Before We Knew
Our story began on June 15, 1982, with a blind date.
We were young, with no way of knowing that an ordinary introduction would become one of the dates I would carry with me for the rest of my life. But apparently Bob didn't need very long to decide.
Four days later, on the following Saturday, he proposed.
It sounds almost unbelievable when I tell the story now. We had known each other for four days. We could not possibly have known all that was ahead of us—the home we would build, the family we would raise, the joys we would celebrate, the difficulties we would weather, or how completely our lives would become intertwined.
And yet, somehow, we knew enough. We simply knew that we had found one another.
What began with a blind date became a marriage of 37 years and a lifetime of memories.
Bob became more than the man I loved. He became my closest companion, my partner in all the ordinary and extraordinary pieces of life, and eventually the person with whom I could hardly imagine not growing old.
Building a Life Together
We married in 1983 and spent the next 37 years doing what people who love one another do: building a life one day at a time.
There were careers and responsibilities, children to raise, decisions to make, bills to pay, celebrations, disappointments, laughter, disagreements, traditions, inside jokes, and thousands upon thousands of ordinary days that I now understand were anything but ordinary.
We became Mom and Dad.
Eventually, we became Gogo and Papa.
And somewhere along the way, the two young people who had begun a life together became a family with a history all its own.
Bob served his country in the United States Navy and worked hard throughout his life. But the titles that mattered most within our family were much simpler: husband, Dad, and Papa.
He loved us, and we knew it.
The Life We Thought We'd Keep Living
When you have loved someone for most of your adult life, you don't spend much time imagining a world in which that person isn't there.
We had plans.
There were grandchildren to watch grow, family gatherings still to come, projects to finish, places to go, and countless ordinary mornings and evenings that I simply assumed would be ours.
I thought we would grow old together.
Instead, on October 20, 2020, Bob moved on to Heaven.
There are moments that divide a life into before and after. For me, that was it.
When Everything Changed
I had spent much of my professional life studying counseling, grief, resilience, human development, and the ways people navigate difficult experiences.
Then grief was no longer something I understood professionally.
It was mine.
No textbook could fully prepare me for the strange reality of continuing to live when the person who had been beside me for nearly four decades was suddenly absent. Grief changed the way I understood time, memory, faith, family, counseling—and even myself.
But it did not erase love.
If anything, I began to understand my grief differently—not as the absence of love, but as evidence of just how deeply I had loved and been loved.
My faith became especially important in those days and in all the days that followed. I did not always understand what God was doing, and I certainly did not understand why this was part of our story. But I held tightly to the promise Bob himself had held close:
“For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” — Isaiah 41:13
There were days when moving forward meant little more than taking the next step.
And then another.
Love Carried Forward
Over time, I began writing.
At first, the words were simply a place to put what I was carrying. Eventually, I realized that my professional understanding of grief and my personal experience of it were becoming inseparable.
That intersection ultimately became Profoundly Changed.
It was never about “getting over” Bob or closing a chapter of my life.
Quite the opposite.
It grew from the realization that moving forward does not require us to leave behind the people we love. We carry them differently.
Bob is still part of our family.
He is still Papa.
His stories are still told. His influence remains in our children and grandchildren, in the home and life we built together, and in me.
And while I would never have chosen the loss that changed my life, I can choose what I do with what I have learned through it.
If something I have experienced can help another person feel less alone...
If something I have learned professionally can help someone understand what grief is doing to them...
If our story can remind someone that love remains meaningful even when life changes...
then perhaps something useful can grow alongside the sorrow.
Our story did not end on October 20, 2020.
It changed.
And I continue to carry it forward—with gratitude for the years we were given, faith in the God who continues to hold my hand, and love for the man with whom I was blessed to share most of my life.
I promised you my whole life,
and I'll love you until I see you again.
Susan