Reflections on a Life Well Blessed

Fifty years ago today – August 10, 1973 – was no doubt one of the best days of my life. It was a Friday evening, and at Central Christian Church in St. Petersburg, Florida, with Curt Hess officiating, Vicki and I said “I do.” Vicki found some vows in a wedding magazine that she liked and showed them to me. I liked them, as well. We actually memorized them and said them to each other during the ceremony. Curt Hess may have been the only person more amazed than I was that we made it through that tension. But we did. Perhaps that was a sign of things to come.

One of the things that has amazed me, since her death, is the number of people – especially Point students, current and former – who have told me how much they respected our marriage. I never thought we had a perfect marriage, nor even a marriage people might notice – but apparently, we did! While we were different in lots of ways, one common ingredient in our makeup was the fact that if we made a promise, we would keep it. That was just as true in our vows spoken way back in 1973 as it was any place in our marriage. 

Fast forward two weeks from today, and it will be August 24, 2023. On that day two years ago, after 48 years and two weeks of being husband and wife, Vicki lost a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. Vicki had come home in time for her birthday a few weeks prior, but on our 48th anniversary, she had to return to the hospital. A few days later, a very kind palliative care doctor helped Vicki, our two girls, and me see that we were at the end of this battle. In classic Vicki form, her reply was, “Can I go home?” And she did. Somewhere around 6:45 p.m., two weeks after our anniversary, she took her last breath.

That was, and will remain, the worst day of my life.

I’ve written on this blog multiple times about the idea of death and grief. I’ve received numerous notes, emails, text messages, and responses to the blog on Facebook about how much my transparency about grief is appreciated. If you know me at all, you know that I’m not writing because I can’t wait to tell you “the inside scoop” about my life. You likely don’t know anyone more private than I am. But I am breaking my natural inclinations and writing about this because of my deeply held conviction that often, we who follow Jesus have treated death in ways that are more similar to our culture than to anything we read in Scripture. 

More than a few of my great friends from my college days at Atlanta Christian College have celebrated or are about to celebrate 50th wedding anniversaries. That won’t happen for me. I celebrate this incredible milestone with our college friends, but would be less than honest if I said that I’m not jealous at all! 

Since Vicki left us, I’ve heard all kinds of nonsense about death and grief. “Everyone has a time to go” may be among the worst. If that’s true, then I want God to explain why, especially the last three or four weeks of her life, He allowed Vicki to suffer with such pain. If that’s true, why did we even bother going to the doctor, doing all kinds of chemotherapy and radiation, suffering side effects of medicines that messed up her vision and made walking very painful, and a dozen or so other issues I won’t describe? I’m confident we weren’t born with a pre-planned expiration date stamped on the muscles of our heart so it would know when to stop beating. Our culture says that all the time, but I can’t find the Bible saying that even once. 

There seems to be a lot of a “get on with life” sentiment. Vicki died on a Tuesday evening, we had a graveside service on Saturday (the Delta variant of Covid was raging, so we decided to wait on a more formal funeral), and classes at Point began on Monday. I was in class that day. Not because I couldn’t wait to get to class, but because I was confident Vicki would say, “Go to class.” So, I think I have a pretty good story when it comes to “getting on with life.” But I haven’t once been so callous (and I think non-Scriptural) to pretend as though this tragedy didn’t happen. And, in case you’re wondering, I have no plans for such “fake faith.”

Listen carefully. I don’t walk into my house each night and dissolve into a puddle of tears. But I don’t like the fact that my house is empty, way too quiet, and I have no one to argue with about the thermostat’s setting! My family and I have celebrated important days like Thanksgiving and Christmas with a good degree of joy, but an obvious awareness of who isn’t present. We have been to the beach – our favorite place – and enjoyed the magnificence of the Gulf of Mexico, while remembering the absence of one we deeply loved. I go to church every Sunday, most often sitting by myself, but in front of two very good, life-long friends, and I am grateful to God for the privilege of worship as I think about who isn’t sitting beside me. I sucked up my courage and went to the Point University Christmas concert last December – I don’t think I ever went to one of those without Vicki. This list could go on and on. All I’m saying is that I am getting on with life, but that hardly means I am pretending this didn’t happen.

The “she’s in a better place” comments also don’t comfort me a whole lot. I am grateful that my faith says she is in that great cloud of witnesses cheering me and our children onward. I am grateful that she is around the wedding feast of the Lamb. In significant ways, when I take that loaf and drink that cup around the Lord’s Table, I believe she and I are communing together in anticipation of that day when the Lord shall reappear in glory, heaven and earth will be restored to their creation-intended purposes, and we will be reunited in eternity. I am grateful that this damnable disease called pancreatic cancer has been eliminated from her body and she suffers no more. I get the idea of “a better place.”

But . . . I would really prefer that she were lying on the right side of our bed tomorrow morning when I wake up and I could reach over and gently kiss her on the forehead and say “good morning.” I would have preferred that she was at the beach with me last week, making sure that the shells I picked up to put in clear jars out in the Florida room were in good condition – not broken. I would prefer that she could be at a nice dinner party tonight as we celebrate 50 years together. Wow, this list is unending, but I hope you get the point!

I don’t think that means I don’t have the right kind of faith. For crying out loud, God made humans to live in community. One of the expressions of that idea – not the only one, but certainly one – is marriage. He gave me a great partner in that form of community, and together we raised two incredible daughters who, along with me, are willing to celebrate the victory of our faith, but unafraid to say, “we wish Mom were here right now!”

For what seemed like an eternity, Vicki had hospice care in our home. I can’t say enough good things about the people at Sacred Journey, who provided that care. But we kept watch over Vicki night and day. We took turns sleeping in shifts so we could make sure the pain medicines were keeping the awful pain of pancreatic cancer at some degree of manageability. I remember my heart being ripped into shreds as she valiantly fought. One of the hospice nurses said to us one day, “I can’t believe her heart is still strong enough to beat in light of all that is going on inside of her.” I responded, “She has a really strong heart; she has lived with me for 48 years!”

The last thing Vicki said to me that was clear and intentional was a response to something I said. I don’t remember what I’d said, but it was one of my commonly made nonsense comments, knowing I would get a response out of her.

I did. She said, “Are you deliberately trying to annoy me?” I knew then, and know now, that in that very moment, despite intense pain, powerful medicines, and facing the end of life, she and I were as connected then as we were way back 50 years ago when we said to each other, “I do.”

Vicki faithfully stood by me in ministry as an authentic partner, not a fawning admirer. She put up with nonsense from others – especially church people, sometimes – that should have been directed at me, but she was the easier target. She never once complained about being “a preacher’s wife,” but was pretty clear, as I took the full-time preaching role for a while, “I’m not the typical preacher’s wife.” She wasn’t. That’s a part of why I married her and why I loved her beyond my ability to use words to describe.

Tonight my family and I planned a visit to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, one of Vicki’s favorite places, to walk around the gardens and have a wonderful dinner in the restaurant there. There will be an empty seat at our table. I refuse to pretend as though there isn’t. I can tear up at the drop of a hat when it comes to Vicki – and we will likely do a bit of that tonight. But we will also laugh some – Vicki made our lives so happy, it is hard not to remember and laugh together as we think about what she might say about something we might see at the Gardens.

Eternity is much bigger than our human measurements of time. Remember Psalm 90 – “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” But also,remember the “a day is like a thousand years” thing. And then the “seventy, or maybe eighty years” for humans on earth. (Which, by the way, is not intended to be an expiration date!) So I’m not saying “happy anniversary in heaven,” but I am praying that somehow, in God’s great and mysterious way, that crowd of witnesses of which Vicki is a part is aware that we are “moving on with life,” despite some deep sadness.

I think that’s how the Bible would want us to think. 

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