The stark reality of my wife’s passing has forcefully brought home to me the depth of meaning in Genesis 2:24

“This one finally is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. She will be called a woman because from a         man she was taken.” This is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife, and           they become one flesh.

Let me explain. I grew up in one of the last vestiges of a bygone era – a three generation household. I lived for the first 18 years of my life in the home of my maternal grandparents, along with my parents and my younger sister. We lived, ate, slept, worked and played together on a daily basis. My parents and grandparents were my role models, as well as my constant companions, during all that time.

When my grandmother passed away during my senior year in high school, I was not devastated, because I knew where she had gone to and that I would one day see her again. I wrote this in the back of my Bible:

November 4, 1959 – Ada Colhoun, my grandmother, went to be with God this morning.

Eleven months later, during my freshman year away at college, my grandfather also passed away. Once again, I was comforted by the knowledge that he had gone to rejoin his beloved wife. I wrote in my Bible:

October 5, 1960 – Adams Colhoun, my grandfather, left this afternoon to join his wife at the right hand of God.

As much as I loved and missed my grandparents, I nevertheless celebrated, rather than mourned, their passing. Similarly, when my father passed away in December 1994 and then my mother in October 2005, I felt a sense of loss, but realized that this separation was only temporary and not permanent. I still shed a tear now and then when I remember my parents and grandparent, but I have never deeply grieved over my loss of their companionship.

It was a much different story when my wife passed away last December. Not that it was totally unexpected. She had battled a fatal, incurable liver disease for over 27 years. We both knew that death was the inevitable result to be expected, as it is for all of us. And I was able to rejoice in the fact that her struggle was over, that she was no longer in pain, that she was now reunited with her parents and that I would one day be reunited with her as well.

But the pain of my loss was greater than I had ever experienced before. I now realize that the reason was that a major segment of my flesh had been ripped away, leaving a gaping wound. That wound may eventually be healed, although that possibility seems remote to me at this time. However, a massive and painful scar will remain. All of this is the result of Mary’s and my having become “one flesh”. A painful lesson, but I now understand the meaning of that term.

And one other Scripture has also come into sharper focus for me now: Ephesians 5:28

That’s how husbands ought to love their wives—in the same way as they do their own bodies. Anyone who             loves his wife loves himself.

How true that is! Because she is part of his body, as he is of hers.