Spoiler Alert: Contains College Secrets!

Dear John,

I got to watch the Psych episode "Dual Spires" while I was eating lunch today, and so wished I was watching it with you. I don't know anybody else around here that saw Twin Peaks, so there's nobody to laugh with me at all the wonderful parody. (What a small group that must be of overlapping subsets - Psych fans, that taped every episode of Twin Peaks,  and live in northern Indiana. No wonder I can't find another one.)

Anyway, there is a line about Randy tying Jack's shoelaces together, and you know very well where I'm going with this. So of course I got to thinking about that day in college when you and I were dating, and Frank wanted to marry me, and the two of you were playing some kind of strategy game, and he was getting angry because you were winning, and I tied all eight of your shoe laces together. And he didn't see any humor in it at all.

Frank didn't want to marry me because he loved me or anything - it was just that he was going to graduate from Asbury Seminary soon, and in those days there was nothing more essential to a Methodist pastor than a pastor's wife. Mama always knew that one day I'd have a Methodist pastor wanting to marry me - she'd had one, and her mother had had one, and so it's a long family tradition. (Remind me to warn Jen.)

And Frank's last-ditch effort was to tell me that you wouldn't live long, but he was healthy and would live a long time and be able to take care of me. (He never said just why I couldn't take care of myself.) Then he got cancer right after we were married, and died within a year. And he died angry, refusing to see either of us. It's so sad. 

I wouldn't have married Frank for any reason, even if I'd never met you. (or if there were no other surviving men on the planet) He didn't understand marrying for love - prefering one day with someone to a hundred years with anyone else. And I guess it goes to show you never can tell - a death sentence can be beaten, and anything can happen to anybody at any time. The Lord is in charge of life and death.  

So you beat Frank at the game, won me as the prize for victory, and lived another 36 years. I'd say that was a pretty good day. And I had so much fun tying all of your shoe laces together!

Love you, adore you, and worship the ground you walk on,

Joan.