Roses in December

I answered the phone at work the other day and was most pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of an old friend on the other line. Robynn Holland was calling to see if I'd be interested in providing a genealogy workshop for teachers under the auspices of the Georgia Humanities Council. I jumped at the chance, not only because I'm a total genealogy nerd, but because I'd do most anything for Robynn. She had worked with Randy at Pointe South Middle School while simultaneously dealing with a painful divorce and a cancer diagnosis. Randy thought very, very highly of her and not long after he passed away I got the opportunity to apply for a spot in a Teaching American History grant program that she was directing. She was instrumental in getting me the slot, largely--I think--because she knew I was Randy's widow. I loved working with her throughout the two year program. And it was that program that introduced me to the Atlanta History Center and, ultimately, my dream job. Funny how one opportunity leads to another as we move through life.

Anyway, as we chatted on the phone, catching up with one another's lives, she mentioned how often she still thinks of Randy. She told me that he was a gifted, even brilliant teacher. She said he was the consummate gentleman and what's more, a gentle man. She said he was a tremendous leader--that the administration at the school had been critically weak and that Randy's leadership was instrumental in the day to day workings of the school. She said, "Sue, you know, you lose people now and again in life and it's always sad, but there was something special about Randy. Losing him just rocked me to the core--I still think of him."

Listening to her soothed places in my soul that I didn't even know were raw. There is something about knowing that he lives in other people's memories that somehow makes him alive again in my own. It wasn't four days later that it happened again.

Andy Wood, a dear friend from our days in Spain, arrived for a visit just a few days after my conversation with Robynn. He wasn't in my living room for more than 30 minutes when he directed the conversation to Randy. He told me that he had attended a church leadership meeting many years ago in Cadiz with Randy and that the speaker said that a young man absolutely must serve a mission before even thinking of marriage. Andy was new to the church and was already engaged to his sweetheart, Jenny. This leader's counsel shook him. Andy told me that as he and Randy drove back to Rota together, Randy told him that it was going to be okay. That there were many ways to serve a mission and that if he felt that marriage was the right choice for him, that's what he should do. Then Andy's eyes got a little misty as he went on. He said, "Randy told me that before Jenny and I consummated our marriage, that we should have prayer together. We did. And that really got us started on the right foot." He told me they were small incidents, these two encounters with Randy, but that they had meant the world to him.

James M. Barrie once said, "God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."

Or March.

Closing page of the 2002 Pointe South Middle School Yearbook:

Taken somewhere in the Black Sea, circa 1988