What I learned about happily ever after

Richard's retirement party...they surprised him

January 17, 2013

My grandfather’s  relocation to his real home.

What I learned from their marriage.

“I don’t love him any more so or any less than I did your grandfather.  I just love him different.  He’s a good man.”  These are the words my grandmother said to me one day as we were sitting at her kitchen table.  Richard had just kissed her goodbye as he hustled out the door.  He was heading out with some groceries for a widow who lived around the corner.  Widows and orphans were his ministry.  I think I was nineteen or twenty.  I remember being intrigued by my grandmother and her husband’s relationship.  And amused at their banter, their friendship, and the life they built together. 

I was five when my grandfather died.  I was the “only child” (my sister hadn’t been born yet) of their only child…and to say I knew I was loved by them would be an understatement.  A lot of my earliest memories involve my grandparents.  The smell of Old Spice takes me right back there.  I didn’t know much of C.B. Smith other than the few memories I had of him taking me to the barber shop, sitting with him in his chair, and I used to be able to remember his laugh.  But from all accounts from those who loved him, he was a “larger than life” personality.  He was a successful owner/operator of  three car lots in Memphis back in the 50s and 60s ranging from Cadillacs to a “buy here, pay here” lot.  So after he died, I guess a few years later, my grandmother meets a postmaster from a tiny town called Munford, TN.  His name was Richard.  They married when I was in the second grade.

Richard was, as they would say now, “kinda a big deal” in Munford.  He was the postmaster, therefore he knew everyone.  Not exaggerating.  He also was very active at his church, a shriner, and a veteran.  Everyone knew Richard Lee.  I would visit them in Munford growing up.  He would take me with him on errands and I remember feeling like I was with a celebrity.  He has a street named after him in that town!   But I guess I never could wrap my young mind around my grandmother leaving the “city life” to go live in the country with this man.  So I would try to figure it out. 

Looking back I think about how closely I watched them interact.  I am so thankful I did, even though the reasons were probably immature. 

 Here is what I saw:  two people who loved each other.  Not a flashy, romantic love (although they did kiss and hug a lot) but a love with a servant’s heart.  Some of mine and my husband’s jokes/banters are straight from those two. 

I watched them go on so many trips together, and saw how they enjoyed travelling together.  I learned that it is important to be friends with your spouse.

   

I watched my grandmother’s eyes light up when others would tell her something Richard had helped them with, or how great he was.  I learned how important a husband’s reputation is to a wife. 

I watched Richard eat burnt toast and tell my grandmother he “liked it that way” and then wink at me and put lots of butter on it.  I learned that it is more important to not crush your spouse’s spirit rather than to be right sometimes.

I watched them bicker and fight, too.  I learned that it was ok to do this, as I saw them still kiss goodnight and heard them laughing later.

I watched Richard as my grandmother’s health deteriorated.  I learned that she was his world.

The last time I saw Richard, he didn’t really see me. 

It was two years after my grandmother had died.  He answered the door, surprised to see me, although I had just called him the day before to make plans to meet.  He looked at me, his eyes filled with tears and he said, “Oh hey there! I love you so much!” and hugged and kissed me.  Then as we stepped inside his house, he asked me what my name was.  My eyes went past him and rested behind him where my picture was still hanging on his wall.  Who am I?  Did I hear that right?  I mean, look around you… I am all over this place…pictures on the wall of me, pictures on the fridge of my family, not to mention the countless photo albums… This was screaming through my head.  But I feebly said, “it’s me, granddad.  Melissa. Dina’s granddaughter.”  He started to cry.  “Oh Melissa, I don’t know if you heard, but my wife, Dina, she died.  She died.”  He was weeping now.  I held onto him and said, “I know. I know. I miss her so much.”  Now we are both crying.  I realize my kids and husband are in the room watching all this.  This is not at all what we had expected.  I had no idea his memory had deteriorated this much since my grandmother's death.  

 Typical of this disease, the conversation quickly shifted and before I knew it we were talking about how much Munford had grown, what he ate for lunch and how he didn’t drive much anymore (whew).  We took him to my grandmother’s grave and he wandered around at the other graves nearby as well.  It really was a sweet visit, though completely overwhelming to me as I realized I had lost them both.  His mind was fleeting quickly and if I tried to bring him to a place where he would recognize me it would upset him and we would both be crying.  So I knew I couldn’t do that to him again.  We were leaving the next week for a year-long mission trip to Honduras.  I knew that by the time we returned his condition would most likely be even worse. 

I came back to his house when we came back from Honduras.  There was no one there, but all of the furniture was the same.  I went to the church Richard and my grandmother attended and served all those years.  I walked up the stairs to the church office.  As I went to introduce myself to the church secretary, she said, “I know who you are.  You are Dina and Richard Adkins’ granddaughter.”  Yes. Wow. It had been years since I had been to their church.  She told me Richard had finally been moved to an assisted living/nursing home as his Alzheimer’s dementia had finally forced the issue.  She told of how the community had been taking care of him and that his step-son (from a previous marriage to his and my grandmother’s marriage) had moved to Munford to help take care of him as well.  “He sure loved you,” she said and I thanked her through my tears.

My nursing professor once said she liked to think of Alzheimer’s patients or people with dementia as if they are in a world that is one step closer to heaven.  That their mind is being prepared for heaven, even though their body is stuck here.  I like that. 

I am thankful for God bringing me Richard.  He loved me and my sister like we were his own.  I also am grateful he and my grandmother had each other to love for twenty-five years.  I am glad she told me what she did that day at her kitchen table.  She was right.  Richard was a good man. 

I know that now they are together, more alive than ever.  C.S. Lewis says it best when he describes heaven in his Narnia series:

“And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

So they live…happily ever after.