Proverbs 31:10-11
A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.
I have been asked to share the tribute I narrated at the memorial service for the best friend and sweetest wife a man could ever have. After sixty-six years, this will be the first Valentine’s Day without my precious Joyce — sixty-two of those as husband and wife.
MY TRIBUTE TO THE VITAL PART OF MY LIFE—MY WIFE!
After all of these years, how can I begin to explain the love I shared with Joyce? I began to discover the meaning of love when we were young and full of life. As near as I can recall, it was Sunday, August 22, 1948, in Nampa, Idaho, when I first saw Joyce. Sunday school class was about to start and, as usual, I was sitting next to my lifelong friend Jerry, when the door of that classroom opened and Joyce stepped in with her sister. She was wearing a white and yellow dress that just set off her pitch black hair. At that moment it seemed like my heart stopped beating. I turned to Jerry and said, “She’s the one!” I didn’t even know what that meant, but I knew that with one look she had stolen my heart.
A few weeks later there was a potluck dinner for several families who had moved from Camas, Washington, to Nampa. With my heart in my throat, I asked Joyce if she would like to go with me. I was sure that someone with her beauty would never have eyes for a clod like me. Amazingly, she said yes! I later learned that when we left the house that day, her mother commented, “Look at those two babies!”
At just fourteen years of age we appeared to be too young to know what love was…but we did! Nat King Cole had a hit song back then that became ours. It seemed to perfectly express our situation: “They Try to Tell Us We’re Too Young.”
They try to tell us we’re too young, too young to really be in love; They say that love’s a word, a word we’ve only heard but can’t begin to know the meaning of. And yet we’re not too young to know, this love will last though years may go, and then some day they may recall, we were not too young at all.
Looking back from this vantage point, I wonder that our parents gave us their blessing to our dating. That flicker of tender teenage love only grew stronger through our high school years. Other classmates would date for a time and then part for a new romance. All the while, Cec and Joyce never parted.
I still remember the sweet times we spent sharing our dreams with each other. Contrary to many modern couples, we waited to consummate our love after we were married.
Our wedding night was special in so many ways. It was blistering hot and our pastor was out of town, so a college professor performed the ceremony. There was an attempt to steal the keys of the car taking us on our honeymoon, but the plot failed and love prevailed. We were now beginning our wonderful new life as husband and wife.
It was not long before we experienced our first taste of military life. It gave us an opportunity to see places and meet people who became dear friends. It was during our first assignment in South Dakota that our dear Brenda was born. Oh, how we long to see her once again. The next time will be in eternity and there will be no sorrow, pain, or separation. We will see her healthy and happy beyond imagining. Our next two children, Dan and Lori, were both born in Nampa. They also have been such sources of joy. Even in the trials of life they have shown us love and respect and have always commented about the love they saw in their parents.
I am not sure when Joyce and I crossed the line from young people to middle age people, to mature people, to elderly people…but in every age we have passed through, we have loved each other completely.
Sensual love is something that novelists have tried to portray, but our love has been far deeper. During the darkest days of trial and testing, we have known the love of Jesus and the love of each other.
We have shed our tears at the passing of our precious Brenda and then through the transplant surgeries of our dear Lori. What a gift of love from a granddaughter, Jenna, who gave one of her kidneys to her aunt Lori. Not only have we shared our love for each other, we have felt that love surround us.
Across these years I watched the beautiful woman I first saw as a fourteen-year-old beauty who captured my heart on a Sunday morning grow more and more feeble. But her beauty and loveliness has never faded from my sight.
They say that your memory is going to gradually recede as you grow older. With my precious Joyce it was slipping far too rapidly. Many of her comments were just a little out of context. The doctors confirmed that she was suffering from Dementia with Lewy Bodies. We had never even heard of such an ailment before, but were now living with it.
Over these last few months, I knew that we were losing her. As I sat beside her bed I looked over the face of the gorgeous woman who has been beside me these many years. My heart ached.
We both knew the time was running out. In our quiet moments we tried to share just how precious we had been to each other. Not long ago you paid me the highest honor a wife could give a husband when you said, “Honey, you are love personified!” I will always be that for you, Dear Joyce. I LOVE YOU DEARLY. Wait for me I still have work to do here on earth!
Your devoted husband, Cec
May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!
– – – Pastor Cecil