Anniversary Imminent

About this time a year ago, I took Lois to the emergency room for the last time. Visits to the e-r had been a regular thing as her health weakened. Lung cancer just sucks the very life out of you. We had just returned from New Jersey where she attended the funeral of her stepfather Ed. Although she didn't say so, I think she mainly wanted to say goodbye to her mother Elsie. And Elsie knew that too. The trip was physically difficult for Lois. I drove the 18 hours from Nashville to Whiting, New Jersey in two days, stopping in Roanoke for the night. I took out the rear seats in the mini-van and got an inflatable mattress so she'd be comfortable. She slept a lot. The morphine made her pretty groggy. One of my most poignant memories of Lois was when we were on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading toward New Jersey. I held her hand as she dozed. She roused up a little and I said, “I wonder if I held your hand tightly enough, maybe God wouldn't take you from me.”

She looked over at me with her beautiful – but tired -- blue eyes and said, “Sometimes you just have to let go.”

And that's what I've been doing the past 11 months. And “letting go” may not look like some people expect it to look. I'm wearing my wedding ring again. And wearing her wedding ring on a chain around my neck. I'm not so much holding on to the past but I'm celebrating her presence in my life. You know how she was: Beautiful. Sassy. Passionate. Opinionated. Loving. And a true Proverbs 31 woman. As I wrote in her obituary, “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

I'm not wandering around in a depressed haze. I'm living life. Thanking God each morning for a bright new day, a day full of possibilities, a day to honor Him. Some days I do a better job than others. You will recall that I ain't no holy joe. I like my earthy references. I like women. But I try my best each morning to prepare myself. I call it my spiritual breakfast.

After I got her home and into home hospice care, I went back to work. But it wasn't easy. I remember driving home on the Interstate, my eyes filling up with tears, knowing that at any time she would be gone. Forever. Sometimes I'd let myself wander down those dark tunnels of the mind. I'd stop myself, blink away the tears and say out loud, “Come back! Get here! Just keep the car between the white lines.”

And that has become my mantra. Stay in the present. Keep the car between the white lines. God lives in the present. And if I want to hear His voice, I need to be present.

As my friend Agnes in Germany says at the end of her e-mails: “Hoping that you enjoy life and that there is always sun in your heart."