essayist Opal Ruth PraterEach week, we’ll hear a new This I Believe essay – this time from Opal Ruth Prater. When a marriage ends early because of an unexpected death, the surviving partner is often devastated. Prater’s husband died 15 years ago, and she’s never stopped loving him. Common objects can often evoke powerful memories. For Prater, it was a shirt that belonged to her late husband. It reminded her of the beautiful life they shared, and how her love for him is as strong as ever. Prater says her husband’s death affected their family greatly, but his life impacted it more. Opal and Dusty Prater raised their four children on several hundred acres of land about three miles from the nearest blacktop, with no electricity or running water. She still lives among the southwest Virginia mountains, with her children and grandchildren close by. Her essay is included in the book, This I Believe: On Love.
Click here to read a transcript and to listen to her essay.
Click here for guidelines to submit your own statement of beliefs.
I'm sorry to say that, but living this way is no good. Of course I believe in overall love and in one love for the whole life, but when your couple dies YOUR life doesn't stop with that! You should live for both of us, gain happiness for sake of the gone and breathe for the two of us! Spending your life mourning is not actually living.