July 4th, 2016 was the day that forever changed my life and the life of my kids and grandkids. Its now been 9 years since we lost the leader of our home. There will always be a huge hole in our hearts and lives where we always miss him. Our normal has never returned like it used to be back in the days when he was here.
Mike was such a special guy to so many people and his legacy lives on through our children, friends, and his students. He is always missed and I still feel like our old friends always miss him when they see me. We were such a good team together, and it was fun to share life with him.
When he saw that his cancer was likely going to take him away, he openly told our kids and me that he wanted me to remarry when he was gone. I neither wanted to hear him talk about dying or about me being with anyone else but him.
But, after he was gone, and as the years wore on, those conversations would reenter my mind, and I gradually became open to the possibility of remarriage if I could ever feel that God arranged it for me.
In the beginning of 2022, I gave my family my book about our 44 years of marriage together. This memoir, Counting Down Our Days, was my last big, final attempt of a tribute to Mike and the wonderful years that we had shared.
I also felt like writing the book had helped toward my healing from grief and loss, enough to look forward to living life in the future. But, I still had no idea what that future would be, and continued to pray about the uncertainty of it all. However, I’ve always believed that God holds me and my future securely. He held it then and He still holds it now.
All of my kids and grandkids came to be with me on July 4th, 2022. All 17 of us had such a great time together! But, I knew that when they all left, the house always seemed so terribly quiet. Unbearably quiet.
No one knows the pain or life of a widow, until they become one.
I always tried to keep busy and to plan extra things to do. But this particular time after they left, the loneliness really seemed to hit hard. I felt so alone. It had been over 6 years of living a solitary, lonely, life as a widow.
I had prayed to be at peace with being alone if that was God’s will for me. But, I had also prayed that if God wanted me to remarry, He would send that person to me. I started to tell God the kind of man that I thought I would like!
I asked God to please let him have a sense of humor and to love serving God! I wanted someone who would understand the loss and grief that will always be a part of me and my family. I also wanted someone who would value all my years of being married and in love with Mike that had helped shape me into who I am now.
One evening as I sat thinking about it all, I felt like I should try trusting God with something that I really didn’t want to do! Most of my widow friends had tried online dating, and I had adamantly said that it wasn’t something I wanted to do! But, as I sat there alone that night, I started feeling like maybe I should give it a try!
So, on July 15th, 2022, I signed up online. I didn’t tell a soul until I met one of my widow friends for dinner when I had been online for only 4 days! I also told her that I was dismayed to see so many “scumbags” on there and that it didn’t look very hopeful at all!
But, when I went home that night, I saw a new guy’s picture and read his words telling about himself. I immediately thought, “I think I would really like to meet that guy!” It also helped that I liked his smiling face, and that he was holding onto a red fire truck!
Then I saw that he had liked my introduction on my profile. I had decided that if I was going to be online, I was going to really share my testimony about my love for God, my many years of a happy marriage, my grief and loss, and my hesitation about even being online!
That night he sent me a text asking to meet me, and the rest is history.
I met Bobby Lipscomb on July 22, and we had so much in common. He also had been happily married for 44 years, and was a strong Christian man who had ministered to college students for over 35 years.
So, Bobby and I decided to be married in October of 2022. We both felt that God brought us together and had been so faithful to hold both of us in our grief and loss during our years of being alone. I had been alone for 6 years after losing my Mike to pancreatic cancer. Bobby was alone for 4 years after losing his Debbie to brain cancer.
Every year I receive an email from a dear friend of ours who lives in London. Mike and Peter enjoyed working together even though they were many miles apart. He always remembers to write me on the 4th of July and Christmas.
In 2022 after Bobby and I were married, Peter wrote his wish “that Bobby and I were having a wonderful new life together, with the love and support of our wider families.”
But, he also went on to say “that God never promised that our life would be easy and that change is always more difficult for others to accommodate.”
He expected that we likely had been having our challenges. He was so correct.
But, he didn’t stop there. What he wrote next brought tears to my eyes. It was so true. “What is absolutely certain is that Mike would have supported you in every way and that he continues to do so.”
I have always believed that, too. And I am grateful. I have been so blessed in my life to have two wonderful men to love me.
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