My PJ

Pain and loss are a part of life. You know they are coming, but even still, you are rarely prepared.
A lot of you know already that I just lost my wife. She was simply the best part of me, she was what made me who I am, and the reason for all of the good things in my life. Losing her is the same as losing the will to live. Everything inside of me right now just wants to go and join her in Heaven.
Even now though, she speaks to me, and tells me I still have things to do, things that she needs me to do for her. So, I shall try.
Patty Jean Mitchell was just 48 went she went home. Those 48 years just don’t seem near long enough to me for the kind of person she was, and that was a kind, giving, loving soul who lived her whole life to help others, and be a mama.
She was a good girl for her mama and daddy as a child. She was a great wife, always putting me first. But, the thing she did best, was be a mom. Probably because that was her goal in life. When we got married 30 years ago, I asked her what she wanted to do in life, and her answer then, and always, was that she only wanted to be a mom. 
And that she was.
From the day they were conceived and living inside of her, my baby lived to take care of her kids. Even though just getting them into the world was hard on her, she always chose them over herself. When the doctors told us that pregnancy was too hard on her, she still had to give me a son. She spent months in bed before he was born, but he, like the two daughters before him, was the light of her life. Before she got sick in 2003, every day and every minute of her life was spent doing something for her kids. It might be as a volunteer at their school, baking cookies or making salsa for their teachers, or coaching a little league team. It might have been teaching a Sunday School class, children’s church, or reading Bible stories. It was often watching hours and hours of Veggie Tales, Barney, or Disney movies like the Lion King. Or it might be in the kitchen fixing their favorite meals.
Regardless of what it was, her days were spent doing the things a good mama does. Always. She left this world after having achieved her only lifelong dream of being a mama. She even got to experience the passion of holding a grandchild. Our first grandchild, Isaac, brought that light back to her eyes for a little while. You could see that deep blue sparkle in her eyes again when she held that boy, and she loved the fact that she was the first to hold him, after mom and dad, the day he was born. It makes me cry that our Chunk won’t get to know his Grammy and learn from her the way his mama did. It breaks my heart actually. All I can do is try to fill in and tell the boy the things she would have, and be the example of Christ for him that she would have been.
You see, that is where everything about her came from, her love of Christ. It was a love and way of life instilled in her by her own mama and dad and it was the beginning of everything she did. Her love for Jesus is what drove her to be the mama, wife, friend, daughter, sister and Christian that she was. There was nothing fake about her walk with Christ. Her walk with Him fueled my own, and I did my best to live for Him the way she did. In true Christianity, every time I failed, it was not ridicule or shame that she showed me, but His compassion. We were married 30 years largely because of her ability to forgive me.
Patty fought a 15 year battle with gastroparesis that was caused by a doctor’s mistake. Over those 15 years she fought to stay alive for me, her kids, her family and because her work was not done.
Now that she is gone, one thing I know for sure. She didn’t leave until her work was done. I know in my heart that must be true, or He would not have called her home. If there is any solace at all, it is that I do know that one thing. He would not have called her home if it was not time. We hurt, we cry, we ask why, and we ask questions. We always will. The hole she left behind cannot be filled.
But, I shall try. 
Thank you PJ, for everything, and I will see you soon. Plus one.