Team Love Gina – one year ago today, on November 13, 2018, our world changed forever.  We began a journey together that would reaffirm both our Faith and our Love for each other.  All of you were on that journey with us. 

Despite her diagnosis, Gina, as usual, approached her situation with the same positive, optimistic and grateful attitude that she was always known for.  Throughout her entire illness, she never complained, not even once, about her circumstance. 

On my previous update, I said that I would include my Remembrance of Gina.  Since I improvised some of my comments during the service, I went back to my notes and edited my remarks to attempt to capture what I actually said during her service.

While this will be my last update for Team Love Gina, the Love that got it all started will never end. 

Thank you for joining us on the journey.

Barry

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends……

My Remembrance for Gina, my best friend, my loving wife, an amazing mother, dedicated teacher and faithful servant of Jesus:

First, I would like to thank you all for being here today.  I know that many of you have traveled great distances to be here and on behalf of our entire family, I want to give you my sincere thanks.  I also want to thank those of you in this community for all your support during this journey.  Nancy our minister, the deacons of this church, Gina’s fellow teachers, friends and neighbors – you have been the hands and feet of Christ.  And her closest friends, and you know who you are, who took her out when she was able and who came to visit weekly when she could no longer leave the house.  Even the occasional Chick Fil A milkshake deliveries.  You can never overstate the medicinal power of a Chick Fil A milkshake and I can give a first-hand testimonial where it made Gina feel better on more than one occasion. I could never thank you all enough and I want you to know that it is appreciated and has not gone unnoticed.

I want to tell you a love story.  A romantic comedy of sorts, since one of the things that Gina and I enjoyed most was laughing together.

When I was 12, between 6th and 7th grade, I was invited to a dance at a local country club.  It was there that I met a beautiful blond haired, blue eyed girl who had a smile that lit up the room.  She was, and always has been, the most beautiful person that I have ever known.  Her name was Gina.  I had never met anyone named Gina.  In fact, I didn’t even know that the name existed.  So, even her name was beautiful to me. 

As fate would have it, Gina and I would not go to the same Jr. High School.  The school district lines would have her going to one Jr. High School and me to another.  So, over the next few years I would only see her occasionally.  By the way, I called this dividing line the Country Line.  If you lived on Gina’s side, it was country club; if you lived on my side of the line it was country music.  One day we would combine the best of both of these worlds and build our life together.

By the time we were in 10th grade, we were in the same school.  As you can imagine, someone this beautiful was dating someone else by then. But I did learn that Gina was not only beautiful, she was also smart.  I came to this conclusion because she was smart enough to be in some of my classes.  Now, when Gina tells our story, of course, she tells it the other way around.  But because we shared so many classes together in high school, Gina and I became close friends, often studying together.  It was this friendship that formed the basis of our relationship and she really is my life-long best friend. 

When we were seniors, my persistence finally prevailed, and we began dating during our senior year.  We’ve never stopped.  Our principal trusted us enough to send us on errands for the school during our study hall.  Well, to be fair, he trusted Gina, but I was the one with the car.  I decided that along the way on these errands, that we should kiss whenever we got to a stop sign.  As you can imagine, these errands took longer and longer as I navigated neighborhoods in lieu of the main roads in search of stop signs.  By the way, I got a note from our principal this week and if it weren’t for a previous commitment at his own church in Richmond, he would have been here today.  That’s the type of person Gina was.  Even her high school principal, some 40 years removed, wanted to be here.

Gina and I continued our relationship into college even though we went to different schools in different states.  And on the final weekend before our senior year, I asked Gina to marry me.  She said yes.  Since I was going into the Army after graduation, we decided to wait until I finished some of my schooling before getting married.  Gina moved home with her parents and started working for the State of Virginia’s Division of Unclaimed Property.  Every day she commuted into Richmond with her father where she used the software program that he had written for the State for while working at IBM.  Finally, on October 18, 1986 after 5 years as friends and 6 years as a couple, Gina met me at the front of the church to be married.  Two weeks ago yesterday, was our 33d wedding anniversary.

After our wedding, we moved to Alabama for a few months before being stationed at Fort Ord, CA. I moved Gina from her parents beautiful home in Richmond in the neighborhood with the country club, to our first home and carried her across the threshold….into a one bedroom, one bath, single-wide trailer in Enterprise, AL. This trailer was even more special because the floor was bowed.  You entered the trailer in the living room, went downhill through the kitchen and then back uphill into the bedroom.  Gina, being her ever-positive, optimistic and grateful self, made the best of the situation and we had, and I think the record still stands, the best-decorated trailer in Southeast Alabama.

Once we got established in CA, Gina began her career in teaching.  Aside from Jesus, she’s the best teacher that I’ve even known.  Math is a serious subject for most of us and Gina made it fun with the annual March Madness basketball tournament.  And in spite of graduating from a top school (UVA), earning her Masters in Administration (only to learn that the classroom was where she wanted to spend her time), being nominated as a County Teacher of the Year, or undergoing the rigorous process to become a National Board-Certified Teacher, Gina would tell you that her proudest moments in teaching came when she unlocked the potential in her students, building their confidence in other areas of their life.  I witnessed this in our home countless times when she tutored students in math.  Math was her medium, but her lesson was on potential. Every student who left our home felt better about themselves than when they arrived.

Gina also taught me some key lessons in life.  Most importantly, she taught me the importance of living in the present.  I read the book that Eckhart Tolle wrote called The Power of Now but it was Gina who taught it to me by the spontaneous way that she lived her life.  She embraced the moment.

God blessed us with two wonderful sons and as great as she was as a teacher, she was even more amazing as a mother.  She took a break in her career to spend her time in the formative years of our boys’ lives.  She cherished this time with our boys, and I believe that having her as their mother is why they turned out so well.  I see her influence in them every day.  She was so proud of you both – Kyle earning his Masters from her beloved UVA and building his career in start-up businesses and Scott earning his CPA before changing careers and following in her footsteps as a math teacher.  And she was particularly fond of their wives, Katie and Boo, who she loved as if they were her own, and she was so very happy that you all found each other.  I’d even say that the time the 6 of us spent together over the past few years were some of her fondest memories.

So, Gina was a great friend to many, a loving wife, an amazing teacher and a devoted mother.  These things alone would mark a life well-lived.  But with Gina, there was always more.  Gina was also a faithful servant of Jesus.  Not the outspoken, evangelical type but more of a “behind the scenes, preach the Gospel always, using words as a last resort” type. Interwoven through all her roles in life was a life of service to God.  I had a front-row seat as her husband and friend.  As a mother, she modeled what it was like to care for others, do what’s right and stand up for those in need.  Teaching was her ministry and she used her teaching skills as a Sunday School teacher here at Woods.  She also brought the love of Christ into her classroom with her love of every student that she had the opportunity to teach.  And she spread that love further to those in need through her involvement with the Linda’s Legacy, Giving Back charity that provides much needed clothing and supplies to the homeless in Baltimore every Christmas. 

During her illness over the past 11 months, Gina opened up about her faith.  She felt the presence of God with her and she shared that with us all.  She assured me and many of you that there is eternal life and that everything was going to be okay.  We should all take some comfort in that.

I want close with a quote and then a prayer.  The quote I found on a placard near the Rotunda at the University of Virginia and it’s by Irish playwright and political activist George Bernard Shaw.  It sums up Gina’s life perfectly.  As I read it, imagine that Gina is saying these words:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

This, to me, was Gina. 

Gina and I prayed a lot during this last 11 months.  This summer I came across the full version of the Serenity prayer.  Many of you will be familiar, as I was, with the first few lines of the prayer as it has become popular.  But there is more to the prayer and when I learned the remaining lines, I shared it with Gina.  We decided that we would open our morning and bedtime prayer with the Serenity Prayer before giving thanks and asking for God’s help.  It helped bring some clarity for us and gave us hope for the future.  In honor of Gina, I would like to close with that prayer with you.

God, grant us the serenity to accept the things that we cannot change,

The courage to change the things that we can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying each moment at a time,

Accepting that hardships are the pathway to peace.

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,

Not as we would have it.

Trusting that You will make all things right if we surrender to Your will.

That we may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.  Amen.

I love Gina today more than I ever have.  My love for her knows no end.  And while I miss her terribly, I take comfort in knowing today that she is supremely happy.  I will be too when we meet again.