Rituals that Form Us

He was about to leave. He did his Sunday morning four-point check: keys, glasses, sermon, vestments. Then he walked toward me but stopped short. “Oh yeah. I can’t kiss you. You’re sick.”

“Yep. Sorry.” We stood there for the blink of a moment, facing each other, the disappointment that we could not close the gap and join lips evident on both of our faces. “Good luck this morning,” I said.

After the front door shut and the house stilled, I realized something; I’m part of his checklist—a kiss on the lips before he heads out the door. 

The ritual of giving your partner a goodbye kiss is as common as a morning cup of coffee. Yet it took this break in the ritual for me to see it: My husband and I kiss goodbye. We have rituals. Of course we do. After twenty-plus years together, these rituals have naturally developed—habitual, unspoken, unacknowledged, but there. 

Now, he’s giving a sermon in the Protestant church three hundred meters from our house. Now, I’m in my home office, dog snoring gently on her cushion behind me. While my fellow churchgoers sing hymns, I blow my nose and think about that kiss that didn’t happen. While my husband gives a sermon, I contemplate our rituals that have formed over time, organically, in patterns as steady as the drips that form stalagmites and stalactites in underground caves. Our rituals are the micro moments over a lifetime, water laden with calcium carbonate, mud, peat, sand, and other materials that form the stalagmites and stalactites of our love, bringing us closer together, one formative drip at a time. 

Oh, how this thought warms me. Oh, how this sappy analogy would make my husband gag. And still, even with our differences in personality and outlook, we grow closer together every single day. And these rituals? They’re an important part of that.

A few weeks ago while in church, I witnessed a sacred, heartbreaking moment between an elderly couple in the row of chairs in front of me. Her health has been waning over the past year. She’s as mentally sharp as ever, but as someone living with Parkinson’s, she’s not very stable on her feet anymore. That morning, she seemed to drift off into her thoughts, as if somewhere else. Although just about anyone can drift off during a church service, this was something else—something her husband was acutely attuned to: She was not well. He angled toward her, his blue eyes filled with concern as he studied her expression, her posture. Finally, she “returned,” and moved her head in his direction. He patted her hand and they smiled at each other.

I looked away, fighting back a sudden press of tears. I had just witnessed a moment. Not a ritual, but the kind of love and understanding that comes with years of living with another person; knowing their body language, their expressions, their energy, through sickness and health.

My ego tells me that my husband and I are the type of couple that will stand the test of time. I believe this with all my heart. Yet, have I been paying attention to the details? What does it say about me that I didn’t realize we’re the type of couple to kiss goodbye? Did I know that? Of course I did. But was I consciously aware? Not really. But now I know. And I plan to pay more attention to these little moments of love.

My husband is back from church. The Sunday concert has started in the park next to our house, just as it does every week through the summer months and into early October—as sure as rain in the Netherlands. And that certainly is also something not to take for granted. Those concerts rely on the actions of many people, from the guy that opens up the park and sets up the stage and soundboard, the musicians that come from far and near to play, to the audience who shows up week after week to say “yeah, this is important to us.”

This Sunday, I am apparently looking at the world around me through the soft, contemplative lens of a romantic with a head cold. And I’m thankful for it.