Love, True Love.

Daddy and Mama taught me what love looks like.

They met at Camp when she was thirteen and he was fifteen, and they became best friends long before they fell in love.

But fall in love they did.


Then, at the ripe old ages of 17 and 19, thirty-nine years ago today, they became one, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. And I'm here to say that they kept those vows. Kept them beautifully, and in such a way as to be an inspiration and blessing to everyone around them, especially us kids.


About a year after they married, Daddy was drafted, and they moved to Germany for two years. On the weekends they'd head off all over Europe in a little volkswagon, carrying picnics along with them to save money and camping wherever they could, including the grounds of an old castle in England. My oldest brother was born in Germany, and Mama likes to tell that he teethed on the gate at Buckingham Palace and dropped his pacifier off the Eiffel Tower.


They moved back to America a little before Anna was born, and for the next several years Daddy pastored various small churches... with Mama right along side of him, encouraging Daddy, ministering to the congregations, and raising four rambunctious children. (AnnMarie and I came a good many years later; in a sense, Mama and Daddy had two families, eleven years apart.)


Finally, they came home to Mississippi, (to my Mamaw's great delight, and theirs' too,) and Daddy helped start a little church. Eventually, Daddy began a tiny Christian school, and worked as principal and primary teacher for many years. Mama was a big part of that, too - not only did she get her oldest three kids out the door every morning, she also mothered most of the school kids too, since the school building was just a few steps away from our house. She even went so far as to teach algebra when the need arose, even though Daddy had to teach her the next day's lesson every night. (I get my non-existent math skills from my mama.)


My point is, through it all - through financial worries and rebellious teenagers, through their childrens' births to their childrens' weddings, to holding grandchildren, from often-complicated church situations to teething babies, from a special needs daughter to losing people they held so dear - they were in it together. Always together. They laughed, they cried, they struggled, they had fun, they matured, they served the Lord together.

I watched their love grow stronger and stronger through weeks of cancer, chemo, uncertainty, fear, and pain. They never stopped thinking and praying and trying to care for each other's hurts and difficulties, emotional and physical, even when Daddy was at his sickest.

And their love isn't dead now. When Mama talks about Daddy, I can still hear the love in her voice. When she looks at his picture, that love is still there. And I absolutely don't believe that Daddy's love for his soul mate ended when he went to live in Paradise.

I want to have a love like that for someone someday.

And I'm so grateful that I got to see true love, not the cheap Hollywood version, lived out before me every day of my life.