Joy Comes In The Mourning: A True Story of Love

By Jane Smith

I was attracted to him from the moment I saw him, and the feeling was definitely mutual. When he asked me out and took my hand, we both felt the electricity-it jolted us almost like a lightning bolt! On our first official date, after the ballet, we sat in his car in the theatre parking lot under the stars. For hours, we talked sharing our hopes, fears, and even our secrets. And we fell deeply in love. Oh, yes, we had issues. My moods might be soaring in the morning yet hold me in a grip of despair that evening. There was turmoil inside me, but I longed for inner peace. He had finally come to the place where he admitted to himself that he was an alcoholic; he knew he needed to find a way out of that bondage. He wanted to be free. With our souls powerfully connected from the moment our hands touched, together we began our search for answers. How did our "happily ever after" work out? This book is the true story of our spiritual journey weaving through dark and turbulent times leading to a dramatic "Damascus Road" experience, and meeting the Creator of this tapestry called life. It reveals the changes and healing that can result from coming to know God and living at peace with him. In 1966 as a single college student, I published this poem: MY LOVER I don't know his name, that who can tell? But, no matter, I know him well. The kind of man he is and will be? A lover of earth, and sky, and sea! He loves the world and its clouds of lace; He thinks the world is a wondrous place. He loves the ocean and white-capped waves; He loves to make memories to save and save. He loves to read, and laugh, and talk; He loves to take long, lonely walks. He loves the earth as I do. He is kind, and handsome, too. Handsome in word, and look, and deed; Ready to help when there's a need. The kind of man he is and will be? A lover of earth and sky and me! In 1967, I met my lover and found out his name. If you want to know more, open this book and read on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641144162

Jane Smith

Jane Smith is the Director of Anorexia and Bulimia Care, a UK-based charity for those with eating disorders.

Book preview

cover.jpg

Joy Comes In The Mourning

Jane Smith

Copyright © 2018 Jane Smith

All rights reserved

First Edition

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc

Meadville, PA

First originally published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64114-415-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64114-416-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Prologue

I am telling my story as I remember it. The things I write are my best description of what happened. I am aware that memories are always colored by perception, and I know my perception is not perfect. Exact words and order of events may have faded with time, but those who knew me would recognize both the events and the people about whom I write. Though this book is not intended to be an exposé of other people’s secrets, I cannot write about my own life without including other people. Therefore, I am using first names only in this book, and I have changed most place names. Some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of others who may not wish to be known. I have chosen the pen name of Jane Smith. I wish to remain anonymous, not for my sake, but for the others who have been a part of my life.

Chapter One

Us

Some say there is no such thing as love at first sight, but that’s what I thought it was. He was tall, six feet, two inches, and slim at 185 pounds. He was muscular, and oh, so handsome. His mustache was neatly trimmed; his hair was dark and curly. His blue eyes sparkled when he smiled. I was all of five feet, three inches at 118 pounds and had to look way up at him when we talked. I was working my way through college and had recently landed a new job as shop secretary and bookkeeper. He told me later that when I walked through the shop in my ruffled pink dress with my long, straight brown hair falling almost to my waist, one of his buddies had said I was cuter than $842. He agreed and decided to ask me out.

I had access to the personnel records so I knew he was considerably older than I was, but that didn’t matter to me in those days. He was thirty-eight; I was twenty. Though he was a quiet man, he seemed to be very intelligent judging from the few brief conversations I had with him out in the shop. He seemed so mature and so much wiser than the boys my age. When he asked me to go to the library with him after work one evening to help him research his family tree, I accepted. At the library, we started a conversation that lasted the rest of our years together. He never did finish that family tree.

When we left the library, we drove through the park, and when he stopped the car, he took my hand. I don’t know how to describe what passed between us at that moment—if you’ve ever touched an electric fence, you have some idea of what it felt like. It was electric shock waves flowing between us—a realization of our connection, a meeting of our souls. I was startled and amazed; I knew from the look on his face, so was he! What was that electricity? It was a new experience for both of us. Never before in our lives had we felt anything like that, nor did it ever happen again. We had simply held hands, but it seemed our minds and hearts were flowing together. I had been waiting since I was thirteen for my true love to come into my life. He told me he had read about love but had ceased to believe it could ever exist—until we met.

Our first official date was April 7. We celebrated that special day all of our years together. We dressed up; I’d never seen him in a suit. The one he wore that night was very dark green in color. I was impressed when I saw him. I don’t even remember what I wore, but I’m sure it was short, slinky, and revealing. It was the era of mini and micro skirts and that was my taste in those days. He took me out to dinner. We didn’t want to stay in Our Town, Indiana, for that special evening, so we drove twenty miles to Smallville. A nice restaurant there served excellent food. That evening, however, I could not even tell you what was on my plate; we only had eyes for each other.

After dinner, he treated me to a movie of a Russian ballet performance. I was so proud to be with him, this handsome deep thinker who loved music as much as I did. We watched the ballet, and both of us enjoyed the classical music. It was so beautiful, twice beautiful because we shared the enjoyment. After the ballet, we sat in the theater parking lot in his car and talked for hours—almost all night! We discovered incredible similarities in our likes, our dislikes, our dreams and inner longings. Our differences seemed to complement each other. His easygoing, relaxed manner calmed my tendency to be anxious and tense. By three in the morning, we had shared our life stories and the secrets of our hearts. When we got out of the car for some fresh air, the wind was blowing softly. I knew I loved him then—even before he held me close under the stars and kissed me. I knew I wanted to be with him the rest of my life. When he whispered I love you to me, it was a simple confirmation of our future together. Anything else was unthinkable.

We were so high on love! We hardly came down to eat or sleep. From then on, it was Smitty and me—the center of our lives was us. Nothing was on our minds but being together; we spent every possible moment in each other’s company. I even rode along when he went to buy gasoline for the car, and he went to the grocery store with me. Other people and other things were always somewhere out in orbit around us. When we went places together, sometimes total strangers would say to us, You two are really in love, aren’t you?! If eyebrows were raised over our age difference, Smitty would joke to me: What’s eighteen years? Do you think when I’m one hundred and you’re eighty-two, people are going to say ‘What’s that old man doing with such a cute young chic?’ He could always make me laugh! One time I was so angry I shouted at him; I was spouting out words at about sixty miles an hour. He calmly made a crazy face, put his hands on his waist, and mimicked my barrage of words with his mouth while not making a sound. He looked so funny, I burst out laughing. It’s hard to be mad and laugh at the same time!

If you were to overhear our conversations, you would rarely hear him call me Jane. His name for me was Honey. I never called him by his given name either. He told me when we first met that he didn’t care for his first name. Since he liked the nickname his pals had given him at the shop, he became my Smitty.

As we learned to know one another, we discovered some very interesting number combinations. His birthday was 12-1; mine was 1-12. I graduated in 1964, and he graduated in 1946 (a year before I was born). The year I would be 24, he would be 42. Six months after our first date, we were married on 11-11-67 (I liked the rhyme.) It was Armistice Day.

And did we live happily ever after? This is not a fairy tale. This is a true story about my real life. Admittedly, at the tender age of twenty years, I still had on rose-colored glasses when I considered our future. Smitty tried to prepare me; after all, he was older and wiser than me. One day before we’d even celebrated our first anniversary, we were sitting on the couch snuggling—his arm was around me and my head was leaning against his chest so I could feel the vibrations of his deep voice. Honey, he began, this ‘high’ won’t last forever; love grows and love changes. Our ‘love high’ is like the new springtime blossoms on an apple tree. Oh, the blossoms are sweet smelling and so beautiful, you feel like you never want that season to end. But it does end—in time. He spoke so gently. I felt sadness tinged with fear begin to creep into my heart. But then he calmed me as he continued, After the blossom falls, if you look closely, you will see a tiny apple where the blossom used to be. As it is nurtured with good soil, sun, and rain, it grows and eventually becomes sweet fruit that nourishes and helps us stay healthy—and that fruit has within it more little seeds that can grow up into a trees and have those wonderful sweet blossoms again—many years later. Real love is like that. Our love is like that, honey.

Another time he told me this: Honey, from now on, if I see that I’m wrong, I’ll just stop arguing and admit it honestly. Can we both agree to do that? I liked the idea, and we practiced it all our years. I learned not to gloat when he said I was wrong. I’m sorry because there were many times when I had to say those very same words to him. It wasn’t easy to learn to admit being wrong, but it was very healthy for our relationship.

I wonder even now how he knew things like that; I think it was supernatural wisdom that was dropped into his heart and mind during that time. It was a prelude of where love was eventually going to lead us. Twenty years later, those words about the apple seeds proved to be true; we had another sweet springtime of love with each other—but I’m getting ahead of my story. You’ll have to wait to hear about that.

Yes, we had found love; we felt we were soul mates, but the love we shared did not solve our basic problems. From my early teen years, I had suffered from mood swings that swept me helplessly along from sky high to self-destructive depression. Smitty had been plagued by alcoholic binges for many, many years. In all truth, I had believed that my love would be the cure for Smitty; surely he wouldn’t need the booze any longer. But our love did not stop his drinking. I also thought that with the intensity and closeness of our love relationship, I would not fall into those old deep depressions again. But our love did not stop my periodic moods of despair. We found, to our amazement, that our love was not the answer to every problem or the end of our searching. The difference now was that we did not feel alone. We continued the search for answers together. I longed for inner peace. Though I didn’t really know what it was because I had never experienced it, I knew I didn’t have it. I’d read about it, though, and I had always, always felt its lack. Smitty was looking for a way of escape from alcoholism; he’d begun his search seven years before when he first admitted to himself he could not control the drinking. He’d even committed himself to a rehab program and psychological counseling, but it did not help him.

There were other problems too. Smitty not only brought much life experience to our marriage but also much debt! What a burden debt can be! Ah, but I was young; I believed our love would conquer all. It would be many years before I learned about the kind of love that really does conquer all. In those days, both Smitty and I believed in the supremacy of the human race and especially in our own intellectual supremacy. We believed that by discovery and education, humans and their society would get better and better. Oh yes, Smitty and I considered ourselves to be two intellectuals who could reason it out and find the way. What a maze was ahead of us!

Now, dear reader, I want to ask you a question: What are your feelings about Smitty and me thus far? Do you like us? Do you envy us? Are you scornful or skeptical of us? I’d like you to examine your feelings now and remember them. Then maybe your interest in us will motivate you to keep on reading even if your feelings about us change when you find out the details I’m about to share in the next chapter.

Chapter Two

Them

Because this story is about our real life, I need to add more details to the picture. I want to share with you not only the good and wonderful things but also the bad, ugly things as well. We human beings don’t live in a vacuum; our decisions and actions affect others not only in obvious ways, but sometimes in ways of which we are not even aware. So I need to tell you about them, the others who were involved and affected by the advent of Smitty and me.

You see, when we met, Smitty was married—for the second time, I might add. He had two children by his first wife and a son by his current wife, but that didn’t matter to us in those days. To us, our love was the ultimate; nothing mattered but our being together. Within three weeks after our