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BIRTHDAY...August 9th
ANNIVERSARY June 29th

ANGEL DAY...AUGUST 6th


My husband, or as I have called him since his death,my "Sweet Endurer." Mine and Jim's life together started when I entered 9th grade at Seminole High School in Sanford, Florida. I was only 13 at that time.About the second day of school I realized that I was being followed around the halls by a cute boy. My friends told me that this boy was asking who I was. Eventually he introduced himself and we talked between classes.

When football season arrived he asked me to go to a game with him. I told him that I wasn't allowed to date yet. Too young. As fate would have it, or God's design, his mother knew my mother and the two of them agreed to chaperone the two of us. Now, how many teenage boys would have agreed to that? But he did, and we went and had a great time, and by the way, our mothers' stayed discreetly on the other side of the field. One thing that always stands out in my mind is the fact that Jim always treated me respectfully. A gentleman in other words.

We both grew up living on a lake, so boating and water skiing figured prominently in most of our weekend outings. He was an excellent water skier and I already had the edge on him with that because I had been doing that since I was ten years old.

When Jim first asked me to marry him I was only sixteen. Poor fella', I told him no, that I was still a kid, but maybe someday.God bless him, he waited for me. A few years later I did tell him yes. We were married June 29th, 1962.Our life together was blessed a few years later by the arrival of first a daughter, and then a son.

Jim worked hard in a family business and after the kids were in school I worked there part-time.

One day, while at work, Jim experienced numbness in both hands and one leg. After many tests and missed diagnoses the worst was confirmed. Jim had an aggressive form of Multiple Sclerosis. Jim was thirty five years old when diagnosed.



The following years were filled with many
changes, too numerous to go into, but doctors and hospitals became a large part of our life at that point. Jim became bedridden when he was forty eight and I became his caregiver for the next twenty years. The sweet endurer moniker I have given him was because that is exactly what he was. No complaints or whining, just concern for me and how he worried about how it had changed my life. I let him know he was my life, in sickness and in health.We would be okay with God's help. And we were.

The years passed, and I want to tell you about the last 9 weeks of Jim's life. Jim was in the hospital and aspirated, was put on a ventilator, at my request. He looked at me and almost said , without saying, help me. He had loved life and fought for every ounce of it since the diagnosis, so I had no qualms at giving him every chance he could have to overcome this last challenge.

Jim's last day was spent watching his favorite baseball team, the Braves, and I spent the whole day with him at the specialty hospital that he was in at the time. I stayed every day there with him and usually until early evening. This particular day I stayed a little later than usual and around 6:00 he mouthed the words, "go home and eat"...always looking out for me, that was him. I left after telling him I loved him and an hour after I arrived home the hospital called and told me to come back immediately, he had coded. I had prayed so hard on the way home that evening from the hospital, almost shouting at God to please take him if he wasn't going to get any better than this. God answered my plea. The whole family stayed with him until he left to go to a better place.

He gave it all he had to stay here, but on the 6th of August,2009, God blessed Jim by taking him to his heavenly home.
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Life is eternal, Love is immortal,
Death is only the horizon,
And the horizon is only limited by our sight!
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JIM"S BIRTHDAY...AUGUST 9th...
JIM'S ANGEL DAY...AUGUST 6th...
ANNIVERSARY...JUNE 29th
~*~I've always heard there is a land/ Beyond the mortal dreams of man/ Where every tear will be left behind/ But it must be in another time/ There'll be an everlasting light/ Shining a purest, holy white/ And every fear will be erased/ But it must be in another place/ So, I' m waiting for another time and another place/ Where all my hopes and dreams will be captured/ With one look at Jesus' face/ Sometimes, I can hardly wait/ For that sweet, sweet someday/ When I'll be swept away/ To another time and another place~*~"Exerpt from...Another Time, Another Place....Sandi Patti.......Heaven my sweet husband, where there are no more tears, no M.S., just joy and the love of the Savior.Walking tall on streets of gold. Missing you, as always, but I would not wish you back from that perfect place, where you are bathed in that everlasting light.........Loving you always,

Your favorite girl, still Me...
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"If you get there before I do,
Don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through,
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down,
Darling wait and see,
And between now and then,
Till I see you again,
I'll be loving you,
Love, Me."
...From the song "Love, Me" by Collin Raye
YouTube






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"THE OTHER SIDE OF GRIEF"

THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE OF GRIEF
WHERE THE TEARS STILL FLOW
NOT AS OFTEN

WHERE MEMORIES BRING SMILES
NOT JUST SADNESS

WHERE BLESSINGS ARE RECOGNIZED
NOT JUST STRUGGLES

WHERE JOY AND PEACE ARE PRESENT
NOT JUST SORROW

WHERE YOU ARE REMEMBERED
NOT JUST MOURNED

"The grieftoolbox.com"
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"GOING HOME"
Going home, going home
I'm just going home
Quiet like, some still day
I'm just going home

It's not far, just close by
Through an open door
Work all done, cares laid by
Going to fear no more

Momma's there expecting me
Papa's waiting too
Lots of folks gathered there
All the friends I knew
I'm going home

Nothing's lost, all's gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
Going to roam no more

Morning star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life begun, Real life just begun

There's no break, there's no end
Just a living on
Wide awake with a smile
Going on and on
I'm going home

I'm just going home
It's not far, just close by
Through an open door
I'm going home
I'm just going home
Going home, going home...

Hymn "Going Home" set to the music of Dvorak's symphony No. 9 in E minor...Words by William Arms Fisher...
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A special Thank You to Virginia Jones for adding
Jim on this site and then transferring him into my care.
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Special thanks to Liberty for sponsoring Jim.
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Hugs to Susie for the beautiful frames for Jim's pictures.

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And thanks to Carolyn Coots for the editing
she did on Jim's picture.
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