Frank and Edna Howell were long-time members of Andover United Methodist Church (NJ), where I served as pastor from 1986-1990. I met them when Frank was 88 and Edna was 92, and their love story has always stuck with me. Frank had been married and had three children with his first wife who, for no apparent reason, decided one day that she had had enough and left the family and the farm they owned. Frank was 45 years old and totally at sea of how to raise these children (this was 1943). Edna had never married; she was, in her words, an old lady spinster (which she said with a laugh) who had lived with her parents her whole life. Frank and Edna had attended school and church together since they were young children, and they were friends and neighbors. Edna offered to help Frank with the kids while he was working during the day, and after a time, they decided to get married. Frank told me that he was fond of her; Edna just smiled and nodded her head.
When I met them, Edna was beginning to get dementia and was almost completely deaf, and Frank could barely see – he wore a kind of Inspector Gadget eye thingy so he could navigate life. Using his still excellent hearing and her fairly decent sight, they drove back and forth to church and the local supermarket. I would watch them from the church door as Edna pointed over and over and Frank turned the steering wheel. You could hear her yelling loudly until he got to the right place to make his move; I prayed a lot. It was both awe-inspiring and frightening. Frank’s children were powerless to stop them, so they asked me to help. I asked a couple in church if they could give the Howells a ride to church, which Frank and Edna reluctantly agreed to. This worked for the next two years until Edna died at 95.
As Edna lay dying, Frank wept. He admitted that he didn’t know what he would do without her. They spent much of their time caring for their world-class Peonies which they shipped all over the world. She would guide his hands and he would dig the holes. They would wrap them carefully and package them for pickup. After she died, Frank had to get other people to do the tasks they had done together; it was too painful, he said, to do it alone. Frank was still alive when I left that congregation, but their story has stayed with me for all these years. I aspire to love my wife and children the way Frank and Edna loved each other and their children. They weren’t flashy or loud about it; they just did it. No expensive jewelry or videos on Tik Tok proclaiming their never-ending, undying love; they just worked at being partners and living their best lives until death parted them. Not a bad way to go, I think.
Prayer – We thank You God for people like Frank and Edna. They show us how to love with our whole hearts, the way You love us. Amen.
Today’s art is part of a series called “Love is in small things” by Puuung.