When you love someone as long and as deeply as I love my Chester, it’s incredibly hard when you have to say goodbye. We had been together for the better part of 45 years. That’s a long time by today’s standards. I have known him since I was 16 when my brother introduced us to each other and you could say the rest is history.

The first time we met I thought oh, he’s just another guy. Guys come and go never thought anything would ever come of it.  But there was something about Chester. I couldn’t get him out of my head. I did think it was cool he was from England and all but it was more than that. And from his end he told me later on he thought I was cute. He wanted to take me out.

We started off by just hanging out as friends getting to know each other. I always had this thing about taking things slow with a guy. I never wanted to move to fast with any guy. So we took our time. The more time we spent together the more of a connection we made. We were of like minded on so many issues not everything but many. It wouldn’t be normal if we agreed on everything all the time.

It really didn’t take that long before we found we were soulmates. We fell in love. There was a spiritual connection.  Chester was always a gentleman, never crossing boundaries. In fact the first time we kissed, he asked me if was OK. He said later, “Your lips looked like they needed kissing”

We fell in love and we both fell hard and deep. He spent a lot of time with my family and he noticed how much I loved them. One evening after we had spent the day with my family he told me when I love I love deep. That’s true. It goes for him too. By that time we had fallen so deeply for each other we couldn’t see living the rest of our lives without one another.

Our connection was so intense that there were times we didn’t even have to talk. We would just gaze into each other’s eyes and we knew what each other was saying.When I lost my mother he was right there to comfort me. He never had to say a word, he just held me tightly in his arms. He loved her too. She became a second mother to him. His mother was still in England so my mom mothered him.

Even though we were intensely close, it wasn’t always bliss. Like every other normal couple we had our times after we got married. Our ups and downs. Our marriage was kind of rocky after we lost our 7 year old son in 1993 from complications from heart surgery. We both grieved in differently. He would shut himself off and I wanted to vent so then I would retreat and shut myself off.  A mother grieves differently than a father does.  That lasted a couple years then we came back together again. We still loved each other through that tough period. Even since then it always hasn’t been perfect but our love never failed.

We did so many things together. We gardened together, went places, we shopped together, sometimes I helped him work on his vehicles. We spent so much time together. I always felt so safe and secure when he was around.

When you love someone so deeply like that and you lose them it’s like losing a part of you like losing your right arm. It leaves a big black empty hole that no one can fill. The pain is excruciating,and you don’t know if you can even go on.

There will never be anyone else like him. We are one flesh.  No one else will ever take his place as long as I’m walking this earth. He is my best friend, my lover, soulmate, the love of my life. We are spiritually connected and always will be.  I’m looking forward to the day when we are reunited. When we embrace each other and gaze into each other’s eyes, I know I am home, safe and where I should be. We will never again have to say goodbye.  Neither one of us will ever get sick,old, or sad. We will do and experience so many more things together and spend all the time we want, it’ll be forever. Our relationship I believe will be even stronger and best of all it’ll be total bliss in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.