Dee Oliver - The Undertakers Wife: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Laughter in the Unlikeliest of Places

PRAISE FOR
THE UNDERTAKERS WIFE

The Undertakers Wife confirms the fact that real life is stranger than fiction. Filled with poignant, honest, and lots of hilarious moments, this is a fun read, with plenty of food for thought. Youll be glad you chose this one. Enjoy!

TERRY MEEUWSEN, cohost, The 700 Club

Fast-paced with richly developed characters, The Undertakers Wife is a witty and poignant story of faith and family. Dee Oliver tells her story with a tender humor that provides a powerful message to all of us as we confront the unexpected challenges life and death provide. An enjoyable and moving read.

BRIGADIER GENERAL ANTHONY J. TATA (U.S. Army, retired), bestselling author of Foreign and Domestic

The Undertakers Wife is a beautifully written memoir about love and loss, and about learning to trust God through it all. Dees story is both tender and funny, and ultimately a poignant reminder about the powerful gift of prayer.

JEANNIE CUNNION, author of Parenting the Wholehearted Child

In the world of running, how you train can make all the difference and its the same thing on the track of life. Many thanks to Dee Oliver for writing about grief and loss in a way that will help all of us prepare to finish the race with strength, dignity, and even a little laughter along the way.

THE HONORABLE JIM RYUN, five-term Congressman, three-time Olympian

Where humor meets God and takes the sting out of death regardless of our race, economic status, or what shoes we wear to the funeral!

SUSAN ALEXANDER Yates, speaker and bestselling author.

In The Undertakers Wife, Dee Oliver has opened a coffin for us and found a laughing body. She has scripted out a poignant, hilarious, and practical autobiographical work that laughs at a death that may yet make us weep, but has lost its sting. Here is a lived theology of Resurrection in the midst of traveling through a valley of tears. Like Chaucers Wife of Bath, Dee may have sent her husband on to Jesus, but by the end of the book, we want to travel the rest of our journey heavenward with her. We know it will be an inspired hoot of a story, just like this marvelous book.

TERRY LINDVALL, C. S. Lewis Chair of Communication and Christian Thought, Virginia Wesleyan College

I laughed, I cried, I took notes! The Undertakers Wife is a hilarious, uniquely Southern rendering of mourning, empathy, fortitude, and loving others well in times of need.

SUSAN MERRILL, director of content at Family First, iMOM.com, AllProDad.com, FamilyMinute.com

Plenty of funeral directors can speak with wisdom and authority, but Dee is that rare breed of professional who can also do it with wit and grace. Dont be fooled by the entertainment value of this memoir. You might laugh or cry but in the end, youll have read a very important work about life, death, and how to bridge the gaps that both can leave.

WILL SESSOMS, mayor of Virginia Beach

Southern women have found their Mark Twain in Dee Oliver! Traversing the tale of her life from single woman to widowed mother of three, Dee connects the dots between love and loss and limns a winsome picture of how Gods grace turns stumbling blocks into stepping stones, and despair into hope for the future.

THE REVEREND ANDREW BUCHANAN, rector of Galilee Church

ZONDERVAN

The Undertakers Wife

Copyright 2015 by Dee Branch Oliver and Jodie Berndt

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition February 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-34086-7

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals who appear in this book.

Cover design: James Hall

Cover photography: UnoPix / iStockphoto / Wikimedia Commons

Interior design: Katherine Lloyd, The DESK

First Printing January 2015

To Johnnie...

Contents

I lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. The two dogs were asleep near my feet, having staked their territory on my Yves Delorme duvet months ago. Down the hall, my three daughters slept peacefully in their rooms.

May 2, 2008. People say the first year is the hardest the first Christmas, the first Fathers Day, the first wedding anniversary without your spouse but I couldnt imagine life getting any easier. Id made it through the first twelve months; only God knew how many more months or years I had to go. What if I never got remarried? Could I really live like this, with dogs in my bed instead of a man, for the rest of my life?

I looked down at the dogs. They needed a bath. Johnnie would have kicked them off. He liked things neat and tidy, organized, and efficient. Dogs on the bed were not part of his plan.

But then, neither was dying.

The house was so quiet that time of morning. I slipped out of the sheets, reaching for my robe and pulling back my long brown hair into a ponytail. Id had it colored last week; that, at least, was something I could control. If nothing else went right on the anniversary of Johnnies death, at least my hair would look good.

Ever faithful, the dogs followed me downstairs, their paws making only the softest clicks on the hardwood floor of our kitchen. I let them out and started the coffee. As it brewed, my mind retraced the milestones of my adult life. I had checked a lot of boxes.

Travel through Europe? Check.

Go to college? Check, perhaps double checked. Id had a lot of fun!

Live on my own with a bunch of girlfriends, holding downjobs that didnt get in the way of our social lives? Check.

Find a handsome and wealthy doctor to marry?

Not checked.

All of my life Id had an irrational and yet ever-present fear of getting sick, so sick that I might die. If I married a doctor, I reasoned, I could take ill at any moment, even during the middle of the night, and I would have instant access to first-class medical care. The fact that he would be a handsome doctor was a given. Like UPS men, the doctors Id known seemed, both on television and in person, to be square-jawed, physically fit, and generally attractive men. And the stipulation that my doctor-husband would, of necessity, be wealthy was something Id picked up from my mother, a woman who taught me how to drink (one glass of wine at a party; the bottle at home, if needed), how to make the most of a hospital stay (if you have to have, say, a hysterectomy, you might as well call the plastic surgeon for a little nip too, darling), and how to hold it together in the face of pain, sorrow, and unruly children (a neat trick that usually involved a new dress and, almost as often, a flight to Paris). As Mother routinely opined when dishing up nuptial advice, You can fall in love with a rich man as easily as you can a poor one.