This week it is with profound sadness that I write to tell you that the lovely Elaine lost her battle with brain cancer this past week.  As a result, I hope you will understand that it will be a few weeks before I write again, but I will be back, I promise.

Elaine and I started “ going steady” when she was a sophomore and I was a junior in high school. We waited 7 years, until she had finished college and I got out of the service, to get married.  This May we would have been married 43 years.  Yes that equals 50 years together.

Elaine was my light and my life.  We had rough patches when I was out of work, but she was always there keeping me strong and keeping us going forward.  I would not be where I am today or have what we had together without her.  To paraphrase the Josh Groban song, she raised me up to more than I could be.

We have a wall in our house that has all sorts of signs and memorabilia on it.  It is a wall of humor and pithy sayings.  One of the signs says, “Happiness is being married to your best friend.”  We experienced one month short of 43 years of happiness.  We were fortunate in that we liked to do the same things, generally we liked the same music, we enjoyed being together and we were comfortable with not having to talk to each other all the time.

I had a number of things I wanted to say, but I did not want to start sounding sappy.  Suffice it to say that Elaine was the love of my life.  She meant the world to me.  I loved her with all my heart and soul.  I will miss her every day for the rest of my life.  I hope she is at peace.  I hope that she is with her family.  I hope she knows how much she meant to me and how much I truly loved her.

Elaine, losing you has given me an ache in my heart that will not ease until we are together again.  I have loved you for almost 50 years and always will.  Be at peace.