Five months after Joanna’s passing . . . remembering the lively soul who brought us joy 
by Bill Jones

(Scroll down for links to my previous blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.)

Friends who have lost their longtime spouses through death tell me it eventually gets easier . . . but only with the passage of time . . . years, in some cases. Daddy lived 10 years after Mother passed away. I don’t think it ever got ‘easier’ for him.

It’s been 5 months since Joanna passed away. It seems that, over the past month or so, as the reality – and permanence – of her death has begun to sink in . . . only begun, mind you . . . it has gotten harder, not easier. My kids have expressed the same feeling. Denial has begun to be replaced by a grudging acceptance, and I find the tears come more often and in greater waves. Still, they’re what I call ‘good tears,’ reminders of how deeply Joanna and I loved each other.

Still, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to fully accept that this is reality . . . final. I still find myself half-expecting to see her sitting in her recliner when I walk into the bedroom . . . and, when working in my study late at night, having the feeling that I’d better finish soon because Joanna is waiting in bed, worrying that I’m staying up too late for my health. I still hear her voice in my head, reminding me of things I’ve left undone, tasks that I need to do, and so forth. Old habits, old thoughts don’t just drop away because someone isn’t there anymore. It’s still hard to accept that Joanna’s death is real, that her absence (in this life) is permanent . . . my heart says it just can’t be. I’ve told friends that, if I ever write a book about my grief (which I don’t expect to do), I’ll probably title it, I’m Beginning to Think Joanna’s Not Coming Back – what you might call a seriocomic title.

In the early 1980s, I attended a funeral at University Hills Baptist Church in Denver, where we were then members. A young man, in his 20s, who had grown up in that church, had been killed in a car accident. I have never forgotten what our pastor, Davis Cooper, said in his eulogy of David. He told us that, following the service, we would be passing by the open casket at the front of the sanctuary. He urged us to take part and to not look away but, instead, to look at David’s face as we walked past his casket.

“You will see that David is not there,” he said. “He no longer even looks like the David we knew. As you look, you will realize that David is no longer here. This is just the earthly shell . . . his soul, his spirit is with Jesus now.”

When I arrived at the hospital on the night of Feb. 13 (actually, around 2 a.m. on Feb. 14; she had died shortly after 1 a.m.), shortly after being told that Joanna had passed away, I was given time alone with her body. I used that time to say a few words of goodbye that I never got to say to her before she died, and to give her a hug and a kiss. But I noticed something. She no longer looked like the Joanna whom I knew and loved for 48 years. I noticed the same thing when the kids and I went to view her body in the funeral home weeks later. That wasn’t Joanna . . . it was, as Davis Cooper (who, by the way, baptized Joanna in August 1981) said about David’s body almost 40 years ago, just the earthly shell. There was no longer the sparkle in her eyes, the blush in her cheeks, the smile of many kinds – sweet, wry, laughing . . . no, none of that. Joanna had left that body to meet Jesus in her new eternal home.

You see, in this life we are obsessed with our bodies, but it is the soul that animates the body; the soul, not the body, is where life resides, where life emanates.

On this fifth ‘monthsary’ of Joanna’s passing, I want to share some pictures of the way Joanna’s sweet, caring, courageous, loving soul animated her body, gave it the beauty that we enjoyed so much. A couple of months ago, I began pulling down – from the top shelf in our bedroom closet – the many photo albums that Joanna had compiled over the years. I was amazed to see the work that she had put into those photo albums. Photos stretching back to the 1970s are in these albums – all of this was Joanna’s doing. I have since begun digitizing these photos with a photo scanner.

Oh, what wonderful memories! I’ve scanned seven albums to date (with about 15 or so to go!), spanning the early ’70s through the early ’90s. Here are a few photos, showing the many expressions of Joanna’s soul, from across those years.

(FYI – Clicking on the photo will open the full-size photo in a new window.)

My previous 4 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing on February 14, 2021:

6/14/21 – Four months after Joanna’s passing . . . a few personal reflections
3/19/21 – Joanna spoke out against demeaning racial slurs and the fears they caused her as an Asian-American
2/22/21 – How Joanna and I got together . . . the beginning of our love story
2/19/21 – The painful journey that took the love of my life, Joanna . . . to the great heavenly banquet

’72 summer, with her family in Hong Kong, shortly before she left for OBU

’72 fall, Joanna in her dorm room at OBU

’72 fall, Joanna with OBU Chinese students and Eunice Short, international student liaison

’73, Joanna with her roommate, Shirley Ng

’73 summer

c. ’74-’75 with OBU friends; Sumiko Ushiban from Japan, to the right of Joanna, would be maid of honor at our wedding in ’76

c. ’73-’75, OBU campus

c. ’73-’75, OBU campus

c. ’73-’75, at St. Gregory’s College, just down the street from OBU

c. ’73-’75, probably on St. Gregory College campus, just down the street from OBU

c. 74-’76, apparently at photography studio

’76 March, celebrating my 25th birthday at OBU with Joanna & her sister Rossana, visiting from Hong Kong

’76 May, Joanna’s graduation from OBU

c. ’75-’76, with my parents at their home in Marble Falls, TX

c. 74-75

c. ’74-’75

’75 fall, when Joanna was in Hanging of the Green at OBU, and I was her escort

c. ’74-’75

’76, bridal photo

’76 Sept. 4, recessional, walking out as Mr. & Mrs. Jones for the first time

’81, at baby shower: Alison would be born on December 1

’81 December, with newborn Alison

’81, Joanna & me with baby Alison Carlene

’82, with Alison

’82 Christmas, with Alison

’83, Christmas – I bought her a food processor; looks like it’s what she wanted!

’82, Joanna with Alison

Winter ’82-’83, Joanna with Alison

’83 December, Alison’s 2nd birthday party

’85 November, with Travis newborn

’85 November, with Travis newborn

’86 with Travis

’86, OBU cabin at Glorieta Baptist Encampment, NM

’86 with Travis, trip to Taos, NM

’86, trip to Taos, NM

’86 September at Disneyland

’94 fall, trip to Colorado