Better After Death: Shirley's Story

By Willis Temple Richie Jr.

For forty-three years the author shared his life and ministry with a wonderful gift from God in the person of his wife, Shirley. To this union two wonderful children were born. Throughout those years she gave unselfish and unlimited love and support to him in shared ministry. If only he had known that at the point of his retiring and looking forward to enjoying that retirement with her the Lord would call her home. How he copes with her sudden illness and death, and his life after, is the story told herein.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512747348

Willis Temple Richie Jr.

Willis Temple Richie, Jr. is a semi-retired pastor, and retired US Air Force chaplain, whose pastoral career spand over thirty years, with a total of over fifty years of ministry. The author is a graduate of Virginia State College and Harvard Divinity School. Willis pastored churches in Ohio, New Jersey and Kentucky. Now residing in Huntsville, AL, he currently teaches at Huntsville Bible College.

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Copyright © 2016 Willis Temple Richie, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All Scripture quotations in this publications are from The Message. Copyright (c) by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4735-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4734-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016910342

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/25/2016

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

THE BEGINNING

BETTER AFTER DEATH

OUR LIFE TOGETHER

THE ILLNESS

NOT GOOD!

MOMENTS OF JOY

OTHER GOOD TIMES

MORE ON SHIRLEY

OCTOBER, 2011

THAT DAY

SHIRLEY’S LAST HOUR

THE FUNERAL

ON GRIEVING

QUESTIONS! QUESTIONS! QUESTIONS!

SO, WHERE DO I STAND?

AN UN-EXPECTED BLESSING!

WHERE ARE WE, THE CHILDREN AND I, NOW?

WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR ME?

THE FINAL WORD!

PREFACE

T his is not a treatise on death nor a theological study of death and love. It is not a manual on how to grieve or deal with the death of a loved one, especially a spouse. It is simply a personal reflection on my life with and love of and for Shirley Louise Jackson Richie. It is my expression of gratitude for the beauty she brought into my life, into the lives of others touched by her presence, and a tribute to the courage and grace with which she faced the trying end of her beautiful life.

It is also a testimony to the God who gave me this wonderful gift of someone who made my life glow with joy, who enriched it by her spirit and smile, who was on the human plane, the strength of our family. It is tribute to a beautiful woman I knew as a loving wife and mother. Herein are my reflections on life lived with, and now without, the physical presence of my love, but of a love that endures.

For anyone who might end up reading this, I hope it will, at the least, cause you to look deeper into the Word of God and reflect on your relationship to Him. Furthermore, I hope it will cause you to truly treasure the loved ones in your life while you have them. This is my experience and is not intended to persuade anyone else to my position.

About fifteen months after Shirley’s death, I was asked to co-lead a class in our church on the subject of loss and grief. I was not sure if I could, or should, because of the potential impact on the writing of this manuscript. I read, with some reticence, the books given me for resources to teach the class. Likewise, I did not want them to unduly interfere with my thoughts as recorded in this writing. I wanted my thoughts to be my thoughts, based on my feelings and Christian beliefs, unadulterated by the thoughts of the professionals, at least initially.

Of all the resources I was given to read, none seemed to speak to those persons who cannot or choose not to let go of the deceased loved one. They offered them no advice as to how to continue living a good and meaningful life. All seemed to be focused on getting through the grief and loss process and moving forward. As I have been dealing with my personal situation, I have found myself looking at things a little differently, that is during the first twelve to twenty-four months after my wife’s death.

I had also been given a book written by a fellow pastor in Huntsville who lost his wife to cancer just months after Shirley’s passing. I hesitated reading that book, not wanting to be unduly influenced by his experience. He had taken an entirely different approach in his writing, so it was not a major problem, but I still did not read it before finishing my reflections.

As mentioned above, I was not writing a manual on how to deal with grief; not a how to anything, rather my reflections, my feelings, my thoughts on the life with and loss of my wife. I needed to be free to express myself, whether right or wrong, good or bad. I would deal with any criticism I might incur if and when it happened. The only input I wanted was that from Scripture, primarily. God’s word and presence was a part of our life together from the beginning. I do not claim to be an expert nor authority in any way as regards the subject of this writing, just a person, father and now widower, trying to navigate through this experience and make sense of it by the grace and love of God.

I am not trying to deny or refute any of the experts who give advice on dealing with death, grief and loss, and I have read several. Most, if not all of the experts end by talking about the moving on stage when addressing the stages of grief. At this point in my experience, I have a slightly different view regarding this.

When they speak of moving on, as I understand them, it is a moving away from the past and into the future, distancing, if not completely separating yourself from the past in some way. They seem to be saying that at some point you have to cut loose or let go of the past. Only then can you move forward with any degree of success at having a meaningful life.

Turn the past loose. Let go of those feelings and the attachment you had for the object of that love, now taken from you by death. Shirley is gone, they would say, and she can no longer reciprocate your love. At this stage in my life, my response to them would be, She does not need to. She already has done so in a way for me that is continuous, post her death. I am simply responding to her gift of eternal love, and in so doing, completing something started over forty-five years ago.

The fact