There are many things I have come to love and admire about Dennis during our 38 years of marriage, but I grew to love and appreciate him even more after seeing his tender love and care for his mother during her last few years. The ladies at the Villa (independent living facility where Duella lived when we moved her back here) stopped me one day to say, “We were just taking about your husband. He’s not like a son. He’s more like a daughter. We all have sons and they don’t treat us as good as he treats his mom. He treats her more like our daughters treat us”.   (What a compliment to him).

This second round of chemo has been very hard on him. He looks much older and looks very tired. He has such a good attitude. It breaks my heart to see him like this. If only I could bear more of his burden. He’s worried about me and he can see the sadness on my face that I can’t hide and he notices that I quietly contemplate a lot. I try to be strong for him. It’s too much for me. I have to put it all in the Lord’s hands. I cannot do this without his help.

I’m not mad at God. I don’t believe that God does bad things to good people. That would be evil and God’s not evil. We chose mortality and with mortality comes good and bad, joy and suffering. That’s all part of the deal. Without it we would be obedient little robots with no capacity for feeling or compassion. When we suffer, we learn compassion for others and we learn to love and serve others. Sometimes God sends healing miracles. Even when he withholds healing miracles, if we pay attention, we will see many other miracles of his love around us. He has a great plan and I trust in his plan. It doesn’t make it easy, but he is there and sends others to be there to hold me up when my legs want to collapse from under me and gives me breath when I feel I can’t take another breath. I can’t bear to think of him suffering or to live without him for any great length of time. My life with him has been amazing and full of happiness. I pictured growing old with him, serving an LDS mission with him, watching our grandchildren grow up with him. I am strong and I will be ok.

When Dennis’ mom died, his family grew in love and appreciation for one another. Perhaps this trial will help all of us show more love and appreciation to our loved ones around us. We tend to take things for granted but a loved one can be gone in a moment (one breath away, one heart beat away). I have been given this gift of time to show more love to him and to show my love through serving him. I hope I can use the time wisely.