There are “ah-ha” moments of sudden insight or intellectual discovery that shape our thinking afterwards. There are events, even moments, that become so much a part of us that they affect who and what we are and become. They spring from memory to conscious thought regularly, evoking a sense of being there again. They are unique, as are the people who host them, but often are similar to others because many life experiences are shared.
Perhaps these events or moments seize attention and embed themselves in our psyches because of who and what we were at the time. They define us in some central core of self upon which we build even as we grow and change. Even as we change, they are so powerful that they help to shape us.
In the latest chapter of my life, the loss of Annette and attendant aloneness, age and disability have forced into consciousness many of these events and moments. My spiritual journey has been a continuing process with high points like conversion and baptism, but also with gradual, almost unnoticed growth in insight and practice.
High on my unforgettable events list is my first date with Annette, when I fell head over heels in love with her forever. Next, was our marriage some 16 months later after a decision that made no practical sense and some hurried preparation. It was the best thing that ever happened to me and it still holds in her physical absence.
Seeing our babies, Gary and Elizabeth, for the first time was an experience of awe. I was not with Annette when they were born. We were seminary students 400 miles from home, lacking a car, money for a hospital in Raleigh and a support system for her before and after delivery. So, for a time, she stayed in south Georgia amid a huge, loving family and access to her caring doctor and his hospital. These were the worst times of my life until she died. Anyway, I arrived late to see and hold my babies.
There were graduations: five for me, two for her, three for Gary and Elizabeth. We celebrated together, as we did those for grandchildren as long as she lived. There were marriages. How I missed her at the wedding of our granddaughter Claire last Saturday!
There were funerals for parents, siblings, extended kin and almost countless friends. The scars that remain are indelible. But these have made me a more caring, insightful counselor for people struggling with grievous loss.
There are memorable moments that fit no label. One evening during Christmas break in my first year at UGA, I was on my way back to the house after an afternoon of hunting, maybe just rambling around. The sun had set without color. The cloudless sky and earth beneath were marked by a soft but clear crystalline glow. Walking up the gentle slope toward the house, I was struck by the smoke coming from the welcoming fireplace. It rose straight up for 200 feet or more, normal for a windless day. Then, it turned at a right angle, north to south, normal for wind after passage of a cold front. I did not perceive this as any sort of message, but still think of it as striking and beautiful.
Annette and I chose the high country of North Carolina for vacations. Blowing Rock has facilities that offer cottages and we chose one as temporary home from which we explored the Blue Ridge Parkway. We liked to stop at overlooks to take in valleys giving way to ridge lines, then higher ridge lines, blue-gray against a distant sky. What was it that I felt then -- and still remember -- a time of spiritual uplift or a time of being at one with the wonders of nature or both? In one of my favorite pictures of her, she is leaning against the safety barrier absorbed in whatever happens to us there.
She figures in so many bright and joyful moments that play into consciousness. Here she is eating boiled peanuts served up by and enjoyed with our friend almost kinsman Lester Brown. There she is wading in a fast-flowing shallow run in Pendleton Creek fishing for “stump-knockers.” When these overtake my mind, I have to rejoice in the close and shared partnership we had. And how much she smiled.
I remember the choking fear brought on by death-threatening crises during her 13 1/2 years of battles with a series of autoimmune disorders. And I do not fear anything anymore. I remember times when she suffered obvious pain but without complaint. I now have no sympathy to spare for whiners.
The last heart-seizing event from the day Annette died over 10 years ago was when I was holding her upright in her chair at the dinette while a lady EMT tried to help with the respiratory failure that was killing her. “Breathe, Mrs. Branch,” she pleaded, but with no response. “Breathe, Darling, breathe,” I pleaded. And she breathed, just once. Her last act of will was one of love. She would not like me to be so sad, but to lose such a precious blessing leaves no alternative. This moment is part of me forever.
Roger G. Branch Sr. is professor emeritus of sociology at Georgia Southern University and is a retired pastor.