This month started with sad news for our family. Anne Marie’s dad, Jim Larkins, passed away on Nov. 1. While he’d been ill, we still weren’t ready to say goodbye.
I met him a few months before Anne Marie and I were married. That trip included a playground basketball game with a few of Anne Marie’s family members. Jim was clearly a better player than I was. I later learned he’d played college ball at Georgetown.
A second basketball-related event came about four months later. We arrived in Pennsylvania a week before our April wedding. We hadn’t noticed that we scheduled our wedding for the weekend of the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament. That was always an important weekend for Jim. He was a fan of all sports, but especially college basketball.
That weekend in that year was especially important. After we arrived in Pennsylvania, we learned that Jim was passing up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He’d won the lottery that allowed him to attend the tournament. He never said anything to us. He gave up those tickets to walk Anne Marie down the aisle.
Over the last seven years, we saw the forbearance he showed then in a more important way. After a bout with stomach cancer, he could no longer swallow. The muscles in his throat refused to work.
He had to feed himself through a feeding tube. Yet he was a good sport, rarely complaining about the inconvenience. He even took part in a few family events that happened during a meal.
Before we heard about Jim’s passing, we planned to use this letter to tell you about an article Anne Marie wrote for Cru Storylines called “Giving Thanks When Chronic Illness Moves In.” It tells about her commitment to keep thanking God even as she’s battled an autoimmune disease this year. Instead, we’ll invite you to go online to Storylines.Cru.org where that title will appear in the near future.
And Anne Marie and her family are learning how to keep thanking God through this loss. Please pray for peace and comfort for Anne Marie, her mom, Helen, and her siblings, Kathleen, Eileen, Maureen and Joe.
Through it all, we’re grateful for your friendship, prayers and generosity.
Sincerely in Christ, Mark, for the Winz family