Joe will never forget the last message that Heidi wrote to him. In an early Valentine’s card, she told him: “Joe, you are truly my best friend. Your reward for loving me is a dedicated woman who will love and cherish you forever.”
The two had met on CatholicMatch in May 2005 shortly after joining. They had their first date in July. Heidi drove from Richmond, Virginia to the Maryland coast to meet Joe. “When my eyes fell on hers, I knew from that day on she was the one I would spend the rest of my life with.”
Joe liked that Heidi was beautiful inside and out. She was the kind of person who always put the needs of others before her own needs. “She brought love to me in a way that I had never experienced before.”
Proposal
At the end of September 2007, after dating long distance for more than two years, the two met up in Florida. Heidi was a registered nurse for the VA and she was attending a conference. Joe decided to join her and surprise her with an engagement ring. “At Sea World, I asked her if she wasn't doing anything the next 25-30 years. Would she spend it with me?”
Around the same time, Heidi’s only daughter got engaged, so Heidi delayed her own wedding plans to help plan her daughter’s wedding.
Finally, in 2009, Heidi and Joe were able to start making some wedding plans of their own. Joe went down to visit Heidi to celebrate Valentine’s Day early and to celebrate Heidi’s recent job promotion. During that busy weekend, they were also working out wedding details and picking out the house where they were going to live after they married.
“A week later Heidi was gone,” says Joe.
Etched in His Memory
Joe’s last memory of seeing her was while he was getting ready to drive away from her home. “I looked back and Heidi, with a beautiful smile on her face, was watching me from her doorway. I blew her a kiss and she blew one to me. That was the last time I saw her. Five and half years later, it still blows me away.”
Joe and Heidi talked every day and never ended a phone conversation without saying: “I love you.” An hour after their last conversation, she collapsed. She was at a meeting when she fell unconscious; she had what doctors refer to as a failure of arrhythmia.
But Joe didn’t know anything was wrong until he got a call several hours later from her daughter at 11:00 p.m. saying Heidi was in the hospital. He packed a bag immediately and jumped into his car to make the four-hour drive. Halfway there, he got another call. Heidi died. “I had no idea that it was so serious. She was only 49 years old.”
Heidi passed away on February 13, 2009.
“At the funeral, my mom, who loved Heidi so much, placed her wedding rosary—from more than 50 years ago—on Heidi’s hands. I lost my mom a few years after losing Heidi. Losing the two women closest to my heart was devastating.”
“With Heidi's experience as a nurse, she always told me that life could change in an instance.”
After Heidi’s death, Joe says it was difficult to put one foot in front of the other. He felt numb for years. “Time has helped heal the pain and trauma, but the memories are still there. I can still hear her voice.”
Despite the pain of losing her, Joe says he would do it all over again if he could. “Heidi was one of a kind. She brought out the best in me and taught me what true love was all about. I feel special for having been loved by her.”
Even though Joe’s faith in God faltered for a time after losing Heidi, he grew to feel God’s presence in his life. He hopes that God will bring him someone to love again. “If God ever blesses me again with someone, I am a better person for her because Heidi taught me how to love.”
He wants members to know: “Heidi took a chance on love with a long distance relationship and was rewarded with unconditional love until the day she died.”
Please join me in prayer for the repose of Heidi’s soul and to pray for healing for those who are grieving this day.
Prayer for the Dead
Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.
Prayer in Sorrow
God of all consolation,
in your unending love and mercy for us,
you turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life.
Show compassion to your people in sorrow.
Be our refuge and our strength to lift us
from the darkness of this grief
to peace and joy in your presence.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
