Good Morning All...
I just wanted to take a few moments to tell you all to remember those you love. Life is too short for the junk that gets thrown at us sometimes, and in that list of junk we sometimes forget to remember those we love. I wanted to share with you a personal story, because it is time relevant and Spina Bifida relevant, on this subject.
My father, soon-to-be 60 years old, finally found his soul mate a few years back. She, twenty years his junior, and he met over the Internet. He moved from California to Utah where they married on January 1, 1999. In a few short months they moved here to my hometown in Lane County, Oregon. She, Lisa, brought her son, Matt, then 16. The four of us; Dad, Lisa, Matt, and I finally created that semi-perfect family that you always hear about. I shared with the three of them my faith and my participation in a local church and soon thereafter they joined as well.
I could see that Dad and Lisa were in love, everyone could see it. Twenty years difference didn't matter, and it didn't matter that Matt was twelve years younger than me. Matt and I were inspired by the love of our respective parents and we became brothers beyond the title of "step-brother"...
Every single day Dad told Lisa he loved her, about three times a day. It may seem sickening, it may seem redundant, it may seem urbane. It's important though, you never know what might happen.
Situations happened, I had a surgery to remove the Lipoma and tethered cord situations. Lisa and Dad opened their home to me and took care of me for the months of recovery. Time moved on and situations changed. Sadly, Dad and Lisa had to move to Vancouver, Washington and we parted ways in September of 2000. I learned then that I loved the both of them so very much, it was very difficult to be apart from my family, but they had also become close friends and confidants, we had no secrets.
I saw them again in the last part of October when they came back to Lane County to get their things out of storage for their new house in Vancouver, which they were very happy and excited about. As they got in their car to leave I told the both of them that I loved them very much and would come up shortly to see them.
I hadn't had the opportunity to call them because I was adjusting to a new job and a new home. But I got a strange call on November 17th from the Clark County Sherriff (Vancouver, Washington is in Clark County) explaining to me that Dad and Lisa had befriended a man and had taken him in to help him out for just a few days. They dropped him off at the bus station as he had chosen to leave for another town. This was the first time in weeks that Dad and Lisa had been alone and decided to make a romantic evening of it. My father told my (step-)mother of how much he loved her and how he wanted to please her, she of course reciprocated, as they shopped for steaks and a small bottle of wine at the local grocery store. As they re-entered their home to begin preparations for a romantic evening between the two of them they were attacked by the very same man they had dropped off not two hours earlier.
My father awoke hours later locked, barred, and nailed in the bathroom of their home. He had been beaten severly and stabbed numerous times, it took him about twenty-four hours to exit the bathroom. Upon exiting he found Lisa who had been beaten and stabbed as badly as he had, but she had not survived.
It has taken us months to come to the place we are now surrounding Lisa's murder at 39 years old. The man who committed the crime sits in a Clark County Jail Cell awaiting trial and will fight his own fight, that is not the subject of this story. Logically, one would assume that my Dad would be the first lost by his age out of that loving relationship, but Divine Spirit moves in many mysterious ways.
I know that Lisa sits here with me today, with my father - who has moved in with me, and with my brother who lives with his grandmother in Utah. I also know that she knew at the last instant without a doubt, that she was loved by her "three boys". Lisa's birthday is Monday the 30th, she would have been forty.
The point of this story is to remember the ones you love, tell the ones you love clearly and repeatedly that you do love them. When they're gone, when you're gone, there will be no doubt that the love was present. You never know when or how we were meant to leave this place and move to the next.
Thank you for your time, for your hearts, and for listening.
- davisbarrett