The Man I Marry After You Die
The
afternoon turned into evening, we had to leave early the next morning for
the long drive to Kentucky, and I still didn't have a
pastor for the wedding. Then
Kristin came downstairs. She had written out the vow that she was going to say to me
at the wedding and wanted me to hear it, so I did. Her vow was
beautiful and Biblical but very long and detailed.
As she continued to read her vow, I was reminded of the adamant reminders of the owner of the bed and breakfast that we had to be in and out of the wedding area within one hour because the next couple will be waiting on deck, and thought that Kristin's vow may need to be shortened to meet the time requirement. So when Kristin finished reading it, I said to her, "That's good, but I may need to shorten it." I could and should have been more congratulatory, encouraging, said "It may need to be shortened" instead of "I may need to shorten it," and reminded her that we only had a one-hour window. But I was under time pressure to find a pastor, as well as to write out his message, hadn't even started to write out my own vow, and failed to say those things.
Upon hearing that her vow may need to be shortened, Kristin's eyes narrowed in anger, and she said something that made time stop for me:
"I hope at least the man I marry after you die will be someone that I like."
Upon hearing these words, I thought I saw the flashed vision of a sword slicing through my heart from its upper left to lower right. I felt physical pain and let out a gasp.
I sat in stunned silence, in disbelief, and slowly repeated to myself what she had said, word by word - "I hope ... at least ... the man I marry ... after you die ... will be someone that I like," instinctively trying to find a way to deny that it meant what it meant, but failed.
Kristin sat in silence as well, but the way she stared at me conveyed that she was hurt and angry at me for saying that her vow may need to be shortened; her stare conveyed no regret, let alone remorse, over what she had just said to me.
I stood up, quietly told her I need to get some air, walked out the door and to our car, and sat in it for over an hour as my mind raced.
When the protector alter surfaced once in a while to lash out at me, it had hurt emotionally but this was different. I didn't know spoken words could cause physical pain, let alone one like this, and these words had come from the woman whom I loved more than myself and was about to marry. Profound sadness washed over me and any sense of anger that I may have felt, but I needed to make sense of what had just happened, so I tried to push back my emotions to make room for me to think.
There were three possibilities as to the identity of the speaker of the words, "I hope at least the man I marry after you die will be someone that I like," but the same repercussion.
One, it could have been a demon, in which case she isn't fully delivered, so we can't marry yet. Two, it could have been an alter, perhaps the protector alter or another alter who doesn't like me, in which case she isn't yet fully integrated, so we can't marry yet. Three, it could have been the main person of Kristin, in which case she doesn't even like me, so we can't marry.
Also, if she had simply cussed at me, I could interpret it as an outburst of anger at what she perceived as my rejection of the beautiful words she had written. But "I hope at least the man I marry after you die will be someone that I like" was too thought out to be a spur of the moment burst of negative emotion. It sounded more like the offloading of something she had been feeling for some time: she was already looking forward to marrying another man after I, who is 24 years older than her, die, in which case she would be better off marrying someone else - a younger man - instead of me now so that she can have one long marriage instead of two shorter ones. Her words could even be interpreted as a veiled death threat.
Irrespective of who had spoken her words, one thing was clear. I had prayed to the Lord to intervene before the wedding if her claim that she has been fully delivered and integrated wasn't true. He had intervened in painfully clear terms.
When I opened the door and re-entered the apartment, Kristin was pacing near the entrance. I thought she would fall on her knees, burst into tears and beg for forgiveness, but she said nothing. I guess I could have sat her down and explained the three possibilities above, but I didn't have the emotional energy for it. So I just quietly said to her, "We need to postpone the wedding," and told her to go and sleep as we weren't going anywhere tomorrow. She said nothing in response and walked upstairs. I called the bed and breakfast, apologized profusely and canceled our wedding booking, and then lay down, but felt broken and couldn't sleep.