(Scroll to the end for links to my previous 11 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.)
Over the past year, I’ve often been counseled, by friends who have experienced deep grief in their own lives, to journal my feelings regularly. Some have advised that this would be helpful to me, in time, to look back at how my feelings of sorrow over Joanna’s passing evolved over the months. I’ve taken their advice but in my own way, by regularly posting public tributes to Joanna, particularly on the 14th of every month for the first year, what Joanna might call the “monthsary” (a term she coined to celebrate each month that passed in the first year of our marriage) of her passing – either on Facebook, my blog, or both.
Well, today marks 11 months since I lost the love of my life, 11 months that I’ve had to learn to do something I had hoped never to do: live without Joanna. Next month, we’ll observe the first anniversary and the last of my monthly tributes. From then on, those tributes will come on birthdays, anniversaries, and whenever else the notion strikes me, but they will no longer be, as the TV people say, “regularly scheduled.”
And it’s probably about time, because to tell you the truth, here it is past 10 p.m. on this 11th “monthsary,” and I’ve struggled with what to write today. I’m not feeling particularly creative . . . maybe I’m running out of new ways to pay tribute to her. Yet I don’t think that’s true, because as the days, weeks, and months pile up, I find myself coming up with more memories of things we did together and experienced together, places we went together, and so forth. You would think the emotions would get easier with time, but I’m finding just the opposite . . . it seems the more memories that crop up, the more I miss her, and the more I cry. I call them “good tears,” because they are reminders of how deeply we loved each other.
In fact, if I had to put my finger on one thing I’ve learned since Joanna passed away, it would be not so much something new that I’ve learned, but an affirmation – and even a much greater appreciation – of something I’ve known for a long time: Joanna and I shared a wonderful life together (with apologies to Frank Capra & George Bailey), a truly wonderful life. The old axiom tells us that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, no, Joanna’s absence couldn’t make me any “fonder” of her than I have been all these years, but her absence has given me both the time and distance to deeply contemplate what she means (means, not meant) to me, and my appreciation of both the life we shared – and the wonderful woman with whom I shared it – grows ever deeper.
This month, my thoughts have often gone back to another January, 49 years ago. It was January 5, 1973, that the Chinese Student Association at OBU gathered for a party to induct several non-Chinese students – including yours truly – for the first time. (For a fuller story of how this came to be, read How Joanna and I got together . . . the beginning of our love story.)
’75 fall, when Joanna was in Hanging of the Green at OBU, and I was her escort
Joanna (who only months before had found herself transported from life in Hong Kong to the red clay of Oklahoma as an OBU freshman) and I (a senior) had been meeting regularly at a table in the University Center for the previous 3 months, for her to teach me to speak Cantonese – which was the initiation challenge given to those of us who were prospective inductees. The contest had been held, judged by Jaxie Short, Baptist missionary to Hong Kong, back home on furlough that year and serving as missionary-in-residence at OBU. Jaxie named me as the winner of the contest.
What can I say? I had an excellent teacher! But until that night, January 5, I don’t think it had dawned on me that I was falling in love with my teacher. I remember at the party that evening, looking at Joanna and thinking what a wonderful smile she had and how much I enjoyed being with her, and finally the light dawned – I should ask her out!
But I didn’t go out on dates, because I was the shyest guy God ever created . . . sorely lacking in self-confidence, deathly afraid of rejection. Ten nights later, I sat in the center of my dorm room and stared at the phone for 3 hours, never getting up the courage to call her. Later that week, when I finished my lunch in the OBU cafeteria, I spotted Joanna (she worked in the cafeteria), walked over to her, and asked if she would be in her room that afternoon because I wanted to call her about something. She said yes, she would. That was my “strategy” – to put the pressure on myself to make that call!
So I called her that afternoon and asked her to go with me to the OBU basketball game that Saturday night. To my amazement, she said yes!
I called on her at her dorm Saturday night (January 20), and we went to the game. After the game, I asked if she’d like to go get a bite to eat with me, and she again said yes. We walked across Kickapoo Street from the campus to Pizza Hut, but found it jam-packed with other students who had the same idea. So we walked on down the street to the Grubsteak, a wonderful (now legendary to OBU students of that era) sub-sandwich restaurant. We had a nice time there, and then I walked her back to her dorm. I don’t remember this, but she told the story years later that when we got back to her dorm, I said something about “wanting more,” or something to that effect. I’m not sure of my exact words, but it was my awkward way of saying I’d like to take her out again sometime. Despite my awkwardness, we very quickly became “an item.”
Yes, that January holds special memories for me. She was the love of my life for just over 48 years before she passed away last February. Now it’s 49, because she still is and always will be the love of my life. “‘Til death do us part” isn’t for us. Such a love doesn’t end with passage from this life to the next. As I whispered last April, as my kids and I put the box containing Joanna’s ashes into the niche in Wilshire Baptist Church’s Columbarium, “I’ll see you soon, Babe. I love you.”
My previous 11 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing on February 14:
12/14/21 – Ten months after Joanna’s passing . . . music, memories, and lumps in the throat
12/1/21 – 12/1/81, a great day as we became parents for the first time . . . Alison turns 40!
11/14/21 – Journeying with Joanna . . . Photo memories from a half-century (almost) of our travels together
9/14/21 – Pictures, pictures, pictures . . . remembering my wonderful trip with Joanna to Hong Kong, Beijing, and Macao 10 years ago this week
9/4/21 – Joanna and I were married 45 years ago today . . . Missing her and celebrating her
8/14/21 – Six months after Joanna’s passing . . . remembering her humor and all that she meant to me
7/14/21 – Five months after Joanna’s passing . . . remembering the lively soul who brought us joy
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