“Oh, how I loved her”
The clergyman was finishing the graveside service. Suddenly, the 78-year-
old man whose wife of 50 years had just died began screaming in a thick
accent, “Oh, oh, oh, how I loved her!”
His mournful wail interrupted the dignified quiet of the ceremony. The other
family and friends standing around the grave looked shocked and
embarrassed cause they could do nothing against his sudden reaction, he
used to be a man of only a few words. His grown children, blushing, tried to
shush their father. “It’s okay, Dad; we understand. Shush.”
The old man stared fixedly at the casket lowering slowly into the grave. The
clergyman went on. Finishing, he invited the family to shovel some dirt onto
the coffin as a mark of the finality of death. Each, in turn, did so with the
exception of the old man. “Oh, how I loved her!” he moaned in distress
loudly. His daughter and two sons again tried to restrain him, but he
continued, “I loved her!”
Now, as the rest of those gathered around began leaving the grave, the old
man stubbornly resisted. He stayed, staring into the grave. Seeing so, the
clergyman approached and slowly said. “I know how you must feel, but it’s
time to leave. We all must leave and go on with life.”
“Oh, how I loved her!” the old man moaned, miserably. “You don’t
understand,” he said to the clergyman, “I almost told her once.”
- Hanoch McCarty, Ed.D.
The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how
much they love them while they’re still alive.
- O. A. Battista
