One Last Farewell

John & JoMae
August 29, 1959

One Last Farewell

One last farewell to the life I used to know. To a life rich in fond memories of fifty seven years of being one with John. Sixty years ago today was our wedding day. And this is my small celebration of thanksgiving for that day and all the glad years of companionship we shared. 

There are many chapters in a long life. Some we choose and some we don’t. Some we can prepare for and some take us by surprise. Some are a delight and some are simply dreadful to adjust to.  Some are deep wounds that take a long long time to heal - and even then will ache from time to time. 

Widowhood is a wound like that - disorienting every ounce of one’s being. Finding our way in its foreign world can take a long time.  Yet after almost three years on my own following so many as half of a whole, I can attest that in Godde’s Grace good gifts are waiting to be unwrapped even in this chapter. 

Sometimes they hide a while, but always have just been waiting to be found. This I have learned so far - with many lessons still ahead, I’m sure.  So on this day of looking back at many joys and blessings with a grateful heart, I can share that I’ve learned to trust - one step at a time - that new gifts will continue to unfold. In that knowledge, even when the well seems empty, I can greet each morning wondering what insights and smiles the day will bring.  Thanks be to Godde.

JoMae

8/29/19

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It’s interesting that this piece sort of asked to be written following a bright summer shadowed by a kind of melancholy woven into the many lovely days. I knew this summer would have been our 60th and somehow that haunted me a lot.  Until a week or so before the anniversay, it lifted.  I think I simply got sick of myself wallowing in what couldn’t be. Tired of the inner conversations I had about it, I just closed the chapter one day. I’d had enough of me.  And with joy began a new page.