Still, all the analysis and restructuring in the world might not get you what you want, including a satisfying answer to the why question. I mean, you might come to understand what has wrought the four Bostons full of single women. You may grow to understand why it would have been a total disaster for you to end up with Dave or Eddie or whomever. You might even discover that your singleness has nothing to do with your relative greatness or lack thereof. But you still might not know why you are single or why your best friend or younger sister isn't living in the "four Bostons" with you. You might understand that the world is fallen and often unfair, but that's still not the kind of answer that warms you on a lonely Saturday night. And if in your heart of hearts you still yearn to be married or have a family, this hard mystery lives, eats, and sleeps with you.
A few years ago, I was in Vancouver, Canada, for a work-related conference. I took the occasion to spend one free evening with an older Scottish couple, Jim and Rita Houston, with whom I had lived while in graduate school. Though we hadn't kept up since then, I always had a warm spot in my heart for them, built on fond memories of Sunday afternoon family lunches (five students lived with the Houstons at the time), games of Scrabble in front of the fire, and incisive comments from each of them. Mrs. Houston was a practical, matter-of-fact woman: "Dearie, it's better to be single and wish you were married than to be married and wish you were single!" She had a good point. Dr. Houston, who looked like a clean-cut, twinkly-eyed Santa Claus, was a professor of spiritual theology at the college. His words: "As you grow, you will discover that your personhood is more important than your personality." I always nodded with a twenty-three-year-old's faith that one day I'd actually know what he was talking about.
Thirteen years later, I was once again in their home, eating Scottish food and playing Scrabble. During the evening, we chatted about my work, mutual friends, our families, and the direction that the college was going. To my surprise and perhaps relief, nobody mentioned my marital status, and the conversation remained pleasant and easy. Then, at a reasonable hour (the Houstons were now both in their mid to upper seventies), Dr. Houston suggested he drive me back to my hotel. Mrs. Houston and I bid each other good-bye.
I can't remember what we were discussing at the moment, but as we moved through the numbered streets, Dr. Houston quietly spoke. "You've suffered much being single." I couldn't tell if he was asking me or telling me. "Um, well, um, well … I …" I stammered like a person who'd just gotten a wave of indigestion. In fact, that word suffered had hit something in my guts. "I am sorry," he said in the silence.
It was strange, his use of the word suffer. It seemed a bit dramatic. I mean, isn't suffering when you have a horrible disease, lose a family member in a car wreck, or starve in a famine? Isn't that what it is to really suffer? I decided to shake it off. More silence. Then he continued. "Your mother, too; she has suffered in your singleness." Now he was getting in my business. I watched the storefronts and their neon signs whiz by in a blur as we drove through downtown Vancouver; I was ready to be at the hotel. I tightened my stomach, trying to muffle the chord his words had struck.
"Well, yeah, I think it was really hard on her at first, because it messed up her vision of her daughter's ideal life. And then I think her sadness switched to just being disappointed on my behalf, you know, like any mom would be sad to see her daughter's desires go unmet." And then I quickly added—as if to say, But let's not get all grim about this; you know there is a silver lining in the cloud—"But I think it has made me appreciate my parents more and grow closer to them than I otherwise would have."
