My wife, Ethyl, had her mother and her brother that
had suffered severe strokes, so she said to me,
I don't want to have a stroke.
If I do, then I'm--
Pray me out of here.
I don't want--
That's what she said.
Pray me out of here, right?
So she had a stroke in the midst of everything
that was going on, but she didn't really
know that she had.
At that time, we had brought her in
and put her in hospice situation and everything.
So I said to her, well, you're here because of the stroke.
And when I said that, her whole face and her whole demeanor
changed.
She says, oh, no.
She's, like I'm out of here.
But when I came over, she was smiling, OK?
I'm serious.
This is a woman who was on morphine,
she had cancer that spread everywhere,
and she had a stroke, and she was smiling, OK?
And, I mean, I was in ministry, and I still-- that was, like,
way over my head.
And she said--
Oh, that's easy.
She said, that's easy.
That's easy.
She said I've had 39 years with the best
man that any woman--
no, she said women wish they would have one year
of what I've had for 39 years.
She said I've seen my children, and I've seen my grandchildren.
She said, and now I'm going home.
Promise me you'll take care of my family.
Just take care of them for me, you know, she said,
because, you know.
As
Soon as she passed, her daughter,
she just had a complete walking nervous breakdown.
I mean, so we talk from time to time
until she finally began to come out of it.
So a year later, it was my birthday.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
A year later, it was her birthday,
and my daughter that she just mentioned,
Ebony, she said, daddy, you need to do
something nice for Miss Terri.
My daughter gave me a list of things,
and on the list was white gold hoop earrings.
And so I said, well, I can do that, you know?
I buy jewelry for my wife all the time.
I can do that.
And, boy, what did I do that for?
I bought those white gold earrings,
and so now I got to figure out a way to get them to her, OK?
So my daughter said, well, take her to lunch or something.
Anyway, I call her.
She's in Atlanta.
Atlanta. I was in Atlanta.
She was in Atlanta ministering,
preaching somewhere in Atlanta.
She said wouldn't be back in town till Monday.
So I said, OK, I'll pick you up at the airport.
She said, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't need you to pick me up.
She kept going back and forth.
I finally talked her into letting
me pick her up at the airport.
So I picked her up at the airport.
And what you didn't know is that that was one of my things.
Being single-- because I've been single for 25 years.
I've been a widow, and I raised my two
daughters without my husband.
He also died of cancer.
And the only thing that ever bothered me about being single
was coming back to the airport, and you
would see people waiting.
Everybody, oh, hey.
Welcome home.
Welcome home, and I'd always be standing there,
and call a car or something, and go home.
So he didn't know, but when he came to meet me at the airport,
it was, like, a thing for me.
I said, oh, look at me.
Somebody's picking me up from the airport.
But I didn't say that.
I was cool.
So I picked her up at the airport.
I take her Burke Williams Spa.
And drop me off.
And I said, listen, I have a treatment package for you
at Burke Williams.
Go in to the treatment and then call me when you're done.
She said, oh, oh, oh, OK.
She said, all right.
So she goes into Burke Williams.
About 30 minutes later, she come calling me.
She says, I'm done.
I said done with what?
She said, well, I got a facial.
I said, no, no, lady.
No, I got a massage.
- Whatever you got. - 30-minute massage.
I said, no, no, lady, you got a full package there.
Go back in there and tell them--
He said you better go back and use that package.
--you want everything that's in that package, OK?
She said, really?
I said, yeah.
I said you better go back in and use that thing.
So she said, OK.
I didn't know, OK?
I wasn't a spa person.
So a couple hours later, she called.
She said, wow.
So I pick her up, and we go to get
something to eat after that.
So we went to the restaurant in Santa Monica.
And I when I told you in that restaurant,
I said, you know what?
I'm just going to be straight with you.
If I don't go on another date for another 20 years,
this is the one, OK?
I said everything else would have to measure up to this one,
OK?