Forty-five years ago tonight, March 28, 1981, I married Chief standing in front of the fireplace here in our family’s ancestral home. Happy anniversary, Chief! We had forty years together and it wasn’t long enough for me. We used to laugh, talking about celebrating our 50th anniversary. I was 25 and he was 46 when we married. His birthday was the next day after our wedding, my birthday six days later. He’d be 95 and I’d be 74 on our 50th anniversary. He probably would have lived to see that 50th anniversary if Covid had not struck him down. Gone five years and I still miss him so.

I met Chief in 1979 at a job interview with Russell Corporation’s in-house publications. He was editor of the company’s then 60 page monthly newspaper. He immediately stood up when I entered his office. Always a gentleman with true Southern manners. He never failed to open the car door for me even when he had trouble walking around the car. Manners were just ingrained in him. After the interview he asked me if I drank coffee. I said, “No,” and he seriously said, “I don’t know if we can work together if you don’t drink coffee. How do you write with out drinking coffee?” He didn’t want me to address him as Mr. Saunders so I called him Chief since he was Editor in Chief of Russell’s in-house publications. I held the position of assistant editor. We worked together for almost 30 years and I made two, sometimes three pots of coffee a day, every day, for him and I never drank a drop. Years later I discovered I liked a little coffee with my sugar and creamer and became hooked on coffee, too.

Before the interview began, he told me Russell’s construction crew had tied him to a wrecking ball that morning and hoisted him up so he could photograph the installation of an atrium at the new Sales Office. Seems so out of character for him. I’ve wondered how he took a photograph and holding on, reached for the little notepad he always had in his pocket for taking notes. Sometimes he’d come back from some event and tear those little pages out of the notepad and hand them to me to write the article. We worked together so well lots of people didn’t even realize we were married.

I believe he had a photographic memory. If someone wanted a copy of something that had been printed in the paper, he always remembered which year and issue it was and could usually remember which side of the page it was printed on. He was a perfectionist in his work and labored over his monthly column till I’d lie and tell him the Print Shop had to have the column that day. We always covered all the activities of all three shifts of the mills even when the plant managers told Chief they weren’t coming to the third shift activities and he didn’t have to come either. Chief always told them all three shifts were equally important and we did our best to equally represent all three shifts. He walked around in the mills so much they called him, “The man with the camera.” He knew thousands of employees on their jobs in the mills but seeing them around town out of the mill’s setting he’d struggle to remember their names.

I think Chief would be described as compassionate and tender hearted. He always fought for the underdog to win. He was a great storyteller and a great teacher. He had a child’s curiosity for people and places. He loved growing things and saving seeds. He recycled plastic and aluminum cans. He loved history and courthouses. He hated air conditioning and could never tell a joke. He’d catch crickets in the house and take them outside. He loved and worshiped our children, constantly bragged about them to anyone that would listen and when our daughter died, her death knocked him down to his knees. Our faith in God and our love for each other helped him stand back up. You could never have a more faithful friend than Thomas Byron Saunders. He was a passionate man, a gentle man, and always in all circumstances, a gentleman.

I’ve shed a few tears lately and I love this quote. “Tears are prayers, too. They travel to God when we can’t speak,” Unknown. Scripture says no suffering is purposeless. God sees and knows our suffering and is concerned enough with our tears to collect them. Scripture says, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book,” Psalm 56:8. God doesn’t try to validate our sorrow. He wants us to lay our burdens in his hands when life challenges us. Even if our cares seem trivial God will take them seriously. When we are truly brokenhearted and crushed by life’s harshness scripture says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” Psalm 34:18.

God collects our tears and dries them from our cheeks. Our pain is not unseen by the Lord and we do not cry alone. Washington Irving wrote, “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” Speaking from experience I can say that God’s love can cover you in times of trials like a worn and well loved quilt. The warmth of God’s love and the peace he offers us is ours for the asking through our prayers. Even when the tears are so deep we’re drowning, he will reach down to comfort us, wiping our tears away with the promise and hope of a brighter day. God’s hand is always stretched out waiting for us to grasp it and hold on as he pulls us through our storms of sorrow.

“Grief is the price we pay for love.” — Queen Elizabeth II