Life returned to normal once Jill returned home from the hospital.
Except Seth became obsessed with keeping her safe and stress free so that her weakened cerebral arteries would never again be overburdened. And when he was not overzealously pursuing her preservation to the point of his own physical and emotional exhaustion, he expended whatever was left of his obsessional energies on ensuring that all the memorabilia of his wife - photos, letters, videos, artwork, crafts, everything that had her imprint upon it - was categorized and in safekeeping. It was absolute torture for him, the more so because to not do it was completely unbearable.
Seth was almost a person in that his love for Jill sometimes approached the border beyond the sphere of himself and ventured into the realm of actually caring for her, for her sake alone. Those times, infantile and clumsy, were nonetheless what endeared him the most to his wife and daughters. They were what gave Jill the most hope that perhaps it was not too late for his heart to soften and his his eyes to open to how things really were in the world.
For his part, Seth desperately avoided facing the reality that everything he depended upon to cope with life could be ripped from him in an instant. The fragility of his wife, his girls, his job, his health, his security - all these fundamentally essential things - he could not afford to look at honestly because if he did, his sanity would run screaming into a black hole never to reemerge. It had come close in the back of that ambulance, and he must avoid at all costs a repeat of that glance over the abysmal event horizon.
"You can't keep this up," Jill told him gently two weeks after the hospital. "You are trying to control the universe. It won't work."
He looked at her, exhaustion evident in his face and eyes.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, trying, and failing, not to be annoyed.
"You are worried about things you can't control. My life is not in your hands."
He looked at her, his red-rimmed eyes like a lost little boy.
"Look, I'm just trying to minimize the risks."
"Seth," she said, "life is not what you think. It's not what you think at all. You and I don't control anything. We can either submit completely to the One who does, trusting that He knows best and loves us. Or we can engage in a hopeless and purposeless battle that cannot be won unless we surrender."
"I don't know what that means." It was almost, but not quite, a plaintive whine.
"It's like Jacob wrestling with God. He was losing as long as he continued to struggle. It was only when he gave up the fight and asked for a blessing that he began to understand. And then the Lord graciously gave him a limp for the rest of his life as a reminder of how things really work."
"Bible stuff again," he said. "You know I don't get it. You know I don't get how you can believe it."
She sighed. For a smart man he was incredibly thick.
"Seth, you are holding onto the wrong things. You are striving against forces over which you cannot prevail; like a solitary man trying to hold his ground against a tidal wave. It's not possible. It's not even sensible."
"I get the tidal wave bit," he said. "I do. I'm just trying to get away from the shore."
"But I like the shore," she said with a smile. "Some of the best times, the times most worth living are right on the beach. Despite the dangers. Maybe even because of them."
"So what are you saying? Just give up and let you die without a fight?"
There was a fierce anger just underneath his voice. Anger at her for being mortal. Anger at himself for being so dependent and weak. Anger at life itself.
"It's not up to you, Seth. It's not up to me either. And I'm not saying 'give up and die'. I'm saying give up and live!"
"I don't know what that means!"
She growled.
"You are blind to how gracious God has been to us. To you. You are so afraid of things getting worse that you have no clue how good they have been! How many families out there in the world suffer loss every day! How many moms and dads weep over the graves of their children? How many watch as loved ones go through unmitigated agony helpless to do anything? I love you, Seth but you are an incredible idiot!"
"I don't care about all that other stuff. It doesn't mean anything to me. They're just words!"
"Bingo!" she said, an expression of equal parts of love, pity and exasperation. "And until they're more than that, your life is going to be a living Hell!"
"I'll try," he said to mollify her, to keep her calm so her brain wouldn't die.
