Don't Look At Me

I have a friend at church that is just about my age (she's a little more than a week older than I), and we have always shared a special bond. We laugh and tell people that we "graduated from different high schools together". She is from a town about sixty miles away, and ended up here with her (now ex) husband, who was involved in the broadcasting business and owned an interest in a couple of local radio stations. Anyway, we loved each other from the start, and were always touched by the good and bad things in each other's lives. One of our phrases got to be "don't look at me", which meant that if we made eye contact, we'd begin to cry...either from happiness or sadness.

During DH's visitation, my friend came through the line, and we said our "line" at almost the same time, but we ended up making eye contact, and crying as we hugged each other tightly. She's had her share of sorrow this year, too, since her former husband announced--after thirty-five years of marriage--that he didn't love her anymore, and needed to get on with his life. God is so good to put people in our lives who are willing to share the sorrows as well as the happinesses.

There were also other people to whom I said "don't look at me", and they understood what I meant. The first person was JD, who is a sixteen-year-old young man who loved and adored my DH. They had a special bond, and I think it grew because of the fact that DH was in his "dark years" during his own sons' teenaged years. JD was his second chance to influence a young man, and he also seemed to fill a place in JD's life. JD's father told me during the course of the past few weeks that he'd never seen anyone else that his son loved and respected as much as he did DH, and that he appreciated all the time DH had spent with him. He's a fine father in his own right, and was not threatened by DH's involvement in JD's life, and I thank him for his words. JD understood what I meant, and we didn't look at each other until he came by last Saturday to cut the grass.

Another person to whom I said those words was DH's friend WL. DH was about 5'8", and WL is about 6'4", so it was just fun to watch them stand next to each other in the church choir. They were both avid cooks, so it was fun to listen to two "manly" men talk about the best place to buy meat for the grill, what spices worked best with what foods, etc. They were also plain-spoken, which sometimes got them in trouble with their wives, who tried to encourage them NOT to say everything that came to mind in a given situation. It broke my heart to see such a wonderful friend with red eyes from crying and mourning the loss of his friend. He made the statement to people at my house that he might have other friends, but he didn't think he'd ever have another friend like DH who accepted him exactly as he was with no pretensions.

The third person to whom I said these words was JR. He and DH got to be friends when working on a couple of church projects. JR is an executive in an industrial construction company, and travels all over the Southeast supervising projects for his firm, but he's just a "plain ole country boy". He was about ten years younger than DH, but that didn't have any effect on their friendship. He went through a rather difficult divorce a few years after we met him, and he took the high road by not degrading his former wife (she didn't chose to take the same high road). DH knew the whole story, and took every opportunity to defend JR, while not sharing any tidbits of information. Because of JR's willingness to cooperate with his ex-wife so that HER children would not be moved from their home until the end of the school year, he has a commute of about 120 miles round trip every day. That didn't keep him from coming to see DH almost EVERY day that he was in the hospital (nineteen days in January and February), spending several nights WITH him in his hospital room, and calling me at least three times a day to check on his friend. When we knew that DH would be leaving us, I took JR into the intensive care unit to see him one last time. I told him to stay as long as he wanted, but that I could NOT stay in the room with him while he talked to DH. Their bond was too strong for me to bear while dealing with my own loss.

I will forever be grateful for God granting me the privilege of observing the love that men have for each other. I will also praise God that I was married to a man that inspired such deep love and affection from people in all walks of life. If I meet you and say "don't look at me", you'll understand why.