DEDICATION
Dedicated to Tina Su Cooper, a U.S. woman whose husband, my editor Douglas Winslow Cooper, in his article entitled “Like a Plaintive Melody” wrote [in 2014] the following words expressing his profound grief though full of love to Tina Su Cooper, his wife:
Most mornings I sing to my beloved wife, as she lies immobile in the hospital bed we have at our home:
You were meant for me. I was meant for you.
Nature patterned you and when she was done,
You were all the sweet things rolled up in one.
You’re like a plaintive melody
That never lets me free,
For I’m content the angels must have sent you
And they meant you just for me.
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“You Were Meant for Me (Broadway Melody of 1940)” by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed; lyrics © EMI Music Publishing Co.
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This song captures the bitter-sweet nature of our current situation, happy to be together, sometimes sad that Tina’s ill-health has limited her so greatly. She has been quadriplegic and ventilator-dependent, fed and medicated through a gastric tube, for the past ten years, and she will be so for as long as she lives.
CHAPTER ONE I was awakened by a barrage of strange voices in the middle of the night. I lifted my head off the pillow, ears straining to decipher what was happening, but I couldn’t parse out any clear words in the midst of the different voices simultaneously talking, weeping, and groaning over each other. But the rapid footsteps made clear that all was not well. I tracked the footsteps going first to the church compound, then to the parsonage, where whoever was out there banged on the door. “Sir Peterson, open the door,” the voices cried out to me. I remained inside the church, peeking out through one of the glass windows to see what was happening. Surely, none of them knew that I had been sleeping in the church. If they had been kidnappers, I could have escaped them. One bishop I knew of had been aroused by a crowd of people claiming a member was critically sick, but as the man of God came out to pray, he was abducted. For this reason, I never let anyone know wh...
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