I’m in Heaven now, enjoying an eternal weight of glory, petting beloved cats who met me at Rainbow Bridge with great enthusiasm, their tails held high, issuing a chorus of loud steady purring. I’ve asked Marlowe to write out my story for me. He’ll end up using his own writing style, which is different from mine, but that’s okay. I love him, and I’m watching over him right now as he writes, part of the “great cloud of witnesses” that is cheering him on as he limps toward the finish line of his own earthly race. Then, we’ll be together forever, never to be separated again.

I was born in a small Wisconsin town that was about the same size as the one where Marlowe lived. I was the third of six siblings, and the cutest one: four boys and two girls. My parents worked at the local shoe factory, and later, my mother worked at the nearby hospital, where she was known for her love and good works.

We were raised Catholic, and I went to a parochial school. All of the teachers were nuns, and while some of them were very nice, others were, well, not so much. I remember bringing one of them a bouquet of trilliums, those beautiful white flowers that dot the roadbeds every spring in central Wisconsin. I thought she’d appreciate them, but instead I got a stern lecture about protected species. But I got the last laugh later in life, when two delicate trilliums appeared in the back yard of the home that Marlowe and I shared, nestling in the shade against the back fence, and in time they multiplied into a huge cluster of blossoms. The Vatican lodged a protest, but to no avail.

I used to love walking to the little candy store a block or so from my childhood home, and carefully selecting a few items. Usually I chose something chocolate, which I love. My eyes are a deep chocolate brown, and Marlowe always said how beautiful they were. In time I became, for one year in middle school, a cheerleader. Later in life, Marlowe was thrilled to discover that he had married a cheerleader, something that exceeded his wildest expectations.

I loved cats as a child, and we had many of them. My mother didn’t believe in paying good money to have cats spayed or neutered, although it cost enough money to feed and house all the resulting kittens. My favorite cat used to sleep on the pillow next to my bed at night, and later on, when Marlowe and I were married, many of our cats over the years did the exact same thing. My childhood cats were allowed outside, since we needed a steady supply of fresh kittens to annoy my mother. They would watch carefully before crossing the street, a minor highway leading into town, and none of them were ever hurt.

I was the general contractor of the family, directing the work activities of my younger brothers. Under my guidance, they cleared our large back lot of thousands of rocks, trimmed our fruit trees, and did endless weeding. Marlowe notes with some amusement that he ended up on a similar work crew, consisting of one tired man, when we were married.

After graduating from high school and from technical school, I moved to Wausau, Wisconsin, where I worked for a time in an accounting firm.  Marlowe and I met at a Bible study in 1983, and we were soon a couple.  We had a long-distance courtship for a year, since Marlowe had accepted a teaching position in another town three hours away.  But God worked it out, and we were married in 1985 (complete with fainting flower girl) in what residents of central Wisconsin still call, in hushed tones, "THE wedding".

The story of how two people who were born over 500 miles apart got together is a complex one that testifies to the loving sovereignty of a gracious God.  It's too long to tell here, and besides, it mostly involves Marlowe's life story, not mine.  But both of us are very grateful that we were brought together!  He moved from state to state, four of them in all, until he finally arrived in Wausau.

Through it all, our lives were dominated by cats.  In May of 1988, Marlowe and I were walking through town when we spotted, nearly hidden behind a large bleeding heart plant, two tiny kittens who obviously had no home.  I insisted that we rescue them, though we had not yet purchased our home and the apartment where we were living did not allow pets.  We had to capture one of them in a borrowed fishnet, and may have looked a bit odd walking back home with a tiny grey cat encased in mesh. 

And now, a few words about cats ('kaets, n.)  Cats!  The final stage of growth!  The best of species, for which the rest were made!  A small, crepuscular species, superior to humans, they meow and they mew.  They purr, and have fur.  I love them, and have devoted my life to them.  They give so much back, requiring only a steady supply of tuna.

I inherited a number of recipes from my mother, who had to bake and cook daily for a large family with voracious appetites.  The first time Marlowe came to visit my family for a meal, he remarked later that he felt as if he were eating at an old-style lumber camp.  By the time he had filled his plate, most of my brothers were on their third helping.

In time, I became a world-class baker and cook (so Marlowe says, and he is what I like to call right).  Each December, I would make up to ten tins (or, as we called them, tinnisters) of fancy cookies and treats for Marlowe's colleagues at the university.  It was a lot of work, but I loved doing it.  One year, I made "cute kitty cookies", with cinnamon red hots for a nose and black licorice laces for the whiskers, except that no store in Wausau had any licorice laces.  I finally made Marlowe drive to Appleton and back, a three-hour round trip, to get some.  He wasn't thrilled about this, but he did it.  When you're loyal, you're loyal.

We eventually became semi-vegetarians (not eating anything that once breathed) at my urging, to honor our shared love of animals.  The cats did not become vegetarians, but tuna don't breathe.

Crafts were also an important part of my life.  In my younger years, I was skilled with knitting, crocheting, and cross-stitch.  I made many projects, some of them extremely complex, that I gave to friends and relatives over the years.

We also enjoyed visiting craft shops and going to craft fairs.  Wausau has a surprising number of craft fairs each fall, most of them at local churches.  We made the rounds of all of them.  In the summer, we would make day trips to check out craft fairs around central Wisconsin.  

I started a latch hook project over thirty years ago, and while Marlowe and I both worked on it over the years, it still sits unfinished in the basement.  I don't think Marlowe will ever finish it.  The cats loved to play with the little yarn pieces.  We all do our part.

I love the natural world and the beauty of the changing seasons in central Wisconsin (well, maybe not winter).  Marlowe and I used to love sitting outside in the back yard in the warmer months, watching the birds and squirrels at the feeder.  We purchased and distributed copious quantities of peanuts, corncobs, sunflower seeds, and suet for them.  

We would get chipmunks too, and the one pictured below, which we gave the rather obvious name of "Chip", was a lot of fun during our last summer together.  It was fun to watch him poke his head out of his burrow cautiously, look about for several minutes to make sure all was well, then run to the feeder for some treats and dash madly back to safety.  

Other wildlife would visit our yard too:  a flock of turkeys, several raccoons, and more.  Across town, near the university where Marlowe taught, there was a white squirrel, and we used to like to sit in the parking lot across from his home turf and watch his antics.  I always felt a deep kinship with all living things.  

Throughout the 35+ years of our marriage, Marlowe and I enjoyed a special love that will never end, though I'm now in Heaven and he is in Wisconsin.  I liked Wisconsin, but it's even nicer where I am now.  

Marlowe's career path was a winding and diverse one, featuring by turns agribusiness, career counseling, and academia.  When he was working in agribusiness, I used to shop at the mall and then walk down the hill to show him what I'd bought.  He loved that.

The years flew by without our noticing how quickly they passed, and we became an old couple.  Both of us wish we'd had more time together, but Marlowe was able to retire early, so we could have two great years together before my health problems began.  We loved each ordinary day together:  baking and cooking, fussing over the cats, watching classic movies or the Hallmark Channel, taking day trips around central Wisconsin, sitting outside in the back yard.  I really loved Marlowe, and he really loves me.  And though we're apart for now, one day, we'll be together.  Yes, we will!

Sometimes, I thought Marlowe spent too much time on Photoshop!  But now, I am glad that he has this way of bringing us together digitally, even though the software doesn't allow us to be together physically.  That would probably require the monthly subscription version.

Though I'm happy in Heaven while I wait for Marlowe to join me, I know that he is often sad, having to live out the rest of his life on Earth apart from me.  So I am grateful that, at least sometimes, putting orphan photos of the two of us together into a composite brings him some joy, even if through tears.  He liked to put pictures of us as children together, as if we had known each other from the very beginning, though we didn't meet until decades after we were born.

I love Marlowe very much, and I am eager for the day when he joins me in Heaven!