This past week, I attended a benefit for the Methodist Home for Children. As often happens, people kept asking me why my husband wasn’t with me. I get that a lot no matter what hat of responsibility I am wearing. It occurred to me, that as I have visited many of your congregations, I have either been alone or had a couple of best friends in tow. He has only joined me for a couple of visits. It quite possibly could be a curiosity for those who don’t know me.
So, meet my husband, Larry. We have been married for 35+ years and have two grown daughters. One daughter lives and teaches in Japan and the other daughter lives and teaches in Asheville. Larry and I work together in a family-owned business. We quite literally live AND work together. Neither one of us feel neglected when we don’t do everything together after hours because we have spent the entire day together most days. We have a sign in our flowerbed that says, “a great catch lives here.” He’s the great catch!
Larry works six days a week, gets up at 5:30am, loves to cook dinner, and loves to fish. We are a perfect pair because I hate to cook, and I love to read books on the boat while he fishes. We also love to kayak especially in Taylor’s Creek. He is the most rock-solid human I have ever met, and I thank God every single day that our lives put us in the same place at the same time. I will say there were some older women at the time including my mother, who did their share of matchmaking. I should thank them too.
Before COVID put him in the hospital and took him out of commission about a year ago, he was in perfect health and went 100 miles an hour. He is considered a long hauler and has had one string of issues after another since his COVID diagnosis. He is getting better all the time and is at about 90% of the energy level that he had before he got sick. On a night like last night, when I pulled in the driveway at 10:30 pm, he had already been asleep for two hours.
The great thing about him is that no matter where I am, he knows… and he always wants to talk to me about it later. I can do all the things I do by the grace of God and with the support of my husband Larry.
By the way, when I came in last night… he was asleep, but he was on the couch curled up with our dog Olivia… waiting to kiss me goodnight. We spend a lot of our time rushing around and not making time to tell the people around us how MUCH they matter to us. Let’s all work on that this summer!
When you see me at annual conference now, you can ask me what kind of fish Larry’s catching or what he’s grilling for he and Olivia that night. Sound District… meet Larry 😊. He is my better half and he is a GREAT catch.
If you would like to view past editions of A Message from Kim, follow this link: https://sounddistrictnc.org/category/from-district-lay-leader/
If you would like to connect with Kim please do so through her email, k.smith@nccumc.org