This was the most wonderful day in my life.  I got to marry the man that I loved with all my heart.  We had been living together for three years previous because Jim's divorce was taking so long to be finalized.  Jim's divorce was finalized and he walked directly across hall and got a license to marry me and three days later we were married.  The pastor of the church that we attended would not preform our ceremony because he had already passed judgment on us for being two divorced people and we were living in sin according to him.  Needless to say, this was the end of our relationship with that pastor and that church. We found another pastor and church that was willing to marry us and we gathered family members and friends and professed our love for one another.  After the church ceremony, we all joined together at a local restaurant and had a wonderful dinner and celebration.  We went on a three week honeymoon traveling in our trailer all over the state of Michigan spending a lot of time in the UP.  The years that followed were filled with good times and bad times that we managed to survive.  We had a large blended family with Jim's 5 children and my 2 children.  We both had our jobs to deal with and making a home for our families.  We traveled extensively in our travel trailer with our children and on our own.  Raising the children was the biggest challenge and the core of our disagreements.  Jim retired in 1991 and I finally gave in and retired in 1995. We traveled together and lived in our RV until 2007 and then we returned to Michigan and sold our trailer and moved back into our old home on Fielding Street that was owned by my son.  We paid rent to him and set up housekeeping again until the day that Jim left my side and departed his earthly home in 2013. I have many happy memories of our many years together that helps to sustain me as I carry on without the love of my life.  My wedding day always stands out in my memories.

This is probably the most painful story to tell and think about. We were married in 1981 and we spent 32 years trying to repair a family relationship with Jim's children as we also tried to blend my children and his children as a family.  Jim's time with his family was strained at best and he faced his demons and his past mistakes and began to move forward.  He had a difficult time making his amends to his children, but he worked very hard at it and he did the best he could.  He took responsibility for his part in past mistakes.  He felt he had done all he could to repair his ties with his children and he had to let it go.  The children in turn wasn't able to forgive as he had hoped but he did his part and moved on.  He felt that in time they would see the changes he had made in his life and realize that he was a changed man and they might put the past in the past.  He was not the same man that they knew when they were growing up.  They never really gave him a chance to show them who he really was.  At his funeral, one of them related to me that his was not a man that they ever knew.  Jim was loved and respected by so many people. He never stopped loving his children and he never stopped believing that eventually they would think different of him.  He perservered and just kept loving them, never speaking a bad word about them ever.  I in turn did not do so well as I constantly reminded him of the nastiness that they seemed to put on him.  He would just patiently dismiss my attitude as he knew that I loved them and that the mending would come in God's time and not my time.  We tried so hard in our relationship to mend the family ties and bring the family together and guess what? We were never really able to conquer that feat.  To this day, there is much strain in that family dynamic, but I realize it is not my circus and not my monkeys.  The pain in that family came long before Jim and I were together and I cannot let that pain dominate my life today.  It's not my pain to fix.  I continue to pray for Jim's children and I continue to love them and the rest is up to the God of my understanding.  I just know that Jim's children have a lot to reckon with and it's not my job to heal them.  God Bless this broken family!

We always had a special way we celebrated the coming of the New Year.  When we were young, we would go out with friends and have dinner and dance and bring the new year in with a toast and a big hug and a big kiss.  As we got older, we began to stay at home more and just enjoy each other.  We would go to our favorite restaurant and have a magnificent dinner and then usually go to a movie and be home by midnight so we could toast and hug and kiss.  Our last nine years together was out to dinner at Bangkok Peppers, one of our favorite restaruants and then back home. We always went to a meeting on New Years Eve and spent time with friends and then back home after we would rent a couple of movies to watch.  I always got to pick the movies that we would watch and I would try to find one that Jim would especially like, always a good love story that we would compare our love to. We would watch the ball drop inTimes Square on TV and always embrace each other and kiss and hug at midnight. I remember our last New Years Eve together as we brought in the New year, January 1, 2013 and then three days later you were gone forever.  My love for you will carry on in my heart forever. Rest in Peace my love and I will see you again someday.

Our first Christmas away from our home in Michigan was in 1995 and we were living fulltime in our travel trailer and we were in a little town called LaFeria, Texas. We found a nice Rv park that we thought we would be comfortable in and proceeded to find our new way of life in retirement together.  I had a difficult time settling in but Jim was so comfortable in his own skin that he just started enjoying himself right away.  He met some fishing buddies and everyday was an adventure. I found retirement very difficult, it was hard for me to meet people, but Jim pushed me out of my shell and insisted I get use to it because this was going to be our new way of life.  Christmas time came and I was finding it hard to get in the mood.  After all, no snow and we weren't around family. Jim bought a small tree and decorated it for me while I was gone with the girls on a shopping excurson. He deocrated the entire outside of the trailer with lights. When I came home, I just started to cry because he had made me so happy. We decided to make a video to send to the kids. We had to do a number of takes and retakes because we both missed our children, but we finally was able to wish the kids a Merry Christmas from Texas.  In turn, the kids sent us videos of their Christmas and it actually felt like we were all together again.  As the years passed, we learned to be without the children and still enjoy our Christmas together.  Then the day came that we decided it was time to put our traveling aside and in 2007, we returned home to Michigan and celebrated our Christmas with our children once again.  Then on Christmas day 2012, little did I know that we would spend our last Christmas together.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  Jim was struggling more and more to breathe, but he was bound and determined to make Christmas a happy time for me and the kids as we spent time together. Jim loved Christmas and always made it special in his own little way.
 

Today, on your birthday, I remember the good times which are seared into my memory forever.  Thank God for the time we had together. We did it all my love against the test of time. We fell in love, got married and blended our families. We worked, we supported our family and them we traveled. We had good times and not so good times, but we persevered together in spite of everything.  What we had, most people never achieve. Blending our family was by far the test of time.  We never really accomplished all that we tried to do, but we did our best. Our travels were probably the most valuable test of time.  We did it all.  The real test of time has been my moments without you in my life.  A time to reflect on all the things we did together and all the things you did for me.  Your spiritual life was my model of a promise that you made me to me that someday, we would be together again as we both have endured the test of time.

Every Birthday we ever celebrated was so special. We always took each other to dinner at our favorite place.  Since this is your birthday, we would have gone to Bangkok Peppers as you loved that place.  You would have had Red Snapper and I would have splitted it with you. We would have enjoyed a Spring Roll and an Apple Salad. Since this is a Monday, our day would have started at the YMCA and then home for lunch and we might have enjoyed a day at the movies, but after dinner, you can be sure that we would have been in a meeting. celebrating another year of sobriety.

Jim always did things "his way" as that was the only way.  He worked skilled trades at General Motors and he was definitely a skilled tradesman.  He was a " jack -of-all- trades.  If you would ask him what time it was, he would tell you how to build a watch.  What a brilliant, gentle soul he was.  He knew how to do anything an everything.  He taught his children and grandchildren how to fish and hunt.  Jim did so many wonderful things for me and I so appreciated them probably more now that he is gone than I ever did when he was alive.  That is the price of taking things for granted, but I can tell you that he was teaching me how to live and be self sufficient everyday of his life.  I learned well "my love" as I am doing so many things "your way" as you taught me all along the way.
I miss you when I fill the humidifier, when I carve a turkey, when I cook your favorite lasagna recipe, but most of all when I go to bed in the evening and you are not by my side.  I will love you forever.