Today my altared space is the character Rosa Lee (played by Tess Harper) from the film Tender Mercies. I’m taken with her solid jacket and sturdy boots. She makes things plain and tells the truth even if the truth feels as nebulous as trying to get sure footing standing on a cloud. “I don’t know,” she says in response to her son’s questions about how her first husband died or when her second husband might return home.
Her courage is simple and uncomplicated. Few words escape her mouth but her presence is steady and vast as the fields that surround her home.
The scene that means the most to me in this film is after Mac leaves, distraught over news of his song and intent on demolishing his newfound sobriety. He finally comes home and says, “I’m not drunk. I bought a bottle but I poured it out.”
I don’t know what goes on inside of Rosa Lee in that moment but I wish I could package it up and put it on the shelf in my cupboard for moments in my life when I need some of what she’s got. She’d been waiting for him, staring out the window, until she finally gave in and went to bed.
In the next moment when everyone would think she was justified to scream and shout and holler, she asks Mac if he’s hungry. “I don’t know,” he says.
“Well, have you eaten?” she asks.
“No.”
And so she gets up out of bed and fixes him some soup. She tells him about the young boys who came by earlier in the day and how she asked them to teach her Mac’s song so she could sing it when he came home. She tells Mac that they liked his song. He softens.
Kindness and love can sometimes be expensive. I want to think of gentleness as something that pours easily, but I think that’s the point of mercy. There has been pain, and rather than return the pain with hurt and attack, the gift is to offer a bowl of soup and a story of hope.
Rosa Lee had been abandoned and not even because she had been mean, simply because she was married to a wounded man. She was raw. A few moments later when Mac sits on the bed and asks her to sing the song with him she can no longer hold back her tears. He takes her in his arms and she says, “You just left. You just left.”
I’m profoundly grabbed by the Grace of a woman who could be hurting so and still reach out the moment of his return to know he was hurting too. She tended to his wound first with tender mercy. Only then did she let her tears fall.
I watched a similar story unfold in my own life. My mother and step father were both wounded people. Both had been abandoned by their spouses in previous marriages. Two people left like damaged goods trying to find their way in a new love.
Obviously there was history I never knew. There was a tortured past that probably didn’t involve Mac’s bottle, but one that left shards of broken glass in its wake all the same.
It was barren feeling for a long time, much like the landscape in Tender Mercies. No matter how mutual the contributions are that lead to a divorce, when one person feels they’ve been abandoned it’s difficult to shake off that rejection; that emptiness. I lived in that house where two empty people came together trying to find their way out of loneliness. There were chasms of silence to bridge.
This is why I know about tender mercies and that love does indeed heal all. It took many years, and it wasn’t always pretty. I saw more backs turned than hugs extended. But I can think of times like the soup moment when both of them reached out, in spite of their personal pain, to comfort the other.
Long after I left their home I met my mother and her husband at the recreation center where she liked to swim. They arrived before me and as I walked to catch up I heard a little girl say, “There’s the hand-holders, Mom.” My breath caught in my throat.
My mother and step-father were known by their love; by this tender display of affection.
I do not want to romanticize my mother, as is the temptation after someone dies. As I said, growing up in their home was, at times, barren because they both felt empty and dejected. I simply find hope in the idea that, because they continued to love one another, there was growth in that barren land. Love bloomed in that soil where it was fertilized with tender mercy.
What tender mercies have sprouted in your barren landscape? Or do you live in the rain forest where love is lush and ample?
About the photo: this is the view from my porch where we eat dinner in the summer. Who can say why the clouds this particular day make me think of mercy? Because of the break from the heat? Because they look so tender and calm? I don’t know the answer to these things. Do you have a picture of mercy to send to me? I’m curious how mercy photographs at your house.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
What beautiful writing. And, such hope!
What a great story, Rebecca. What an interesting mix of emotions are wrapped up into relationships and love. I think I’ve been lucky to grow up in the lush rain forest, though sometimes I need to hear about someone else’s barren landscape to remember and give thanks for that.
I’ve been lucky to live in rainforests, rather than barren landscapes. I like best the image of your mother and stepfather holding hands, despite the years of hurt before they knew each other and after they were together. There’s something so symbolic there … If you just reach out and hold on tight, the ride will be smoother, even when it’s rough.
This is freaking gorgeous. I love it. Everything.
What a wonderfully uplifting story. Initial romantic love can be all consuming but also a fire that burns out over time and then sometimes what is left is not enough. I think a love such as your mother and step-father had is a great love, one that strengthened and grew over time and one they eventually became comfortable sharing with the rest of the world.