While you were sleeping, I watched you.
Breathe in and out, as the rest of your body came to stillness. That boundless energy to joke, laugh and carry me around the house for fun, that sacrificial servanthood attitude displayed in cleaning the floor and doing the laundry and placing hooks on the walls for me so we could complete our living room decor… Suddenly it all came to a full-stop, just a rhythmic ebb and flow of your breaths, right after we hung the last photo on the wall that we had designed together.
And at once I was amazed at this restoring process that gave you life to do everything else, to give all you have and to be who you are.
While you were sleeping I realized it was all that you did for me, for us, for this new home we had, that made you give all you had like you do for everyone all the time, that made you need to lie down for some shut-eye in the mid-morning of a lazy Sunday before church. Suddenly you were tired, my incredible Iron-man who overcame cancer and distance and all the odds in the world needed to close his eyes for a little nap, if only for a moment. Suddenly, you became vulnerable. Just like you are in my arms before you sleep at night, just like I am in yours when I wake in the morning, with your arm around my waist.
And suddenly I felt a incredible wave of love over me, emanating from you. While you were sleeping.
The title of this post was partially inspired by this video, which was made by the same videographer who approached us to film “The Wonderful Story of Cliff and Wai Jia“. Today, he was featured on the papers for spreading his social movement, “While You Were Sleeping”.