vacation. I allow myself to relax and relish the gifts of maid service, room service and someone else’s cooking. I remember younger, thinner versions of Greg and Cindy on another beach – a honeymoon trip where we both enjoyed and discovered one another.

I hold the hand of my beloved and am again reminded why he is just that. He is tender, witty and, yes, on occasion, romantic. He pretends not to see me show photos of our beautiful girls to everyone in the airport shuttle. He rolls his eyes only a little when I tuck cool straws and napkins into my purse; the girls will get a kick out of these on our return. He indulgently gives an opinion as to whether the girls would rather have a doll to share or pens with floating ships for all.

He grants me all this because in between are uninterrupted talks, moonlit strolls, sweet intimacies and glimpses of the woman with whom he fell in love. Our six days in paradise are well worth the spent tax return, the hand-wringing preparations and, yes, even the bouts of guilt. We have given our children a gift: the security of parents who love each other and the certainty that we will always return home.

Cindy Sigler Dagnan spends most of her time cruising to the grocery store and to her kids’ schools in Webb City, Missouri.

© 2008 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

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