I’m writing my wife’s life story in 2016

Hi all – this is a personal note. I know, it’s New Year’s Eve – everybody’s probably making plans for 2016. I’ve made my own plans (fully aware of Proverbs 16:9). I’ve set up a new blog (http://bethanybugay.com/) that’s going to be devoted to a project that will involve writing first of all my wife’s life story, and also, our life together.

Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice is that the names don’t match up (Bethany Bugay vs DelNita Airel). Well, we struggled with that the whole time, and I think I explain it (and thanks to Alan Kurshner for help with the Hebrew). Another thing you’ll notice is that there’s some cussing involved. Well, my wife was a Soldier. The first word I ever heard come out of her mouth was “Goddammit!” – I intend to be as honest as I can about the whole thing.

Steve said something a while ago about a Christian marriage being counter-cultural in our day. At one point in her life, Beth saw “a Christian marriage” as almost a kind of salvation from the kind of hell that her life had become, almost from the outset. I think it’s a story that needs to be told today.

Here is the first chapter.

Here is the Facebook page I’ve set up: https://www.facebook.com/BethanyBugay/.

If anyone’s interested, please help me out by visiting the Facebook page – liking it, sharing it, talking it up. I hope to publish on a semi-regular schedule there, so please check back and like, share, and talk up those future chapters as well.

I know some of y’all probably miss me grousing about Roman Catholicism. I’ve got plenty of that left in me, I assure you. But this is, in my view, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (that I have) to tell an extraordinarily moving story of Christ’s redemption (Spoiler alert for those who like to read ahead: my wife, a life-long though nominal Roman Catholic, made a credible profession of faith before she died).

I couldn’t write it any earlier than this because it was just too painful. But now, with some distance, the grief has subsided a bit, but the project is still fresh in my mind, and I have a sense that if I don’t do it now, I won’t get back to it later.

So here it is, warts and all. My cousin (who is 70) read the first chapter, and she said “I read your first draft with tears falling down”. There is a saying by the poet Robert Frost – “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader”. Well, there have been plenty of tears on this end, and as I work through this, I expect that there will be many more.