Sharon Ann Swain

May 26, 1953 – January 23, 2019

These were the hardest words I ever had to write: Sharon Ann Swain, 65, of Flower Mound, Texas, passed away peacefully at home on January 23, 2019, after a courageous battle with cancer. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 26, 1953, to Richard J. and Marilyn (Voet) Adams. She is survived by her husband Grant, their four children and five grandchildren, her mother and five sisters and brothers, and numerous extended family.

I filled in a template, which is a sad admission from someone who makes his living as a writer. Sharon deserves better, and I am not up to the task. Words fail. But let’s try again, from the beginning – our beginning.

The moment I met Sharon Adams, I was smitten. I don’t mean that it was love at first sight (although it definitely was). I was literally smitten. Allow me to explain: Sharon was a biology major at Edgecliff College in Cincinnati. I ran the college bookstore. Sharon needed a blue book and three pieces of bubblegum to get through her final exam. She rummaged through an enormous purse, pulled out eight pennies and hurled them at me with all the force of a major league pitcher. I was smitten in the jaw, my forehead, my right ear. And in my heart.

If I were to write a book or movie about Sharon, a major motif – apart from rummaging through large purses with pounds of loose change, frequent lip glossing, wearing her glasses on top of her head and always feeling cold even in Texas – would be her abrupt, impetuous, often bewildering actions: Throwing pennies. Breaking our bedroom window whenever she locked herself out of the house. (Some people hide a key outside; Sharon kept a brick.) Backing her car into mine in our own driveway.

And, hardest of all, being abruptly taken from us.

What I loved most about Sharon were her wonderful and surprising contradictions. Breathtakingly beautiful, she hated having her picture taken. Extraordinarily considerate of others, she hated anyone making a fuss over her. Meet her at a dinner party, you’d think her shy and retiring. But if you were seated next to her, by dinner’s end you’d have a friend for life. She had a deep and genuine devotion to her family, her faith and her church – as well as a mischievous streak a mile wide and a truly wicked sense of humor. And she could find beauty and serenity in the most disheartening circumstances.

I am trying to follow her example. Today I am the saddest man in the world. But I am also mindful that for 45 years, I have been the luckiest. For I have been blessed to spend those years with Sharon. And what years they’ve been. We’ve had four amazing children: Matt, Chris, Rachel and Megan. We’ve looked on with love, pride, joy and occasional panic as they’ve grown into four amazing adults. We’ve celebrated marriages (Megan to Randy White, Chris to Shaina Sheaff and Matt to Chloe Coon). We’ve been blessed with five grandkids (Megan and Randy’s Lillian, Evie and Clara, and Chris and Shaina’s Norahleigh and Luna). And through it all, we’ve had a wonderful, wonderful time, Sharon and I.

Upon learning of her cancer diagnosis, Sharon was sad but never hopeless. She believed that God’s plans for her included her fighting back against the disease. And though the agonizing treatments proved unsuccessful, she never regretted giving them a try. Sharon felt that living is improvisation, that love is all and that what befalls us is not a matter of fate, but grace.

How fitting that Sharon was born on Tuesday, the child full of grace. For grace is the love and mercy given to us by God simply because God desires us to have it. By my account, Sharon was taken by God much too soon. But it is through God’s grace that she came into my life at all.

Pennies from heaven.