And then there were two

November 18, 2012

Our “Jacobs” began on August 3, 1939 as Lucy Baca from Quemado, New Mexico married Charles Glenn Jacobs from Concho, Arizona. Glenn and Lucy had absolutely nothing in common but a few friends and relatives and a desire to have a family. Thirty three, 213 pounds, six foot three, and the wild child living the “free life” for ten years as an owner-operator of Glenn’s Trading Post. Add to this biographical snapshot the fact that he enjoyed women, cigarettes, alcohol, and you have the absolute opposite of Lucy; 23, 105 pounds, 5 feet, eleven and three quarters, spending the vast majority of the first two decades of her life in catholic and Methodist schools and living completely void of any of the exotic life elements like tobacco, booze, and other sinister elements.

In fairness to some who know some of life’s dirty little secrets, Lucy married a fellow because his mother told her it would keep her “Johnnie” out of prison. It did for a short time, but after numerous beatings, death threats, alcoholic rages, and denigrations of her very person, Lucy’s sister, Marriana stepped in and pulled her out of the fires of hell. Mother Lucy made two personal commitments; she would forget she ever rode a horse because she had seen what other ranch women looked and acted like after a life on the trail of errant cows; and second she would thwart Father Glenn’s passion of arguing by simply determining to never argue with him. They lived, married, had children, and grew toward making life better for each other and for their progeny regardless of the vast divergences in their lives, habits, and theories of life.

A marriage made in heaven? No, mother and father’s marriage was crafted out of necessity. Each needed the other. Both determined that they were willing to marry, “for better or worse.” They found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and entered the waters of baptism, again I believe, more out of necessity than any sense of community, spirituality, or eternal aims. Interesting things happened as decades, four children, four children’s marriages, grandchildren, became part of their reality. They went from the first day they returned to Glenn’s Trading Post, Lucy was introduced to Gramps, he responding by looking her up and down, spitting his tobacco on the floor and saying, “Well, sh@@, if you don’t succeed at first, try, try again;” to honest, sincere sadness and sense of longing, as she and the family went through the process of preparing a funeral and saying final a final goodby.

Fast forward another forty years, Glenn and Lucy have four children, twenty six grandchildren, and somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy great grandchildren. Each person in this progeny has distinct characteristics, spiritual understanding, mental acuity, and purposes and perspectives of life. Each has a common denominator in their forbearers. Life will go for those of us still on this journey through life. We make our future by looking closely at our history, at our interests, desires, personally, professionally, spiritually, educationally, and familiarly.

What a rush! What an opportunity. We passed the first test in immortality when we told God that we were desirous of coming to earth, gaining a body, testing the limits of our abilities to endure to the end of temporal life, all in exchange for the opportunity of returning to the presence of God, spirit and body reunited in a glorified form able to live in the presence of God through the atonement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When we graduate from this life, we move to the next realm; paradise, in which we can learn more, understand more, be judged from our personal book of life, and as our lives are reviewed and we determine the level to which we have lived honorable lives with a desire to give our all to our fellow earthlings, we will move forward toward our eternal rewards.

God bless each of you as extend your love and personal commitment to others through the Love of Christ.

Duane Jacobs, brother, father, grandfather, uncle, cousin, and fond friend