04/21/2010 ***Love does whatever it takes and this picture is my proof of it. I know it doesn’t appear to be a particularly special image. But it is a miracle. The man in this picture is my 1st husband, James. He was born in 1963 with a severely deformed heart and he was never expected to live long enough to cut his first tooth. But his mother fought the system to get him the best of care. He survived infancy and childhood because Love does whatever it takes. His frail health took its toll on his family and his parents divorced. When he was 10, his mother disappeared and eventually, his father became an alcoholic. So when James was 15, he ran away from home. His home life was so bad that a judge actually awarded him custody of himself. But he didn’t handle it well. He started doing crystal meth in the streets of Detroit. To him, it seemed as if there were no God at all. When he was 18, he applied to a live-in drug rehab program. The board nearly rejected his application because of his heart. They figured he’d be dead within a year and they considered him to be a waste of their resources. But Love does whatever it takes. One woman on that board fought to get him in. Her name was Doris. Not only did she get him the rehab treatment he needed, but also the heart surgery he needed. Because of her compassion, he lived long enough to meet and marry me and have children. Still, there didn’t seem to be much room for God in his life. But in the late 1990s, a hunger for God began to well up in him. In the fall of 1997, he began classes in the Catholic Church. Those classes evolved into preparation for the Easter sacraments and at the Easter vigil, 1998, James received his first Holy Communion and Confirmation. For the following year, James and I were faithful to the Church that had put God back at the center of our lives. Love does whatever it takes, even if it means waiting 36 years. During Holy week of 1999, James fell into congestive heart failure after a medical procedure. As sick as he was, he insisted on attending the Easter vigil. It was the last Mass he ever attended. On Easter Sunday, he went into the hospital. He was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona where he waited for a heart transplant. It was a procedure he was too sick for though and 11 years ago this evening, I signed the papers to remove him from life support. While the rest of the country looked with shock and horror on the events that had taken place at Columbine the day before, I was spending my last moments with my husband and giving him back to the God of Love who had waited 36 years simply because Love does whatever it takes. Can you imagine that? God loves us so much that He does whatever it takes to make sure we know Who Love really is. For James, He waited. For me, He broke my heart of stone. “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” (Ezekiel 36) In the photo (circa 1991): James, John and Russell. I aged the photo for a nostalgic effect.