Do The Tango! (Piper's Story)

“That is why a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh.”  Genesis 2:24



I mentioned in a post yesterday, that our last dog Mandie was most definitely Piper’s dog.  She was a sweet tempered black Australian Shepherd Mix with brown socked paws.  Piper was the one who first spotted her when we were at the county animal shelter looking for a potential dog for my folks.  It was Piper who convinced the owner of the house that we were renting to change her NO dog policy, and it was Piper whom the dog followed throughout the day… and slept snuggled up to her at night… with me snuggled on the other side… I guess Piper liked to be warm at night!

Anyway, while forging on with the unpacking of boxes yesterday afternoon, I came across one that was simply marked “Pictures” with the date of 2014 on the top.  It contained a potpourri of items ranging from pictures of ministry events at our church, pictures from our trip to a week-long Children’s Leaders Conference at Camp Dry Gulch USA here in Oklahoma, family birthday parties, a small stack of homeschool reports that the kids had completed and at the very bottom… a folder containing things from Piper’s and my wedding.

While sitting on the floor in the study and going slowly through its contents, I spotted a daily notebook of Piper’s on the shelf of the bookcase in front of me.  As I thumbed through it and read the daily inputs beginning with our first days in Oklahoma in September of 2006 and the last entry dated May 30, 2007, I smiled, laughed, kept saying things like “Wow!,” “Hummm,” “Oh Geez,” or “I never knew that” and cried!  In one spot she happily penned that “I took a 2-1/2 hour nap today… with Mandie!”

The laugh at her innocent comment gave me the courage to look through the file with paperwork and multiple copies of the wedding party group picture.  The paperwork included a thank you that we sent to the 300 guests, the church bulletin containing the order of service, complete with the congregational readings and hymn, and a copy of our vows…

That one was tough to read and to be honest, took me quite a while to get through it!  But when I finally completed it, I leaned back on the floor and with tear stained eyes and a weak and shaky voice… had to admit that we most definitely accomplished everything we covenanted together to do beginning on that special day in mid-July of 1975.

I know that I have a tendency to put Piper on a pedestal whenever I think, talk or write about her, while at the same time, relegating my role in the marriage to something less important than hers.  But lately, the Lord has been showing me… as my maternal Grandmother would say with a slight smile on her face… “You know, Jimmy (she and Piper were the only ones who ever called me that), it takes two to tango!”

When I take the time to really think about it, I can see how we were perfectly matched for our union.  We both encouraged the other’s dreams, goals and desires and brought out the best in each other.  I’ve always said how that I am who am today, in a HUGE part, because of her 48 years of influence in and on my life.  Well, I can see now, that the very same thing could be said about the wonderful women that she became, in part… due to my 48 years of influence on and in her life as well!  You were right, Grandma!  It does take two to tango through a successful marriage!

In our vows we covenanted with each other to;

•            Trust each other as our best earthly friends

•            To love, cherish, and protect each other

•            To be considerate of each other’s welfare in all our plans of life

•            To cultivate for each other’s sakes all manly virtues/womanly 
              graces 

•            In all things to seek each other’s welfare as we do our own

•            To have and to hold from that day forward, for better for 
              worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to 
              love and cherish, according to God’s holy ordinance; as 
              long as we both shall live.

I had a boss at Agilent Technologies who had a saying that he repeated quite often, flamboyantly declaring: “Been there!  Done that and won the T-Shirt!”  Well… I’ve got to be honest and let you know, that I believe I found one of those T-Shirt’s with my name on it under that file in that box yesterday!  And Piper’s insightful, innocent, and tender comments in her diary would also seem to guarantee that she was wearing that same victory T-Shirt as she passed on through Heaven’s gates!