Alan Marshall married Kim Gambrell on August 15, 1927. He was tall with dark hair and a cow lick that he never could control, but Kim thought it was cute. He liked to work with his hands, eat watermelon by Sniper’s creek, and he loved Kim.

Kim’s daddy was the new Methodist preacher in that small town of Emerson, Texas, and every Sunday she would sit on the front row with her mother as her daddy sweated from the pulpit during that hot, sticky June.

Kim was one of those people who loved life and everything in it. She would chase fireflies in the summer and would sing in the rain and dance in the moonlight. She believed that there was good in everybody and did her best to bring out that goodness in everybody she met.

Their third Sunday in Emerson was the first time Alan and Kim saw each other. He was on the last pew debating on whether or not to go fishing at Sniper’s creek or Old Man McGee’s pond when Kim stood to sing.

Never in his 19 years had he seen anything like Kim. She was a petite brunette with green eyes and her white sun dress made her glow like a chorus of angels.

Alan couldn’t take his eyes off of her, the way her hair fell on her shoulders and how her smile brought fresh air into that stuffy church in June.

Alan forgot all about fishing that afternoon, he forgot his name and I guess he forgot that Kim was singing a solo because he was so lost in her presence that stood up in the back, a tall skinny boy with a cow lick and started singing ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’ with her.

Alan knew what had happened when he heard the laughter. When he realized that he was the only person standing in the congregation singing out of key with Kim, he quickly sat down and looked for a hole in that wood floor where he could escape from his embarrassment.

But Kim smiled from the choir loft the way a child smiles at a sunny day, it was obvious to her and everybody else that he was suffering from the wound of the love bug. And she also smiled because she thought his was cute.

When church was over, Alan did his best to leave the sanctuary as quickly as he possibly could to avoid seeing her or anyone else for that matter.

But that would be impossible.

Like a crowd rushing to congratulate the winning picture, everybody rushed to Alan and jokingly patted him on the back for a job well done and asked him to sing again next week while they laughed out the door and down the steps.

Thinking that it he had reached the highest level of embarrassment, Alan decided to turn around to leave through the back, and when he turned around he met Kim standing right behind him.

With a red face and stumbling words he introduced himself as Alan Marshall and told her how well she sang.

Kim smiled and told Alan that he sang better.

And on that June Sunday, the Sunday where the voices of Kim and Alan joined for one verse, their hearts joined together for a duet that would last a lifetime.

They were married that August, August 15 to be exact.

And they lived the perfect life together that every married couple lives the first couple of years.

They had a two-bedroom house with a small backyard and flower garden where Kim had planted roses and tulips at the end of Stagecoach Road and Alan worked five days a week at the mill. And the happy young couple was expecting a baby.

But in the fall of 1929, things began to change for Alan and Kim. It seemed that everything went wrong that year. The dream that they were living in now was a nightmare.

The stock market crashed leaving a dent in the financial lives of everybody in the country, even a young couple in Emerson, Texas.

The mill where Alan worked had to shut down laying off 730 workers, including Alan.

Alan and Kim went to her parents for help, but with the depression starting, nobody could give to the church because nobody had anything to give, so her father only had words of hope that things will get better.

But they didn’t. A month later, Kim lost the child that she was carrying leaving the young parents devastated.

The young couple who met singing no longer had a song in their heart.

The young girl who loved life and everything in it, no longer wanted it.

Kim stayed in her room all day and all night. For six weeks she didn’t leave the house. Alan got a job at the local Sears and hoped that things would start to get better with food on the table and a little money coming in.

But the flowers in the garden and the flower in the house were wilting away.

Alan didn’t know what to do. He had lost a job, his child, and now it seemed as if he was losing his wife. He didn’t know what to do or where to turn to.

And while he thought and thought, Kim stayed in the bed.

So Alan began to write. He wrote and wrote and wrote. He wasn’t writing a book or an article, but notes, over a hundred notes, all telling Kim in some way, that he loved her more than anything and that she was the best thing in his life.

And he took all of those notes and began to hide them. He would put one in drawers, he put one in the shower, he put on in the clothes hamper, he put one in the frying pan, he put one in the flower bed, he put them everywhere that she would some how find them one at a time.

And she did. The next while he worked at Sears, she got out of the bed and walked to the closet where Alan kept his pistol.

Convinced that life was no longer worth living and that it would be best for everyone, especially herself if she was no longer alive, she reached for the pistol to end her life.

And laying on top of the pistol was a piece of paper that had Kim’s name on it. Surprised she took the piece of paper and read this:

Dear Kim,

There is nothing in this world that I love more than you. You are the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep, and you live in my dreams. I love you, Alan.

Tears fell from her face and were caught by the piece of paper that she held in her hand. She realized that love made life worth living.

That day she found more of Alan’s notes. She found them in flower garden as she tried to bring life back to the roses and tulips and she found them in the medicine cabinet and with each note she found, her smile grew and her love of life, and her life of love was alive again.

Those notes sustained Kim during the darkest period of her live. Those notes reminded Kim of Alan’s love for her and how much he cared for her.

And when she found all of the notes, all 100 of them, she put them all in a box, with the first one she found on top.

And every once in a while, when Alan was at work Kim would pull out those notes and read them and would cry tears of joy all over again. And she was never lonely or sad again.

Kim and Alan made it through the depression and they had another child, in fact they had five children. And they grew up and had children of their own and Kim and Alan loved their 14 grandchildren.

But last year, after 72 years of marriage, Alan died at the age of 91. Kim had only lived 17 years without Alan and she couldn’t imagine living one day without him now.

But he was gone and she found herself feeling like she felt 70 years earlier- without a song in her heart, because for 72 years, she sang a duet, and she no longer knew how to sing alone.

But while she was cleaning up after everyone had left the house after the funeral, she found that old box where she kept Alan’s notes.

Although she could recite everyone by heart, she sat at her kitchen table and read each one.

And every day since she reads one of his notes.

And every day she is sustained.

Everyday she has a song in her heart.

She now sings of a life full of love, and a love full of life – because each day in his notes, Alan reminds her.

And each day is lived, for that reminder.

We have before us a small loaf of bread and a small cup of grape juice. Insignificant to many, useless to others, but priceless to us.

It’s priceless to us in the same way that Alan’s notes are priceless to Kim, because it’s a reminder of an eternal love.

Alan’s notes sustained Kim as she went through life.

The bread and juice sustain us as we go through life.

Kim was filled with an undying love with each letter read. We are filled with the undying love of God with each Holy Communion.

Even though Alan has passed away, Kim is still joined with him in those notes of love.

We are joined with Christ in this feast of love.

The song of life between Kim and Alan began in that church in Emerson, Texas and lasted for 72 years.

Our song of life began with our baptism and will last for eternity.

The song of life between Kim and Alan is still sustained with those notes that Kim reads every day.

Our song of life between Christ and us is sustained with this small loaf of bread and tiny cup of juice.

Kim lives and finds life in her reminder.

Let us live and find life in ours.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.