PHOTO: Now, that's a good head on those shoulders. By GUEST PORTAL-ER Jennifer Lebo “Student of Grief” Jennifer Lebo was married for twenty-seven years to her beloved Dave who passed at the age of only fifty-four. Years earlier, she lost her father as a younger man as well. Willing to sit still as a student in the Classroom of Grief has made her a skilled teacher in that same field. She resides in Bensalem, Pa. “He has a good head on his shoulders,” Dad confided to my mom the night of my first date with David, the man I would marry about fifteen months later. Our second date was celebrating New Year's Eve with my family and church friends at a gym night. Abruptly, my dad dropped dead moments after joining a basketball game.
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Dave's mom was battling cancer. Yet, in the coming days, he would travel two and a half hours back and forth between homes, helping both his mom and my family.
Neither dish-washing nor diapering nor trench-digging were tasks too menial. When I fainted in, yes in, the world's worst case ever of food poisoning, David cared for me, without a hazmat suit.
He persevered through eight moves, nine robberies, a year of language school in a foreign country, five changes from one stressful occupation to another, parenting struggles, and several “near-miss” auto accidents.
He had not only a good head on his shoulders, but a good heart. His physical heart, newly fifty-four years old, failed him as my father's had failed twenty-nine years earlier. David Eugene means “beloved, mighty warrior.” He truly was that. My sons and I keep on keeping on in his love.
Portal to Heaven: Love endures all things and then endures in the hearts of those that remain behind.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12ESV
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