June 10 would have been your 60th wedding anniversary.
How striking you both looked on June 10, 1961, ready to take on the world, "striving together" - your inscription inside your wedding bands.
And for 46 years you did just that. You both worked diligently and without complaint, a true team even when you weren't physically together in the same city.
Our home was filled with laughter, with singing, with conversation. With people.
With love.
You raised the six of us to love each other. You instilled into us that old acrostic for JOY:
Jesus first
Others next
Yourself last
And you walked the talk. There are many people in many parts of the world who can attest to your love for God, your love for each other, your love for your kids (both us and the many others whom you also loved and prayed for faithfully), and your love for pretty much anyone with whom you came into contact.
You both enjoyed teaching and you were good at it, investing into your students' lives.
You lived life to the fullest, with integrity, curiosity and enthusiasm.
On what should have been your 50th anniversary, Dad prepared a crown roast banquet for us, complete with fine china and the antique silverware he lovingly polished because "that's what Mum would have liked."
After the feast, we all went out to the graveyard and we sang some of the mighty old hymns: "Amazing Grace" and "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and "Because He Lives I Can Face Tomorrow". Even though one of you was in heaven and the other still on earth, it didn't seem like you were that far apart.
And now, for your 60th anniversary - even though I am not sure how it all plays out up there - I imagine you are together, even closer than you were down here.
We are all doing okay, for the most part. You wouldn't have liked the last 15 months if you had still been with us: your deepest earthly joy was to be together as a family. But the vicissitudes of life without you have kept us close to each other, and nothing can take away that bond. That is something you both prayed for, I know. Thank you for teaching us that the greatest of all is love.
We would never wish you back; but, oh, how we miss you!
I was leading the singing at church, and we also had a couple of my sisters as well as friends from Calgary who were going to be attending at the 11 o'clock service.
"It is so important for me to know that you will be there," I said to the Good Rancher as I got ready for the day.
"Don't worry; I will be," he reassured me as he pulled on his jeans and his jacket and prepared to do chores.
I called him from the 855 as I left for the first service at 10:00. "Yup, everything's going even better than normal. I'll be heading in to shower and change in just a few minutes."
The first service was beautiful, with my friend Sharalynn singing with me from the piano and the congregation singing heartily from behind their masks and carefully spaced two rows apart.
Our friends arrived for the second service. One of them, who has a splendid voice, agreed to sing with me; the music improved exponentially with his contribution!
The GR had not shown up by the time we had finished the first set of songs.
Then it was Communion, the time when Christians commemorate the Lord Jesus Christ's death on the cross to take away the sins of the world. To take away my sins.
At the end of that, it was time for another song. Still no GR.
The message wrapped up, a powerful exhortation on the topic of unforgiveness. The text was from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7, verses 36-50, and Pastor Walter talked in particular about the two debtors, one who owed a lot and one who owed a little. Who was more grateful when the creditor forgave their debts? “God has forgiven us us all of our sins - can't we forgive those who have done us wrong? " Pastor Walter mused. He then went to the gospel of Matthew chapter 18, verses 21-35, the famous" 70x7" passage. "Don't hold on to injuries you have received from other people," he urged us. "Release them, and you yourself will be free."
At the end of the service I looked for the GR. Maybe he had come so late he sat in the lobby?
No one had seen him.
I was crushed.
A few weeks ago after church I was talking to my friend Rick, who was on usher duty. The GR hadn't made it to church that Sunday either, and Rick remarked that it would be great if the GR and I could actually ride together for a change.
I remembered the morning last year when the GR was talking to a guy who was trying very hard to get the job done around here, but who was very easily distracted. The three of us were sitting at the table having coffee. "I hate to say this in front of Karyn, but the cows come first, even over her," the GR told the guy, who glanced over at me with wide eyes. I just shrugged and smiled. What was there to say?!
I repeated this incident to Rick, wryly smiling again. "I guess that means I come second!"
Rick was shocked. "Karyn, I do not agree!" he replied.
"Really?" I interjected, hopefully.
"Absolutely not," Rick went on. "He loves his horses more than he loves his cows!" He couldn't hide the twinkle in his eye.
This Sunday morning I certainly felt third-rate. I called him as I was driving home.
"I wanted to be there, but the last heifer calved. I had to pull it. Another big calf. But, apart from Oracene, we're officially done calving!"
Of course I was happy for that, but I was hurt and resentful that once again my priorities took second place. It's not logical, I know. You can't tell the hef to hold off for a couple of hours! Nevertheless, I pouted and muttered to myself the entire 44-km drive.
And I had just listened to a sermon on the impact unforgiveness and bitterness has on a person!
That afternoon the GR and his Calgary friend - a physician who the GR says should have been a cowboy - went for a ride, and got to see a mama moose with twin babies! (Of course, neither of them took pictures...)
His wife, one of my sisters and I planted pretty things in the Round-up Corral.
After they left, the GR went to The Palace to do barn chores. I stayed to water the plants. When he was finished, he came back to help me.
Suddenly the lightning flashed pink in the clouds and the rain started to flow, tears caressing the hard face of the ground.
In the house that evening, I was polite but distant. Even the dogs suffered from my seething: no Milk Time, Milk Time tonight! Certainly no individual bedtime story ritual. I took myself off for a long soak in the tub.
The next morning, like every morning, before he went to do chores we prayed together, and he thanked God for the rain - 4/10ths of an inch - and for getting us through calving season.
He looked so tired. He said, "Stay in bed for a while longer. Get some rest."
I eventually got up and got ready for my revived regular Monday morning socially distanced coffee date. Gunpowder hopped into the truck with me. The rain was faint on the driveway. As I turned south on the 855, it grew a little stronger.
I saw him up ahead, next to his quad, talking to a neighbour in his truck. As I pulled over, the neighbour waved and drove on. "One of our cows and her calf got in with his herd. We'll get it out this afternoon. I just need to finish fixing the fence here. Have a good visit with Jean!"
Why was he so kind when I wanted to be cantankerous?!
As I continued driving, suddenly the sky opened and tipped a flash downpour of pounding rain combined with steely hail onto that part of the countryside. I felt the need to turn around, to make sure he was okay.
He wasn't at the spot I had seen him minutes earlier. I continued north, me and my truck and my dog in the rain, George Jones singing to me about the sadness.
And then I spotted him: steers had escaped from the field across the road from where he was fencing, and he had to drop everything and get them back in.
Right then, George started singing this song:
And all my resentment left me, washed away by the song and the rain and the previous day's message that finally penetrated the crust of my hard heart.
This faithful, hard-working, uncomplaining man. What would I do without him?
That afternoon, we went together to bring in the rogue cow and calf.
I took pictures until my phone died.
Not 30 seconds later he called out, "There's your moose! And one of her babies!"
Of course, no pictures...
But something that will last longer, a picture of me with him, striving together toward the same goal, regardless of where we happen to be.
