As poor graduate students we honeymooned at the exotic "Rough River State Park" in Kentucky. On one of our hikes I captured Susan acting like a cub bear climbing a tree:

Our first home together was at 5727 Elwood St. in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pa. The irony was that Elwood was also the name of Susan's father. This picture captures a number issues in our first year of marriage. First the blue walls in the upper right. Susan hated them, but I insisted that they stay. The green sofa in the background was our first piece of furniture. The little dachshund was named Alexander and Susan won it (by beating me and my partner Jim Logsdon) at a game of Mille Borne. He turned out to be an untrainable dog, and when he grew up he ate the green sofa, after which even Susan decided he had to go. Note Susan's outfit which she made herself, as she did almost all her clothes in those days.

Finally, in July 1967 I completed the requirements for the physics PhD at CMU, and accepted a job at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ. I just missed the 1967 graduation, so here we are in June, 1968 when I received the degree officially.

Leaving Elwood Street in '67 we moved to the brand new Chatham Hill apartments in Chatham, NJ. Susan loved this one-bedroom apartment with its modern kitchen. Here she is standing in her kitchen showing off the little black dress that she made herself. Of all the places we lived after this, I truly believed she liked this one best, with the exception of the house on Ash Circle. I think the fact that it had only one bathroom to clean, and the walls were light, gave it a special appeal. Those were happy days full of new adventures and high prospects for the future.

After 2 years at Chatham Hill, we bought our first house at One Leddell Road in Mendham, NJ. A year later, Susan became pregnant with David, and he was born on Sept. 19, 1970. Here's my favorite photo of the two of them.

Two and a half years later brother Mark was born. Here David inspects the new arrival, after which he comments, "Let's give him to the garbage men." (They're good friends now....)

A year and a half later, brother Peter was born, and our five-person family was complete.

This week marks the 2nd anniversary of Susan's passing from this life into glory. The flowers above were on display this morning at Town North Church in her memory, and are shown here on Susan's grave.

Today marks Susan's 61st birthday. A year ago, barely a month after her passing, I wrote her a letter which can be found here.

Everything in that letter is still true, and I couldn't say it better now than I did then. My grief has mellowed somewhat over the past year. Instead of a sharp pain, it is a dull ache.

Saturday night I hosted a gathering of the "Senior Saints" from Town North. Several guests commented on the furnishings that Susan had picked out for our home. As she was leaving one commented, "Susan would have really liked this." I agree. She loved showing hospitality, and even my clumsily administered use of her things could not eclipse the style and grace of their mistress.

The photo above is one I found several years before her passing. I think it was shot when she was 2 or 3 years old. She clearly did not want her picture taken! Sometimes, when I was about to do something that I thought would displease her, I would get out that photo, place it on a shelf above me in my study, look at it for awhile and think to myself: "you'd better not do what your planning." As an adult her beautiful face hardly ever showed displeasure with me, so I used the photo as a surrogate for her inner self to figure out what I should and should not do. I'd think to myself, "If I do this, will I get a face looking as unhappy as that?" It usually, (but not always) worked.

I'm struck now by how the world has gone on since my wife's death. Even my world has gone on. I remember a year ago quoting from my book on grief: They(grieving people) may want to stop the world. After all, a significant person just died; how can the world just keep going on? There is a sense in which I still feel that way. Yet this is to be a year of Jubilee, and in the Lord's providence I am to go on without her. Yet, even in the year of Jubilee there is to be a remembrance of the past. So in my mind, I picture on this date 61 years ago a hospital room in Oklahoma City. There, Helen Sanders smiles down at her new born daughter, while Elwood the new father, dressed in this Army AirForce uniform, stands by her bed, not caring that any moment an armed MP might barge in and arrest him for being AWOL. They decide to name the baby girl after Elwood's mother, Susie, whom her grandchildren would call Mamby. And so she is duly registered by the powers that be as Susan Gayle Sanders.

That baby girl was destined not only to bring great joy into Helen and Elwood's life, but into the lives of many others as well. Yet, there will be no biographies written on her life, no best sellers on amazon.com. Nonetheless, in the volume that really counts, the Lamb's Book of Life, there will be recorded these words:

Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
"Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

Happy Birthday, Sugar. I miss you more than ever. And I will love you to the end.

Your loving husband,

J.

For me the passage above from Ezekiel 24 says it perfectly. She was the delight of my eyes, as the picture above attests. In the case of Ezekiel and the people of Israel with Jerusalem under siege, the Lord went to great lengths in the prophet's life to prove a point: He took his wife. I can't claim something as dramatic in my life, yet the effect is the same: I grieve every day as I long for the delight of my eyes even as the prophet must have done.

Ezekiel went on with his life, as commanded by the Lord. In this year of Jubilee I do too, not knowing where the path may lead. She was always sure: "His plan is perfect." And so it is.

Yesterday was a long, but pleasant day. David and I drove his Aunt Shari and her automobile from Atlanta to Dallas as part of her planned move from North Carolina to the DFW area. As I climbed into bed after the long trip and picked up my Bible to read a passage before going to sleep, I found in my mind this persistent thought that would not go away. "Find and read the passage on the Year of Jubliee," the thought said. I attempted to comply. I searched in my concordance for "Jubilee" but found nothing. Then I tried "Year" and sure enough there was an entry: "Year, of Jubilee: Lev. 25." I dutifully turned to the passage and read that which is quoted above. The date was July 9, 2004. As I read the words above something I had never seen before leaped out from the page: "the tenth day of the seventh month." The Year of Jubliee started on their July 10th!! And July 10th is the day of my 39th anniversary of being wed to the sweetest, most wonderful girl in the world: Susan Gayle Sanders in Webster Groves, Missouri at the Webster Groves Christian Church in the year of our Lord 1965.

I could hardly believe what I was reading. For 39 years I had missed this simple fact about Jubilee and the Day of Atonement---namely, that they both started on the equivalent of our wedding anniversary, July 10th. But why now was I discovering this? And where did this persistent thought that caused me to search this out come from?

I have concluded that it came from none other than the Holy Spirit who was giving this special token of Christ's love for me as I come to this first wedding anniversary without her. The year of Jubilee is a year of beginnings in the Old Testament. Property is restored to the original owners. Debts are forgiven. The ground is unfettered to bear fruit as it will.

And so I believe the message that is being delivered to me is that I, too, am to enter a Year of Jubilee. A new beginning. The year of mourning is over. My new life is to begin, whatever that means.

I continue to miss Susan beyond the ability to express it. Yet, the question that confronts me is this: do I love her enough to be content to release her to the One who created her, and is now caring for her---yes, and even husbanding her--far better than this poor sinner could ever do in this fallen world? The answer is yes. It is the answer she would want me to give, and the one I must give as I willingly step out in faith depending on His caring providences for us both.

Letter to Town North Presbyterian Church, Richardson, TX.
Read as part of the morning sermon on 9/30/90.
Sermon topic: Intercessory Prayer

By Susan Dishman

Hi, I'm Susan Dishman and I don't like to talk in public.

For some time now, I've been a prayer request on your prayer list that gets handed out every week. First, you prayed for me during my surgery, after I found out that I had cancer. Then, you prayed for me during the last 18 weeks as I went through chemo-therapy.

When Pastor Dave asked me to tell you--in public--what intercessory prayer meant to me, I asked him if he had ever heard about stress management in cancer patients. I told him that getting up in front of you would not help me manage my stress! So he agreed to let me write this out so that he could read it, and so he could manage the stress instead of me.

Intercessory prayer has meant a great deal to me over the last several months. The diagnosis of my cancer came as shock to me and my family last April. We had just learned that my mother had breast cancer in February, almost exactly a year after my father had died of cancer. And all of this came in a year when we had moved to Texas from New Jersey, our oldest son had started to college in Georgia, and our younger sons had to start all over at high schools in Texas.

Back in New Jersey we had depended a great deal on our Christian friends in the church we had attended for 22 years to support us in times like this. Here, we were newcomers to the Town North congregation. Could we really expect people we were just getting to know, and who were just getting to know us, to support us in the same way through prayer and caring?

What we actually found was that the Lord knew that I would be going through this trial at this time, and He had prepared this congregation to be just the right support we needed through your prayers and your acts of love to us.

There has been such a bonding between you and us as you've prayed for us, and we prayed for you. The first people we told after the diagnosis were our friends from our small group fellowship as we sat around a table in Braum's Ice Cream shop in Plano. I'll never forget our standing outside the door of Braum's while Don Campbell led us in prayer for wisdom about the surgery and the chemotherapy and how much peace that gave us.

And then the Sunday before my surgery was the same Sunday that George Caruth lost his father. As it turned out, I sat right in front of George that day, and during the time of prayer he placed his hand on my shoulder as he reached out to comfort me. I think that symbolizes what intercessory prayer is all about. Needy people, bonded together by their need, and being cared for and comforted by God's people who submit them to the Lord's will and His mercy.

Have your prayers for me and my family been answered? Does praying for others do any good?

In some sense, I don't know what the final answer to your prayers and my prayers will be. But here's what I do know. First, the knowledge that you were praying for me gave me strength to carry on. There have been many days when I was just too sick to pray, even for myself. But I knew you were praying for me. You told me you were, and you sent me cards, and called me on the phone to encourage me. That made a big difference in my own attitude. At first, I dreaded those chemo treatments. I thought they were doing something TO me. But as the accumulated weight of your prayers took hold in my mind, I began to see that those treatments were doing something FOR me. I actually began to get stronger during the final two months, and the side effects were greatly reduced. I even managed to keep most of my hair, even though the particular chemo I received almost always causes complete hair loss.

Something else I know is that I have changed as a person through your prayers, and through the Lord's use of this experience in my life. In the story of Mary and Martha, I very much identify with Martha. I like to have the dishes done, the floor swept, and the beds made.

Barb Cole once told me that even though you expect everything to return to normal after your illness is "over," it really never does. You look at life much differently than before. And so I'm starting to appreciate Mary almost as much as Martha now. I appreciate each day for what it is. I'm seeing how precious each day is in God's sight and in the fellowship we have with Him.

Now that my chemotherapy is over, I expect to fade out from the weekly prayer list. Others will need to be placed there more than me. But please don't stop praying! I know that there are many others in this congregation that have struggled, and are struggling, through trials far worse than mine, and through your prayers have succeeded in overcoming their fears, and the temptation to doubt God's love and mercy. We need to keep praying for one another!

I never would have asked to get a serious disease like cancer, but now I understand how the Lord can bring what seem like terrible trials into our lives to accomplish a far greater good, just like the Lord's death made possible our salvation. For me that greater good is to draw closer to Him, to draw closer to my family, and to draw closer in love to all of you. Thanks for praying!

Here's a photo of Susan sent to me by niece Kathy. She was probably, what, 10 years old? Kathy, maybe in the comments section you could tell us how you came to have this picture. I've never seen it before. It captures so well the person Susan would become as an adult: sweet, cheerful, compassionate, wanting to please. The more mature Susan would add a dash of worldly wisdom and great elegance and discernment to match those wonderful qualities she had as a girl. How incredible those qualities must be now in her present glorified state. How I miss her!

This week has been a particularly difficult one for me, as grief reappeared in several new ways. After struggling to find out why Susan's grave marker had not yet been installed, I finally tracked it down and arranged for its placement. This coincided with the emergence of the first rose bud of the Spring on the bush in our front yard. I carefully clipped it, wrapped it in a paper towel, and took it with me as I set out on my usual Friday jaunt to take Tori (along with Kathy & Nate) to her regular appointment, and thence to our favorite Chick-Fil-A for lunch. After delivering the Schwarz's to their homeschooling co-op, I drove the 5 miles down to Restland Cemetery to see if in fact the marker had been placed.

It had.

Its newness contrasted strongly with its weathered companions near by in the Garden of the Gospels. The bright brass letters gleamed our names. The large letters of DISHMAN, were in the middle of the plaque, and then our two names on either side. To the left (non-standard I'm told) were mine, and on the right were hers: SUSAN GAYLE, August 30, 1943, July 28, 2003. In between was the usual flower vase, and a small marking stating our wedding date, July 10, 1965. And then below our surname was the last line from the hymn, "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go," which had so touched me in the weeks following Susan's death. That line reads, "And from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be."

As I stood over my beloved wife's grave--and the empty spot that soon shall be mine--I couldn't help but remember those words from the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Question 37):

Q. 37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united in Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection.

That phrase, "their bodies, being still united in Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection," comforted me. I was attached to that body that belonged to Susan Gayle Sanders Dishman. I cherished it like my own--even more than my own. I thought of it there in its casket below my feet, subject to decay, yet nevertheless still united to Christ. He cares for it still. She is not in that body that rests there. Her soul was made perfect in holiness and went immediately to glory at precisely 12:14 PM on Monday, July 28, 2003.

I placed the tiny rosebud in the flower vase and sat for awhile among the statues of the four Gospel writers. From that vantage point, about 20 yards away from her grave, the rosebud was barely visible. In my mind I thought of the groundskeeper approaching it and thinking the vase was empty because the bud was so small. As he is about to turn the vase over and insert it back in its storage spot he sees it is not empty after all. That tiny bud shows promise, and could possibly enlarge to a full size blossom. So he passes on by, perhaps even noticing how the bud and the epitaph tell a single message: and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be