From Anita’s “God” file – mid 2009
Mine is a peanut-butter-and-chocolate life. Filled with pairs of things that are quite the opposite and seem, to the casual observer, to be strange & impossible bedfellows, yet seem to find their meeting place in me.
- the non-traditional (racially, mom at home) traditional family (1 parent raises the children, the other brings home the bacon
- the home-based workaholic
- the salt-of-the-earth lawyer
- the pragmatic educator
- the one-on-ones & the group instruction
- details and vision
Anita had a file in the front of her current files drawer marked simply “GOD”. It looks like a lot of different things she thought between March an August 2009. She had written letters to God, wall postings and Post-It reminders that she took down and filed, notes about her life and scriptures.
I love the image of a peanut butter and chocolate life (and not just because Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups are my favorite!). Our entire marriage, we faced decisions that were likely not the safe or popular decision. Ones that may have made people wonder about us. As a young couple in Lincoln, Nebraska, inter-racial couples were almost non-existent. And we were the only Black woman/white man couple we ever saw until we moved to Chicago. We used to notice people staring at us, but as the months went by we paid no attention to those people and just enjoyed being together.
After several years of trying to have a baby, Anita was convinced that we were not going to have one naturally. We had talked about adoption right from the start of our marriage, so decided to skip any medical treatments (Anita avoided doctors) and went right into the adoption process. Through God’s will, Ben was born and we adopted him four months later. (Anita did later have 4 pregnancies).
We also chose an unusual roles of husband as caregiver and wife as primary income generator. I shoud say that God chose to put us in those roles by giving us certain gifts that we recognized and used to great effect (but what other effect would there be? they are God-given!).
And as Anita was a meeting place of disparate pairs, I felt I was too (creative and logical). God made us as a yin and yang – a complimentary pair.
As a parent, yin and yang has been my thoughts about you two also. Both your mothers knew it from the start…or at least we hoped your lives would go that way. You were truly a pair meant to be; you blended families, brought together people who probably would not have crossed paths otherwise, and loved each other enough to accept not just yourselves as you are/were but your “other half”s family too. For that I thank God to have known such an extraordinarily wise intellectual young woman that Anita was. She filled your life with so much love. We thank God above for bringing her into your and our lives!