The One Left Behind
by
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My wife of 43 years was more than enough, the love of my life and my only real friend. She went on ahead, and now I'm the one left behind.
Charmaine had just been moved onto the home-care hospital bed. It was delivered that evening, and I’d left her to take some rest after several sleepless nights. The bed was empty when I came back downstairs in the early hours. Turning from having looked for her in the kitchen, I saw her laying instead beside the bed. She had rested her head on her right arm. It was as though she'd made herself comfortable thinking, “I’ll just wait for Mike to come back.” My love’s left arm offered no resistance beyond its own weight as I reached over and lifted it to wake her. It felt so heavy ….and as I let go it fell back to the floor with a thud that I felt as much as I heard. There was no sign whatever of the vivacious, outgoing, caring life where it always had been for the nearly 50 years I’d known her. This time there was no familiar waking from sleep. I knew then that she'd gone on ahead, and that I was now the one left behind.
I met Charmaine on our first day at University. In the words of the song, “The first time ever I saw her face, I saw the sunrise in her eyes. The moon and the stars were her gifts to me.” (See page 26) Over the years we had each become for the other, without hardly knowing it, quite simply our reason to live. To paraphrase the scripture, but to retain the spirit of its meaning, in each other we lived and moved and had our being. I quoted this from Boris Pasternak, in a letter to Charmaine at the time "You came in with a chair, reached up to take my life, as from a shelf, and blew away the dust." This is the story of how I’ve come to continue to live without her - a testimony to how God's goodness is helping me do this with love and purpose.
But it's not just about me. In most marriages, with few exceptions as well as that of our own parents, one will go on ahead and one will be left behind. How, especially as a Christian, is one to handle that?
In a way this is where the rubber hits the road. God, salvation, forgiveness, eternal life and everything else that goes with them, are either all true - or all false. The choice is ours. But, praise God, He does not leave me alone in making that almost daily choice. My heart wanted to believe, my mind wanted to understand, but my soul cried out, and still it gently weeps. All this can only be reconciled where there is that peace God gives that passes understanding. Fortunately we are not required to understand it.
Someone with experience asked me, "Is it well with your soul?" This led me to the song, which put words to what the Lord wanted me first of all to know and to do.
Through it all, through it all,
My eyes are on you.
Far be it from me to not believe,
even when my eyes can’t see?
Through it all it is well
Through it all my eyes are on you
It is well with my soul.
Let go my soul and trust in Him
It is well with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0dIWJ4t4Jg Worth watching through.)
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About the Book
Charmaine, Mike’s wife of forty-three years, lived with cancer for nearly eight years until two years ago. Then Jesus came back for her as he had promised. He took her to be where he is in his Father’s house where he had prepared a home for her. He lifted her up on eagles’ wings and took her to himself. The cancer is now dead, but Charmaine lives.
This is Mike and Charmaine’s story. It is a story of hope from “the one left behind”—a role that one day so many of us will be called upon to fill.
It tells of God’s goodness and how he is even “gooder” than we think—all the time. This they discovered through their circumstances, not despite them.
Mike has personally known Jesus as Lord in his life for over twenty years and Lord of his life in more recent years. For longer than that, he has travelled the world in sales and manufacturing roles, having lived and worked extensively in China, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and Israel.
He has a daughter living in Canada with her husband and four children whom he visits two to three times per year. Originally from Manchester, Mike returned to live there recently after a fifty-year absence to be close to his brother, his wife, and two nieces.
Mike is still working, building a business consulting to manufacturers.
About the Author
Mike has personally known Jesus as Lord, in his life for over 20 years and Lord of his life in more recent years. For longer than that he has travelled the world in Sales and Manufacturing roles, having lived and worked extensively in China, Africa, the Middle-East, Europe, the United States and Israel.
Saran, his daughter, lives in Canada with her husband and four children whom he visits 2 to 3 times per year. Originally from Manchester Mike returned to live there recently after a 50-year absence, to be close to his brother and family.
Mike is still working, building a business consulting to manufacturers.