Living With A Champion

Thank you for being here today. Some of you have traveled a long way, while others have come a shorter distance. But no matter from where you came, the most important thing, the thing that means the most to me, and means the most to her family, is
that you are here. And because "thank you" seems so inadequate, I ask that you take just a moment, and do nothing but look upon me, and try somehow to sense my innermost gratitude.....

I am not a public speaker. Nonetheless, I have four 1/2 pages here, and besides hoping to get through them, which I ask for your help, and God's... I trust that I got them right, for I hope they will give you a better understanding of the lady that I was married to. Mrs. R.L.

It is fitting that we would gather to tell each other stories. Stories about the person, who, to one or another of us...was a mother, sister, aunt, wife, cousin, grandmother, and all the rest. To tell each other stories about the person who to all of us...was our friend. And she was wonderful at being every one of them, because she enjoyed so much...being them.

And it is fitting that we would tell each other stories, for it is both, in the hearing and the telling, that is for us created something familiar, making it easier to bind more firmly in our memory, a life, that has been...lost.

She never gave up. Not in her inaugural fight with cancer, not the rematch, not the third, nor the last. She never gave up, she never quit, but finally, in the end, but surely not of her choosing, no longer having a choice, she simply stopped. It is now for us to go on. To go on living. Living not just for ourselves, but living for her.

Sometime during the summer of 1997, I began stopping in at a bar on 8th Street called, ____ By late August I had become what you might call a regular. And it was on one of those hot, late, July nights that I arrived a bit later than usual, sometime around 9:45 on a Thursday night. Scanning the tables and not seeing any familiar faces, I took a seat on a stool and settled in for a short and boring evening--the crowd was sparse and the band sucked. Then I noticed a group of three ladies at a table raisin' hell and peelin' Budweiser labels. "A way to keep track" I overheard one of 'em tell the waitress. One was a short cute little blonde gal and though she didn't seem to be peelin' the most labels, she was definitely, raisin' the most hell.

She never gave up. Not in fighting cancer nor in making the perfect angel food cake. In her effort to get it right, she once sent me to the grocery store three times for more eggs, butter, and cream of tartar. Five hours and three tries later, with every breath held, she turned out the perfect angel food cake.

She never gave up. Not in fighting cancer, nor in 1998, in her effort to become a tax professional. One month before gaining certification, cancer intervened. But the very next year she enrolled in all of the same classes again, and on January 04, 2000, proudly, and rightly so, prepared the first of her thousands of tax returns. Not one ever having been returned, challenged, or rejected. She was good at whatever she did and her clients depended on her. She never gave up.

So, after about twenty minutes, the band was on break and the ladies at the table called for their tab and looked to be gathering up to go. By this time so was I, and decided now was a good time to head home myself, before that band started in again. I followed 'em out the door. As I was headed to my car, a shrill wolf-whistle came screaming across the parking lot. Followed up in a very unique voice with, "Look at that cute butt." I thought what a cruel joke, but then decided whoever had whistled surely didn't mean me. My butt wasn't that cute. Still, with nothing to lose, I asked where they were headed, which turned out to be, another bar, like _____ the now defunct, ______ Lounge. "And oh by the way, I asked, who's the whistler, and what's her name?" Two of the ladies immediately pointed to the blond. "Yep it was me" she said, My name's Melissa." Maybe the evening wasn't going to be short nor boring after all. I followed 'em up 20th Street.

She never gave up. Not in fighting cancer, nor in going to grandson's basketball games. She went to games, both home and away...didn't matter. She went on days after working two jobs. She went on days after sneaking in a doctor's appointment on a lunch hour. She went on days she had chemo between jobs. She said it wasn't so bad. "At the chemo place it's easier to change clothes to go to my other job than it is to change in the car going to and from jobs." She went whether the day's diagnosis was bronchitis, a urinary tract infection, degenerative bone disease, a compressed disk fracture, or cancer. She went. Last March, for what would turn out to be the last game she would get to yell at the refs, she climbed into a van with her nebulizer and seven other Wildcat fans, then rode 200 miles to the finals of the state tournament and after the game had to be carted out in a wheelchair. In typical manner, she didn't tell me about this until three weeks later, and only after she assumed I already knew about it. She never gave up.
Back at the_____ Lounge, I shouldered up to the bar and after a few minutes sent a round over to their table. The waitress, upon returning, said, "They said they like your style." "Yes" I said, "But did they say anything about my butt?" I decided I'd join 'em and ask 'em myself. Being no better dancer than I am speaker, still, a few minutes later I was being taught the, "Electric Slide" whatever that is... At some point my little whistler told me she worked at ______ Delivery and went to (first bar) quite often. Shortly thereafter the bar closed and we went our separate ways. Me, with no phone number in hand.

She never gave up. Not in fighting cancer or becoming a great player on a co-ed softball team. A catcher no less, the toughest position on the team. It may surprise some to learn that she was a terrific athlete. Some days, if I spotted her 5, she could beat me in ping pong. But when you can clean carpets on the third -floor of an un-air-conditioned apartment in mid- July in _xyz, Ks. let me tell you, you're an athlete. The favorite story her children tell, and tell often, is how she once began a slide into third base about fifteen feet too soon, coming to a bouncing, bone-jarring stop about six feet shy of the bag. "The ground," she said, " "wasn't slideable enough." By mid-season she had rare occasion to slide. She hit triples and came in standing up. She never gave up.

Over the next few weeks I continued to stop by _____ but never again saw Melissa. Then, one early afternoon I had stopped for gas when a _____ Delivery truck pulled alongside the next pump. After talking to the guy for a minute and finding out he was the owner, I asked if they had a girl working there named, "Melissa." "No", he said, "My wife does the books and her name is xxxx." "The only other female that works for us is named, 'Ralene."' So now you know what I'm thinking— if she can deceive me about her name, how deceiving had she been about my butt? I didn't know, but If I ever saw her again, I intended to find out.

She never gave up. She fought against using oxygen. "Oxygen, she said, leads to a scooter." . She fought against using a walker. "A walker means next it's a wheelchair," she said. She fought against using a wheelchair. "A wheelchair," she argued, "and then next I'm in a hospital bed." In fighting against all of these, she knew all along what she was really fighting for. And that was the fight to simply live. To live for herself, her family and friends. And less than three weeks before the ultimate end, she was insistent on going to a tax update class that lasted all day. After I finished loading her wheelchair and oxygen tanks, under protest I might add, I looked back to see she had collapsed coming out the front door. After we sat together on the driveway for a couple of minutes, she gathered herself, got up and headed toward the car again. "Where you goin'?" I asked. It took awhile, but I finally convinced her that today was probably not a good day to go to class. "Maybe they'd let me make it up on online, my clients depend on me." she said. "I know," I said, let me help you get inside." But make no mistake, as much as she loved and took pride in her jobs, both were distant seconds to her love and pride for her children and grandchildren. Any ten-minute conversation and a person knew their names and all about them.

And just two days...two days, before the ultimate end, nearly unable to speak now, she motioned me to come closer, "Maybe," in a soft, subdued, tone she told me, "Maybe you ought to call ___and tell them I don't think I can make it this year after all." "But," she added, "Tell them I'll be back next year." To honor her memory and that spirit, her desk at the _____office sits empty. She never gave up.

On a hot September 1997 night I found myself again at_____, this time at a table with a couple of good and dear friends. We were laughing, probably at some person or another, just having a good time. And although they'd had two months to practice, the band still sucked. Then, could it be? It was! There she was, moving in and around the tables---MELISSA!

When she got a little closer, I stood up, turned around, and asked, "Recognize this?" She laughed and despite my repeated pleas, returned to her own table and commenced talking with her friends. After my attempts failed, my two friends went over to her table and after a lengthy conversation, finally convinced her to join us. She was still being Melissa... The Electric-Slide lessons continued, and as the evening came to a close, I walked her to her car, gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, "Thanks, I had a really good time while we were together, Melissa. But I'm wonderin,' can we do it again..Ralene?" From that moment in 1997 forward, until January 11th, there was never a day that we were apart. Lucky for me, she never gave up.

She never gave up. Not in fighting cancer nor in whatever lay before her. In January of 1998 we moved into a small house together on _____ Street. She joined me in cleaning carpets. A few months later we went to Panama City on vacation. The day after returning home, she told me that two weeks before we had left for Florida, the doctor had told her that she had breast cancer. In 2000 we went to Australia and later that year moved to a house on _____ Street. We needed a larger house since my mother needed someone to take care of her. Although some days it was tempting, she never gave up on doing that either. In 2001, I had back surgery. The following week my mom fell and broke her shoulder. Ralene worked at ____ full-time preparing taxes, did all carpet cleaning jobs by herself, cooked, cleaned house, fed my mom, and took care of both of us.

She did it all. And because of that, in September, at a carpet cleaner's convention in _____, Ralene was honored with the first annual "Carpet Cleaner's Woman of the Year" award. Her acceptance speech was short: "Thank you. But I didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't do. Thanks again." The standing ovation that followed may still be resounding around the hall. Hey, that's My Melissa up there. In February of 2002, on Valentine's Day, for the first time in several years we went back to ______. Different decade. Different band.
After a couple hours and now back at the car to go home, I gave her a kiss on the cheek... And an engagement ring. Different century. Same love. Three months later we were married in our back yard. Later that year, after being gone for 13 years my two girls came home and her home was their home. My hopes were her hopes and in them she never gave up. Her joy every bit as complete as my own.

In 2005 we moved to our old farm house between _____and _____. And this, really, was home for us. But now it is home for just me. And Ralene, I know that you are in better hands...but I would rather have you in my own. I wanted to know what love is. And you showed me. You never gave up.

I confess I may have been a bit greedy in talking here today about taking care of Ralene for the past couple of years, for it was, really, from beginning to end, the other way around. She took care of me. In what turned out to be our last conversation, she told me she wanted her kids, her family and me to be okay. And then added, "There's a life after death. And when I get there, if I have a choice, I'm going to choose the same kids, grandkids, family, friends, and husband, that I have right now." She still takes care of, and inspires us, even in death. She never gave up.

And so here we are today, and the question I ask today, is the same question I asked of you fifteen years ago. The same question I asked on that seemingly so far away sultry September night. "I had a really good time while we were together, Melissa. But, I'm wonderin', can we do it again, Ralene?"
(steps from behind podium. blows slow deliberate kiss toward Heaven)

* names and places have been changed.
Thanks for reading.