True Love

On Sunday, I experienced true love.

I usually try to keep identities private in this blog in order to protect the guilty innocent, but in this case, I feel I must explain.

The Stake Patriarch for my stake, Jack Dyer, lost his wife last weekend. She had suffered a stroke last summer, and though she wasn't expected to last long, she survived for seven months. I went over to his home Sunday afternoon to help his write up his wife's obituary. (Parenthetical remark - now that there are two wards, I've graduated from ward obituary writer to stake obituary writer...) It really didn't take me long to type the information, so we began to talk. There are several things he told me that I can't say - a few I really shouldn't share, and a few I can't share until he passes on. However, every time he started to tell a story about his wife, I could see a change in his countenance. The way he looked and the way he spoke said volumes about his feelings - more so even than his stories.

I rarely get close enough to anyone outside of my own family to experience anything like this. And outside of my parents, my extended family isn't exactly brimming with examples of this. But I saw true love in Brother Dyer's eyes Sunday afternoon, and at that moment, I learned many things without any words being said. Maybe one day, I'll share a few of those things I learned - when the time is right ;)