I went out on my bicycle for a training ride on the Spitskop road. When I was about 15 kilometres from home, I was overtaken by a monumental storm. Accompanied by spectacular lightning and thunder, the rain came down as though I had stepped under a waterfall. Within minutes, I was drenched, freezing cold, and trying to ride on a gravel road that was now just a streak of mud.
It was like pedalling across an enormous chocolate instant pudding (although, in truth, I must admit to having had little exposure to this experience). Muttering and shivering, I turned round and started toiling back the way I had come, anticipating a ride of around one hour. There was no point in taking shelter—I couldn’t get any wetter—and I don’t like standing under trees in thunderstorms. It was cloudy, and visibility was poor, but I didn’t feel that I was in much danger of meeting traffic on this remote forest road.
After I had ridden a few kilometres towards home, I saw headlights approaching through the mist. Once they were within a few metres of me, I saw that it was our car. As it drew level with me, it stopped, and out jumped Linny, barefoot and clad in shorts and a T-shirt, into the rain and the mud. She gave me a kiss and then helped me to load the bike into the back of the car. She then drove us back home, while I drank a mug of tea that she had quickly made before coming to look for me.
That’s the kind of wife that Linny was! No wonder I still miss her terribly.
Sad as it is to have these memories, it is also, paradoxically, joyous, because they are good memories—recollections of the time when I still had my wonderful wife by my side. Because of this, my tears were a celebration; an expression of gratitude for 35 wonderful years together.
“A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies”
(Proverbs 31:10 NIV).