We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her before the marriage ceremony began. There was much joking that the groom need remember only one date, with the birthday and the anniversary being all rolled into one.
Such happiness, such smiles, she was a picture of perfect contentment.
There cannot have been a bride anywhere more happy than she was.
It was a rare moment.
The telephone call this morning could not be believed. The message that he had died suddenly could not be true; there must have been a mistake.
Always smiling, always cheerful, always watching out for her and the two young children, slim and fit, never smoking, not drinking – it could not have been him.
The words from the sermon at the wedding in February come back in a mocking way – about how they will look back on their wedding day in twenty-five or fifty years time.
Four and a half months.
It is impossible for anyone who has not been in her place to imagine what it is like.
There are no words.
No words.
And do not tell me it is the working out of some purpose. Perhaps those who say such things would like to explain to two little children this morning why their daddy is never coming home. A God who worked out his purpose by causing such pain would not be worthy of the name.