A Wonderful Woman
When I met Denise, I didn't realise that my life would change in an incredible way. To start with, I was not sure, because of the difference in age. I got married, and never regretted my decision of getting married to her.
Denise is an incredible woman, and I never thought a person with love like her existed, and yes despite she passed away last July (2025), I don't say “was”, I say “is”, and simply because she might not be on earth any more, but she is simply free from her physical body. She still exists, she is not dead, only her physical (or earthly) body is dead. The real self is the mind, the soul, the feelings, and I can say she is very much alive as we all are when we go. It is a continuation of life but without the physical feeling of an earth body.
Together, Denise and I went through difficulties that I had never known before and for me it was very heavy in my mind causing worry, anxiety, and fear, etc… My past had always been very quiet, not doing anything that could disturb my daily life, not trying anything new in life to make sure I wouldn't go through failure. My life was synonym of fear! In my childhood I never lacked any food, shelter, clothing and I grew up in a nice clean and well maintained house that my father built and finished one year before I was born; but one thing I had never felt though is real love, being loved, but I am not going to go into the details of my childhood. During that time, Denise had gone through quite a lot of hardship herself in her young age as well as adult until a year before meeting me, so she had built a strength that was not known to me.
So together we went through some hardship at the beginning, which was new to me, and I was devastated, she was standing up strong, she had faith and didn't let the conditions of life beating her. Thanks to her, I am who and what I am today, she had been an incredible support for me, which allowed me to learn and get stronger, she was an example of what I needed to learn. Without her, I don't know what I would have become, she always helped me to trust myself.
Denise was a beautiful example of what love is. She always wanted the best for me, forgetting herself. People who didn't know her, they might have thought she was a bit too direct sometime, but it was just natural as she would never try to butter one to make sure they would love her in return. She understood that real love is from within and not from outside.
Being with her has been an incredible and wonderful experience. I have learnt so much with her, and as she said before passing, she couldn't have been happier than having me as her husband. She also learnt in being with me, we had what was needed for both of us to learn together, and I think we haven't done too bad.
Even when she started to be in a bad state, which she really depended on me physically, I have learnt to do things I never thought I would be able to do, I had no time to think, it was a full-time job. It lasted a short time compared to what it could have been, but enough to lose 15 pounds of weight in two weeks. Only later I realised that through this she still found the way to help me to learn, I learnt to forget myself, and despite it was tough, it felt good inside after a while, realising what I had just learnt, and that is thanks to her.
I don't have any word that would express enough my appreciation towards her for everything I have learned with her and I pray she has learned with me what she needed to learn in this life.
I just wish I had met her ten years before but we wouldn't have been ready for it, and it wouldn't have been the same. We had to learn something before and when the time was right, it happened. At least we've been 30 years and 8 months together, and I wouldn't change that for any easy life with plenty of money and every thing easy like many people have.
Learning is important as it is the reason we are on earth, and thanks to our teacher Gladys Franklin, I met the right person to share my life with. I'm sure there are many loving and kind women out there but no one could take the place of my dear Denise.
The importance in being with someone is not like many people think. Many people, and maybe most, think that the ideal person to share life with is someone of opposite in type or character, but it is the different way of thinking that can or will cause problems in a couple unless both are ready to learn, but to that extent, it is not likely, as very often the two ends up living their own different life, each having their own activities or meetings for this or for that, etc… Being similar in the way of thinking, both can learn from each other and without those disagreements, only little easy-to-solve hiccups. This brings trust in each other and it leads to not only wanting to be together but enjoying doing everything together, when it is possible of course.
My wife and I were happy doing our own things in the house, we didn't need to be next to each other all the time or to expect anything from each other, just the fact of being somewhere in the house was enough to feel happy. In this way there was full freedom and at the same time we didn't feel the need for it. Every day we had time that we shared together, meal time, and our evenings.
We never questioned each other's love and trust, we just felt it. This is the result of the way we choose. The main problem in our societies is that people choose according to the physical aspect and this rarely works if ever. The mind is the most important part in our choice. I can speak with experience now.
For anyone who just lost a loved one, just remember that if we learn through our life, life in the unseen will be much better than life on earth so we should always be happy for the one who leaves the earth life, while we should feel sorry for the one just being born who is going to have to go through all sort of circumstances that might hurt mentally or and physically, because if we didn't need to learn we wouldn't come to earth and if we need to learn on earth, it means things will happen and we'll have to make choices that will bring outcomes that will bring temptation of encouraging greed or generosity, becoming thoughtfulness or selfishness, keep calm or retaliate with anger, and we can go on.
While on earth there are time for entertainment, but the purpose we should never forget is that earth is a school, but not an easy one and simply because it is the place where we are given the chance to learn a lesson that we otherwise couldn't or wouldn't learn in the real life which is in the unseen. It means, we shouldn't waste it as it is our chance to move on to a better place than where we were before coming to earth. We chose to come to learn and if we waste that precious time and opportunity, we will still have to learn the lesson but more likely in more difficult conditions of life. Nothing improve on its own and nobody can do it for us, we are the creator of our own doing so we are the one to repair.
To finish, I can say there've been two really wonderful women in my life, our teacher of life Mrs Gladys Franklin who was an incredible teacher and person, and my wife Denise who has been the most wonderful woman to share life with me.
Author: Daniel