CHAPTER ONE of When God Writes Your Love Story   

by Eric and Leslie Ludy

LOVE NEVER ENDS

My dear sweet husband, Willard, was raised on a farm in a beautiful valley near Eugene, Oregon. His family was Mennonite. As so many of the rural Mennonite boys did, he left school after the eighth grade to work on the family farm.

What Willard lacked in formal education was more than made up for in practical wisdom and a certain inner quality—integrity. People who knew Willard would tell you he lived what he believed and was always good to his word. He soon gained the respect of farmers all over the valley.

I first met Willard at a church party. I’d come from Idaho to study at a Mennonite school. He was tall, handsome, and athletic, with dark hair and a cute crooked grin. The first thing that attracted me, to be honest, was his quietness. He was almost shy.

As soon as we began to date, however, I saw at once how loudly his life spoke for what he believed. I’d been brought up with the stability of a loving Christian home, and it was so important for me to see how much Willard respected his parents. He also loved church and attended regularly. I fell deeply in love with him. We were soon engaged and a year later, in November 1960, we were married.

After our marriage, I continued to be impressed by Willard’s respect for his parents. He was twenty at the time, and we were ready to strike out on our own. But out of respect for his father, he willingly honored the family custom that each son work at home until he turned twenty-one.

As I said, Willard was a man of his word. He was not a man of lots of words, but when he spoke people listened. His friends jokingly called him "E.F. Hutton." When he believed something, he lived it. If he said he would do something, you could count on his doing it whatever the cost.

You would think that such an ideal-sounding young man and an in-love young woman would have a perfect life together. No problems, no disagreements. I think we had a beautiful marriage, and it brought into this world three wonderful young men—our sons, Mark, Lonnie, and Rob. But our marriage had its struggles. No marriage, no matter how ideal the spouses, is without its difficult times.

Learning to Love

It was Saturday morning—quite like all other Saturday mornings. It was a crisp March morning in Oregon, in 1984. The phone beside our comfortable waterbed rang waking us up. It had been a wonderful night together. The security of our bed and my handsome forty-three-year-old husband, lying there beside me was divine. God was so good. He had blessed us with comfortable living on a large grass seed farm, a perfect place to raise our three sons whom He had given us. Mark was 22, Lonnie would be 20 that next day, and Rob, our youngest, was 14. How I would have liked to just stay here in the comfort of his arms, but the activities of the day raced through my mind and I knew I must come to grips with reality. Willard smiled at me and said good morning. Then he answered the phone. After he got off the phone he lay back on the bed and said, "You know, Hon, I don’t feel so well." So like we did many times, we stopped and asked Jesus to please make him feel better. We both hated to be sick. God truly had blessed us both with good health. We were so grateful for it.

The morning sped on as I got up and went about my usual Saturday tasks and before long Willard got up also. But he stretched out on the couch still not feeling very well. I went to him with some seven-up and then went back to my tasks of cleaning. Soon I realized he really didn’t feel well at all. I thought it was the flu coming on, so I set on a pot of chicken soup and continued to check on him as I went about my weekend cleaning routine. How I loved to take care of him. It was so a part of my love for him, and the love I received back was so fulfilling.

As I worked, my mind was only half on my chores. My thoughts flitted to Willard, but I knew he'd be all right with a little rest and tender, loving care. I thought about the life we'd built here in western Oregon: a 2,500 acre grass seed farm that sold to clients all over the world, a successful manufacturing firm, and the house we'd designed and built ourselves.

When the soup was hot, I carefully carried it into the den. The room was so him, a Marlin fish he caught in Mexico hung on the wall behind him. The pretty wood ducks he had shot were mounted on the fireplace. The room felt so warm and homey. It held so many wonderful memories. They were sweet memories of our little boys growing up right here in this room—all the books we had read together, the games we had played with the boys. Many dreams were talked about in this room. Friends and their children had spent many happy hours here.

I hesitated in the doorway. There was Willard, still lying on the sofa—only this time there was a strange look in those wonderful eyes I loved so much. "Honey?" "Oh!" he said, suddenly pressing his hands to his chest. "It hurts." Then his eyes closed and his head fell gently back. There is no way to say exactly how intuitions come, but in the moment it took to set down the bowl and rush to Willard's side, I knew he was gone. I called to our youngest son, Rob, who had been playing table tennis with a friend in the family room. He rushed to call a neighbor and an ambulance. I sat on the sofa, cradling my husband’s head in my arms. My whole life flashed before me. What would I ever do with out this man I loved so much. I prayed so hard, "Please, Lord, please Lord, don’t let this be real." How can I help him? What can I do? Would help please come quickly! My anxious eyes met Rob’s. I knew that he too was thinking, "How could this be happening to Dad?"

Minutes later, the ambulance arrived and a team of emergency medical technicians tried to revive him. One of the men who was specially trained in cardiac emergencies said it appeared that an aneurysm had burst in a major blood vessel near his heart. There had been no chance to save him. In an instant’s time, my husband was gone. As I sat there, my sad eyes filled with fear and many tears. Fears of how could I go on alone. Thoughts of our older sons not being there flooded my mind. Would they think I had done all I could? How would my sons ever make it without their dad? What would I do? What could I do? I felt so helpless.

As the day went on I felt like a zombie. At times I didn’t even feel that I was there. I had so many decisions to make. People came and went. There was nothing to do but to except the awful truth. What meaning did life have now? What would tomorrow hold? My heart ached so much. As I watched my young sons, it felt like my heart would break. It was so unfair. Willard was such a great dad; how could I ever be a single parent? Rob was so young. He needed his dad so badly. I prayed that day, "Father, please be near my boys and comfort them." In the weeks that followed, it seemed as though I hardly existed. I tried to be strong for my sons, but they ended up being stronger for me.

How well I remember that first awful night, as we tried to just make it through. Mark got out his guitar and played songs of comfort to us. What a balm music was and would be to us during that healing time.

During this difficult time I held onto the good memories. But could I go on with only memories? I know we are not promised bright tomorrows only. After all, we live in a real world. Willard and I had lived each day as if it were our last day together. This had made my great loss much less full of regrets and the healing came much faster. There are many different dark tomorrows that we must face in this life. That is why it is so important that we love today for the inevitable dark tomorrow, whatever and whenever it may be.

No Regrets

The emotions that surged over me in the days after Willard’s death were amazing in some ways. The most overwhelming feeling, of course, was the pain. Over and over I prayed, "Please, God, it can’t be true. He was so young. I loved him so much." Why had this happened? Everything seemed to be going so well. I remember sitting for hours on our love seat just thinking and wondering what to do next. I was so blessed to have so many friends and family around me. Their love was so present. But nothing seemed to help the awful pain in my broken heart. I was so lonely. I longed to see his pick-up truck drive up, but it never did. Or to see that wonderful smile in those eyes I loved so much. But it wasn’t there. Those first few weeks were just awful. I hardly remember anything but the pain that burned in my heart. But right in the midst of that pain was another feeling, a certain brightness of hope within. I can best explain it as a lack of regret.

One day, not long after Willard had left us, I was feeling very low. My son, Rob, was with me, and I began to cry. "If only I’d been with him all that morning," I said, "just sitting with him instead of cleaning the house."

"Mom," Rob replied, "that one day was not nearly as important to Dad as all the other days and years he knew you loved him."

Rob’s words reminded me, assured me, of Willard’s love for me. I truly had little to regret about our twenty-four years together. And, just as important to me, our children had little to regret about their mom and dad’s marriage.

When you love, it fills your life with security and beauty. It spills over into others around you—your children, family, and friends. The apostle Paul was certainly led of the Spirit when he wrote, "Love never fails" (1Cor. 13:8 new american standard bible). To put it another way, love overflows and goes on and on, blessing everyone it touches.

Try to live so the regrets are few. We can never go back. But if you have lost someone dear and are living with some deep regrets, ask Jesus to come into those hurts and heal the wounds left there. He can heal and restore.