Today, January 21, 2016, marks ten years since my dear wife, Bobbie (Barbara), passed away. You ask: “how could it be 10 years?” You may remember the story of that day. She had suffered the previous six months with the cancer and was not very responsive. The whole family had been here, but now it was just our three kids, Julie, Jim and Jena. The rest had gone home to wait the inevitable. I wondered if Bobbie would respond to our song, Since I Met You Baby, My Whole Life Has Changed, by Ivory Joe Hunter. Around noon, we put the song on, loud enough for her to hear. I went in the bedroom to be with her and talk to her. While she did not speak with her voice, she did with her eyes. I told her I loved her and she told me she loved me with her eyes. I then told her it was okay to go be with Jesus; she had suffered enough. Then just as the song ended, she let go of life and was gone. That was the saddest moment of my life. However, the events that followed showed me she was in Heaven with our Jesus and God. I had a great piece knowing that. I cannot hold back the tears as I relive this moment. I had accepted Christ only five months before that day and I do know how I would have survived without God and the love He showed me during that time.
However, while the sadness of the separation from her is always present, the grief is gone and I have a lot of joy remembering the times we had together, 49 years with nearly 48 years in marriage. Who could ask for more? We really should have not been together: The Bible says a Christian, like Bobbie, should have not been around me, a non-believer, and why would I want to be with someone as narrow-minded as this Christian girl? It was because of the love; it came from God. I truly believe God put us together in 1956 and gave each of us His kind of God strong love we had for each other.
If I had only one word to describe humans, it would be “relationships”. Practically everything we do involves a relationship with someone. There are all kind of relationships, but love is one of the most important. And love of our spouse and family is the most important of all. But it also brings the greatest sadness we experience. And that is when we are separated from our loved ones. I remember as a kid when we had visited my grandparents and the deeply sad feeling I had when we left. I experience it again last Christmas. Jena, her husband, Troy, T.A. my grandson and his girlfriend, Lindsay, had spent Christmas at my place. But when they left and went back to Boerne, I that immensely sad feeling from separation and it lasted much of the day even though they were only 12 miles away. This terrible feeling, we have from separation must be the feeling we would have if we are not in Christ and are separated from God at the end-of-time.
Today, I really have more joy than sadness and that is remembering the good times we had. Bobbie and I had so many days of joy. Good times, we did have with a lot of laughter, almost every day. I use to delight in making her laugh. However, I admit she would laugh at almost anything I did. Often the laughter would be due to some silly thing that happened in an intimate moment. We would then realize that we could not tell anyone about it. Our life together was an adventure. We were always doing something out of the ordinary. We were married on Valentine’s day, only six weeks after being back together following a six month separation. There was our start with me as a private in the Army in El Paso, me finishing my EE degree, the move to Baltimore to work at Westinghouse, the coming back to Texas for the job at TI, the first sports car, the sailboats, the new house and swimming pool, the year in San Antonio building houses, the move back to Dallas, self-employed writing software, the job at Honeywell, trips to Hawaii and Mexico, the early retirement, traveling around Texas, living in our motor home and then building our own home in Boerne with our two hands. But more important than all of that is our three great kids who were part of the adventure. And of course Bobbie had her church work, teaching the two-year-olds Sunday School class and I had my engineering work. How special it is to have a good time with someone you love. I don’t know which was better: me loving Bobbie or her loving me back.
I wonder if the past ten years have been part of God’s plan. I know He did not take Bobbie from me, but I believe He could have prevented her death. However, if Bobbie were still here I would not have written any books and there are at least a few people who might not be in Christ now. Did God know this would be the case? And then I wonder what the next years will be like. I am 78 now and wonder how many years I have left?
While I have a great amount of joy in my life today, I still miss Bobbie. I know I will be with her again someday and fantasize what that reunion will be like. What will it be like to be in Heaven and hold her again? I know that joy will make everything else here pale in comparison.
Have a blessed day,
Shaun
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