Becoming One with Another

The Bible says that when a man marries a woman, the two become one (Genesis 2:24). I have been blessed to be one with a woman who completes me, and who makes me far more than I am by myself. When I’m away from home, as I am now, I therefore feel that I am less than one. When I was away on a trip a couple years ago, I woke in the wee hours of the morning and wrote the following poem. It expresses what I’m feeling now, as I look forward to returning home after a week away:

Away from Home

Away from home, I am half myself;
For the better half of me lies home waiting.
She is my smile, my crown, my shelter, and my life.
Apart from her, I live a half-life—
Like a shade passing nameless through the world of men.
Away from home, I am half myself;
For the better half of me lies home waiting.

Away from home, I am less than half myself—
The missing piece in a picturesque puzzle.
Apart from my children, I am an irregular shape,
All angled edges and twisted sides.
Only when joined with each of them does my life take shape.
Only when joined with all of them is the picture of my life complete.
Away from home, I am less than half myself—
The missing piece in a picturesque puzzle.

Away from home, I am a fraction of a fraction.
Numbers unevenly divided, I am the remainder which does not fit.
Apart from those I love, I am incomplete—
A sentence fragment with nothing much to say.
Apart from those I love, I am a stranger to myself:
A nameless figure passing through an uneventful history.
How I long to be home again, where every problem has a solution,
every sentence has a meaning, and my life has a purpose.

Away from home, I am half myself…
Less than half…
A fraction of a fraction.