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4 Oct 2026

 

Personal Memories

We spend decades learning certain skills which bring us financial security and a modicum of adult identity. Yet, in moments of quiet reverie, we wonder about who we are and what we will face when the future becomes the present. We ponder the question of who we truly are and what’s the point and purpose of our lives.

Human nature says the answers are found in the relationships we form, especially those few (those very few) enduring relationships built on Trust and Intimacy and Love.

Love (True Love, not the emotional stand-in or the one-night fling our culture so wrongly celebrates) insists that enduring relationships must be two-way relationships, if they’re ever to last. This requires of us the courage of mutual confrontation and sacrifice – i.e., giving one’s self without reservation and honoring the same measure of giving by the other person. Only in this oft-harrowing endeavor will we discover the gift of a relationship based on authentic, soul-altering, two-way Trust and Intimacy, for without Trust and Intimacy, True Love will not endure.

Denial

There is, of course, a problem: most of us avidly avoid the give-and-take of confrontation; it’s too risky, too costly to our self-image. We do not want to be seen as we truly are, with our foibles and fears exposed.

Our egos are well-practiced in avoidance and denial. In fact, we spend years denying our faults and building frail defenses which, we hope, keep us safe from the critical eye and penetrating judgment of others. But our denial and avoidance of confrontation (and the self-knowledge it bestows) actually put us at needless disadvantage.

Disadvantage? Why?

Because avoiding confrontation (even benign confrontation with those who value us) frustrates Trust and Intimacy, which are the well-springs of True Love. And let’s not forget that True Love includes ordered (not selfish) Love of self and Love of God.

Some persons choose to avoid confrontation for a lifetime, but such avoidance generates grinding frustration which results when relationships are selfish, one-way affairs.

Thus, it is wise to remember that confrontation – while sometimes apparently punitive and painful – can lead to Knowledge, Insight and Clarity, rendering it illuminating and beneficent in outcome.

The opportunity for a two-way relationship comes rarely in this life. We are, therefore, blessed when that other person offers us reciprocal Trust and Intimacy, the essentials of True Love.

Nancy Remembered

I have been - and still am - blessed in knowing and loving Nancy, my Beloved Spouse of many years. She died May 1, 2018, yet she remains the center of my life; her prominence endures to this day. She and I worked consciously and honestly at our marriage; Trust and Intimacy grew as we grew. With her, I still have the most loving relationship I shall ever have – this I know.

She made demands on me and took many of my defenses from me (sometimes without knowing it) … but she gave me so much more in return, as she brought out yearnings within me that I would have never have expressed, had it not been for her.

In fact, we exposed each other’s often-buried fears in unexpected ways … yet, in the process, we met one another’s needs by years of loving confrontations. She confronted my weaknesses and ploys with her look of quiet disgust or by a slight tilt of her head when she knew – somehow, she wisely knew – I was stretching the Truth … or by her sleepy touch in the cold morning’s light which thawed my studied pretenses and brought me to safe - if costly - sanity.

Knowing Another

Over our many years together, I was privileged to watch her grow intellectually and emotionally. And when she was inspired to express herself in her paintings, I was even more privileged to see her artistic side blossom, as her talent spoke through the colors of her paintings (visible on her website at nancyparke.us).

As our years passed, she found increasing peace with the God-given Faith inhabiting her soul, for she was not plagued by the quandaries of those who doubt our Creator or who needlessly scour reality for hidden messages or who seek to impress others.

I believe very few people knew – really knew – her honesty and her strength and the depth of her kindness and the extent of her patient self-control and understanding.

She knew our True Love possessed (and still does) a Divine element all its own in which we jointly share, but never really control. Our relationship remains the sort of True Love which only a marriage based on Truth and Intimacy can ever foster.

Finally . . .

In my heart-of-hearts, I know how blessed I am for Nancy’s grand, salvific presence in my life. She is, to me, the perfect example of why God created the Sacrament of Matrimony: so we can give back each day that Divine portion of our souls … of our selves … within a generous, enriching marital friendship.

With Nancy, I finally realized that it is by True Love we are nourished … as we learn to give of ourselves with increasing gratitude and learn together how profoundly Good our True Love truly is … how generous and humanely nourishing we, too, can be when we are encouraged to reveal ourselves and be loved as we are (however subtly life allows us to do so) … without seeking the approbation or applause of others.

Perhaps the deepest pain in life is to be an unloving, unloved person; someone who cannot - or will not - express Love even to those who want to understand; someone who confines himself by his refusal to take the risk of loving; someone whose Love remains tragically stifled by his own conceits.

Through Trust and Intimacy and True Love, we share in the generosity of God Who has endowed our lives with such ennobling others as Nancy … BUT … let us never forget that we are also blessed in our lives with these abundant years and with endless daily opportunities to be loving to others.

For this vision of Love and the value of our own lives, let us be ever grateful.