Page 62 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2023 - Online Magazine
P. 62
A Love
that Lasts
JACKIE & LINDA WHITE
by Paige White Allen
Deborah Faith Photography
’m sitting in a hospital room each statement in our memory, My parents, Jackie and Linda
with my dad and sister and I turn on my phone recorder White, met in the first grade at
Iwaiting for the doctor’s report because I know I will want to Cooper Elementary School, and
about my mom’s hip surgery listen to these words again. You though they were always good
when I decide to wade into the see, all children, even grown friends, they didn’t start dating
waters of deep conversation by daughters, delight in hearing the until they were attending Texas
asking my dad what he loves love their father has in his voice Tech, just a few miles down the
most about my mom. He knew when he talks about their mom. road from the farms where they
this question was coming. I’d told were raised. Once they started
him a couple of weeks before I’ve grown up listening to my dating, it was pretty obvious that
that I wanted to interview him dad talk. As a well-respected they were smitten, and marriage
for an article I was writing, but pastor in West Texas, I’ve heard followed soon after.
this sterile setting doesn’t exactly my fair share of sermons from
evoke warm hearts and stories of this man sitting across the room.
love. But he takes a deep breath He’s spoken about my mom
and gazes up at the fluorescent from pulpits, often joking about
lights, no doubt reminiscing her willingness to put him in his
on the sixty plus years that he’s place when he gets out of line,
known the woman I call Mom. but today is different. There is
no crowd to teach and no stage
He waits a second, grins just a in sight, but as he talks about
little, and then he starts to talk. their love, I hear a sermon all the
same.
He begins with her kindness, the
way she brings a sense of calm You see, their love story is
and peace wherever she goes, riddled with lessons about
and he talks and talks, telling us faithfulness, sacrifice, and
all about their friendship that plenty of grace sprinkled across
turned into something more. My ordinary days.
sister and I lean in trying to log
62 Lubbock Senior Link
