When my wife Mary passed away in December of 2017 I was devastated. Just three months before that we had done two things that we had been planning for a long time and finally accomplished. We closed on the sale our home of 32 years in Plano, Texas and moved into Watermere at Frisco, an active senior living facility where we planned to live out our retirement years. And we had finally published the book entitled “Spiritual Entrepreneurship: Fulfilling Your God-Ordained Destiny” we had been working on for many years. We were happy in our new home and proud to be published authors.

So when Mary died just three months later it was a great shock. She had been fighting an autoimmune liver disease for many years but had lived for 27 years after being diagnosed in 1990 and told she would need to have a liver transplant in order to live more than a few more years. She never got that transplant although she was on the transplant list for many years before aging out of it. We knew her long time survival was miraculous and rejoiced in it. But when the end came it was sudden and unexpected. As I wrote in “Traveling Solo, but Never Alone” which was published three years later, I cried out to God: What Now, Lord? Why am I still here? What do you have in store for me now?  Slowly God began to show me that my life wasn’t over, although it would be vastly different from what I had known for more than half a century. He definitely wasn’t through with me yet.

I retired from my last paying job in December 2010 and began volunteering my services  on a pro bono basis to assist people in job transition and others wanting to make a life change. Mary and I continued to indulge in our passion for travel, both domestic and overseas. We made our last  trip together just a few months before her death. And I still do travel, although I am traveling solo now.

A lot of my time though was spent taking care of Mary in our last few years together. I took her to her doctor visits, and all too often to the hospital emergency room when the liver disease caused problems. We still went to church, to the movies and to stage plays at the Dallas Theater Center and Water Tower Theatre, where we had season tickets, and enjoyed dining out…Because we spent so much time together I was totally at a loss at first when she died and I was left alone in what now was a bachelor apartment.

That was eight years ago and I have now come to appreciate the freedom I have as a bachelor to spend my time and money wherever I please with no one to answer to but God. And God has provided me with many opportunities to do so. I continue to enjoy an exciting and rewarding life of challenge, adventure and accomplishment in ways I could not before becoming a widower. I am a member of the Widowers Support Network which meets once a month to share a meal, talk about what is happening in our lives and how we are dealing with our grief over our loss. And, unlike most of the other widowers who are younger than me, I am not interested in dating or remarriage. I have too many other irons in the fire to have the time or money to devote to that.

As a 3-time cancer survivor, I am also a member of a cancer support that meets twice a month, and a Men’s Renewal Group that meets every other week to share a meal and talk about what is happening in our lives and how we are dealing with it. After volunteering for a number of years at Career Connection, a networking group for job seekers, my friend Mike Shaw and I started our own networking group we call the Career Transition Support Group that meets twice a month to work with job seekers to provide support and help them with their job search. And since, although I am officially retired, I am still active as a life coach and public speaker, I meet each week with a business-to-business networking group called the Warrior Networking group.

I am also currently serving for the fourth time as a Deacon at Grace Presbyterian Church in Plano, where I have been a member for 40 years. In addition, I am a member of the Mo Ranch Men’s Council which plans and facilitates the annual Mo Ranch Men’s Conference in the Texas Hill Country in Hunt County Texas. I am currently serving as the Vice President of the Men’s Council.

I am fortunate to be quite healthy for a man of my age. As I said, I have survived cancer three times but am currently cancer free. I have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and hypertension and have an implanted pacemaker. But the atrial fibrillation is no longer a problem since I had a catheter ablation and pacemaker implantation in 2015, and the hypertension is well managed by prescription medicines. Otherwise, my health is good, with my latest blood and urine analysis showing everything in the normal ranges, with total cholesterol of 104,  HDL 47 and LDL 42. Also, my PSA total was 0.47. It can’t get much better than that.

I don’t know how many more days of life I will have in this mortal body, but I am doing my best to take full advantage of the opportunities that God provides, and to live each day to the fullest. I continue to live a truly abundant life at 83 years of age and counting.