Tender Mercies: “Til Death do us Part.” by Ruth Tucker

Bless the Lord who crowns you with tender mercies (Psalm 103, NKJV).

      Til death do us part. Despite changes in language down through the centuries, this phrase from the sixteenth-century Anglican Book of Common Prayer has stayed the same. But while the wording of the promise endures, too often the promise itself does not. I was reminded of this again today as we laid our beloved father Albert Kraker to rest in a little rural cemetery surrounded by the farmland where he lived his entire life. It was a gloomy day, rain off and on, appropriate for our sad hearts.

     After more than seventy-two years of marriage, Al and Sue Kraker are now for the first time truly parted. Dad had served in the South Pacific during World War II, during which time they were separated. But not until last Thursday was that marriage bond broken. Mom, 95, is no longer a wife but a widow.

     How often we spoke of theirs as the almost perfect marriage. Different personalities blended seamlessly together. Mom is feisty, outspoken and stoic. Dad is the emotional one, the gentlest, sweetest man you could ever know—never an unkind word for anyone. And they both opened their arms to me, as a daughter-in-law once removed.

     Ten years ago, only days after Christmas, my husband said his final good-bye to Myra Jean, their daughter. Theirs was a short till-death-do-us part of less than four years. And prior to that, he had said that painful farewell to Ruth Ann more than three decades after they had vowed till death do us part.

     Is the parting easier for folks in their nineties than it is for those decades younger? For Mom, it surely is not. The indescribable pain she feels is assuaged only by her bedrock hope of being reunited with Dad again soon. Their union has been a partnership in the truest sense of the word. They were farmers—not merely a farmer and a farmer’s wife. Dad was in charge of the cattle and the fields, Mom was the queen of the chicken coop. And not just a few dozen hens; they sometimes numbered into the hundreds.

     But their partnership went far beyond their farming endeavors. Through ups and downs, they have been each other’s primary caregivers over the decades and to the very moment of Dad’s death.

     We had visited them out at the farm the previous evening, catching up on the latest news and swapping stories of farm life long ago—a longer visit than usual. Amid our talking and laughing, time got away from us. Mom put out cookies and coffee, and after we left, Dad had his usual dish of ice cream and then they went upstairs to bed.

     They got up as they normally did the next morning, as Mom would stoically relate later that same evening: had breakfast, did some household chores, ate lunch, took their usual naps, got out good clothes to wear to a funeral at the church. Mom showered, then Dad. He came out, dried off, sat down on a chair. Mom helped him get his underwear on and bound up his perpetually sore toe. He commented that he could not even take a shower anymore without feeling tired.

     He was sitting right there in the chair. He put his head back. His mouth fell open. Mom asked if he were all right. He didn’t answer. She asked again and again and asked if she should call an ambulance. No answer.

     If these final details appear almost too private to publish, all I can say is that to me they comprise a beautiful story of mutual care-giving and partnership—and of tender mercies—that continued for more than seventy years to the very moment of “til death do us part.”  

Excerpted from Ruth Tucker’s new book, Tender Mercies: 52 Weekly Meditations, available at our book page, www.ptm.org/books.