I met her at the swimming pool of our apartment complex. Her long black hair and physical beauty captivated me. It was about five different subjects and several hours later before I learned she was married. Over the next few months I saw her at the pool on occasion. Each time she would be with a girlfriend, faithfully carrying a glass with a potent screwdriver mixture. I learned that on Saturday mornings she would always be out by the pool, lying in the sun with irremovable sunglasses. Friday night was her evening out dancing at a local pub. I never really understood why she drank so much until one day some of my friends told me about her husband going through a glass door in a fit of rage. I was hooked with sympathy when I saw her running across the parking lot bleeding after he had hit her. I took her to the hospital. The next week she called me to take her to her lawyer.

I don’t exactly know when my concern for her turned into love, but it did. The challenge was that I was getting ready to leave for OCS in Quantico, Virginia for 12 weeks. During those weeks, she wrote and I wrote. I visited her on a long weekend. When I graduated and returned home on leave we got married. My mom and dad did not seem in the least bit surprised. I think something similar happened to them. They did not even tell their parents they were married until three months later.

I never really understood some of the inner pain Donna felt until after she was gone. When I returned to Missouri, to bury her next to her dad, her friends from youth were there to tell me about a little girl who stuttered, struggled with life and hated the small town she grew up in. She hid all of those anxieties inside and masked them along with the abusive relationship she remained in since age 15 with alcohol. It seemed as if she felt it would have made a difference to me or that it might somehow cause me to stop loving her and she might be forced back to that small town.

The reason I share this with you on her birthday is that I want you to remember how important it is to communicate and share your innermost thoughts with those you love. In James 5:16a says this: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” The key is the intimate communication which occurs as you build a relationship. The confession is a natural part of intimacy. Dr. Daniel Amen comments, in his book “Change your brain, change your life” in the chapter on the brain’s deep limbic system, that human touch and the intimate communication of a relationship can be as powerful as medication for healing. Life will place the right people in your path – you must choose wisely. When you do, don’t keep your pain or anxiety inside. Communicate it to others so we can pray for you and you can be healed. Those who love you cannot craft their prayers until they know what to pray for.

Love Dad