Where is she now....

She came up in our conversation the other day. One of the hardest things for me to learn was to not bring her up or their experience. I wanted to talk about it all the time. I finally learned to let it go. Especially after all these years why should I bring up his sins? I wouldn't want him to keep talking about mine.
A few years ago he told me that he had run in to her at an airport where she was now working. He said she is a shell of a person. He watched others interact around her like she wasn't there...like a cipher. She had once been very fit (recall part of what he enjoyed about her was her fitness...and the activities they both enjoyed like cross country skiing and cycling) but now was "soft" and a bit pudgy. She had a hollow, vacant look in her eyes and they didn't have much to say to each other.
You would think, perhaps, that I would feel vindicated by that news. That I would feel she got what she deserved. Even I was surprised at my reaction. I felt nothing but compassion. This daughter of God had no idea of her eternal value. She never did. I thought of all we had learned through our pain. What had she learned? She asked me once if I really wanted him back even though he had no desire to have The Church in his life. I told her I loved him no matter what and always would. As painful as it is that he will not be baptized, we are still so much happier than she is. We have hope. I truly hurt for her.
The other day when he brought up her name he told me that he had flown with a friend of hers who told him that she left employment with the airlines and worked for a time for TSA and now works for the DMV. She is alone and lonely. It is sad.
Again I recall the day he told me he would never stop loving her. He truly believed he needed her and could not exist without her. Any love he feels for her now has nothing to do with romantic love. That makes him shutter. Any love he feels for her is the love one caring human being feels for another when they themselves are filled with the love of our Father.
"Is there someone in your life who perhaps needs forgiveness? Is there someone in your family, someone in your neighborhood who has done an unjust or an unkind or an unchristian thing? All of us are guilty of such transgressions, so there surely must be someone who yet needs your forgiveness.

"And please don't ask if that's fair --- that the injured should have to bear the burden of forgiveness for the offender. Don't ask if 'justice' doesn't demand that it be the other way around. No, whatever you do don't ask for justice. You and I know that what we plead for is mercy --- and that is what we must be willing to give." Jeffrey Holland

The pathway of discipleship is not an easy one. But with our hand in His it becomes easier and it is always worth it.