Just days after Daddy’s death, Brother Gobel, a Pentecostal preacher, paid a condolence call to Mother. A Bantam Rooster of a man, he was bow-legged, bald and not much taller than she, a stark contrast to the tall, handsome husband she was still mourning. He drank coffee, prayed with her, as ministers on visits normally do, and took his leave. Thinking no more of it, Mother was shocked to get a letter from him a few days later. Even more startling, was the fact that it included an epic poem of love telling of his devotion and hopes for their future together, followed up with a marriage proposal, and some appropriate Biblical quotations about the role of wives, remarking that he’d always admired what a dutiful wife she had been, waiting on Daddy hand and foot. Wisely, she pitched the letter in the trash. Unwisely, she told me about it. One of my great regrets in life is that she never shared that poem with me. It would have my life, and yours, so much richer.
Oh, yes, I would have loved to read that letter. I enjoyed dropping in and reading three of your posts today. All three of them had marvelous titles that made them irresistible.
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So glad. I try to catch interest. What is name of your book. I want to get it.
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I wonder if he thought he would be doing her a favor, taking care of her or something prehistoric like that. I can imagine throwing it in the trash, too, or tearing it up in little pieces even. Makes me angry just thinking about it. If you make up the poem/letter, you have to write a response, too!
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Actually, this was a true story. There was no follow up. Mother just got rid of him.
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Actually, this was a true story. There was no follow up. Mother just got rid of him. I think he wanted her to take care of him, not the other way around. She had a nice farm and a good living.
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And she was smart, too!
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She did not want a man to take care of.
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Ha, ha. Maybe he thought there’d be a waiting line and he’d beat the others to the front of it. 😀 — Suzanne
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I think he was the line. She was approached by two other men in their late seventies.
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Reblogged this on Nutsrok.
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Coincidently, I’m not surprised. Ages ago, my father’s best friend died from a car crash. During the funeral, the priest informed the widow that the deceased owed money to him which should be fully paid back soon.
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Oh, Lord! Such compassion!
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Amazing, isn’t it?
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Completely disappointed that you didn’t have a chance to write about that poem! 😉 G-uno
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I need to make one up, but it was four pages long. I wonder how many women he had tried it on.
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Please do! I wonder about that too. I am even more curious to know if it actually worked with one of them. 🙂 G-uno
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Probably. There’s always somebody dying to get married.
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If you can’t even trust a Pentecostal preacher at a time of grief and loss then there’s no hope for the rest of us. I’m disgusted to say the least.
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Not as disgusted as she was, but he did need someone to wait on him.
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I would have loved to have seen it 🙂
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So would I. I am so glad she slipped up and told me.
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