The Last Dance
A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Love
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Finally coming to realize she may actually die, I asked her, “So babe, what do you want to do with the time you have left?” She just kind of stared ahead a few seconds then tilted her head towards me and asked, “Do you know something that I don’t?” Two years pounded in my brain, but I tenderly responded, “Not really, ‘cause nobody really knows... but I did call Dr. McCanless and ask him how much time he thinks you have left.” She just stared straight ahead for about thirty seconds without saying a word; finally responding, “Go ahead; tell me.” “He’s guessing it will probably be somewhere around two years, maybe closer to three if everything goes well.” Followed immediately by, “But they don’t know. Remember Dr. McCanless himself said there’s a good reason they call it medical practice.” She just continued to stare blankly towards the road ahead of us and didn’t say a thing. I let a minute or two go by then gently repeated, “So Babe, what do you want to do with whatever time we do have left? You are probably feeling as good right now as you ever will, with things just deteriorating from here on out, so lets go do whatever you want to do right now.” She just kept looking ahead, now with a single tear slowly riding down the contour of her cheek. After a minute or so she turned to me with conviction, wiped away the tear, and boldly answered, “I want to make that mission trip to Honduras this summer!” “Well, yeah! We’ll do that alright, but what do you want to do for fun?” I asked. “What’s more fun than a mission trip?” she asked, as if I had just asked the lamest question she’d ever heard. Undaunted, I plowed on, “How about we rent a RV and go get lost seeing the Grand Canyon, Napa Valley, the redwoods,... all those things we said we’d do one day? I want to just spend every last moment you’re on this earth with you. To hell with our business and everything else.” She thought a few seconds then said, “Nah, I’ll see all those things just fine from the other side. Besides, don’t you think the kids want to spend some time with me too? That wouldn’t be very fair to them.” I quickly responded, “We’ll fly ‘em out on the weekends.” She just kind of smiled a get real smile at me and we drove on in silence for a while. Thinking I’d found the perfect compromise I offered, “Hey, I know what, you always said you wanted to go back to Rome with the kids - let’s do that!” She flashed those beautiful eyes at me and said, “I think I’m already too tired for that much travel.” A few more minutes went by then she suggested, “How about we just take the kids and go to Orlando. I don’t care if we go to any of the parks; we’ll just get away as a family and enjoy each other’s company. Play until we get tired, then go back to the hotel and recuperate.” “DONE!” we said in unison as we high-five’d each other. Something about working that out gave us a sense that we still had some measure of control over this disease. It wasn’t going to come between us nor rob us of our enjoyment of each other and life, for however many days we had left! We drove on in silence; each grappling with the coming finality of our fairy-tale love in his own way. For my part, I found myself wondering what kind of saint God had placed in my life? Minutes before she had shown no personal concern over receiving a death sentence other than how to save her mother from the pain it would cause, now… ”What’s more fun than a mission trip?” Did she really say that? Who else on this planet, after having your final shot at life snuffed out, would pray for someone else and make their top priority a mission trip? Unbelievable. I was not only in love. I was in awe. Jennie understood that the only things truly worth doing in this life are those which we do for others.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Have you ever wondered how you would react if told that you only had two years to live? Join the adventure of a lifetime as you walk this path with a true Southern belle, Jennie Martin, and experience life lived to the fullest with incredible joy, faith, hope, and trust in God. You will laugh as you cry and as you fall in love with this joyful wife, mom, and entrepreneur with an incredible zest for life that simply could not be defeated, not even in death. She is a modern-day “little woman” filled with a remarkable inner peace who cherished the real values of life and love and lived them to her final breath. This romantic tale of love’s triumph will inspire you to build, refine, or elevate your own relationship into the depths of the intimacy and completeness we all yearn for—depths that you may doubt actually exist. They are the very depths of pure love we were created for. Those struggling with the darkness of a terminal illness, their own or a loved one’s, will find in The Last Dance a brilliant ray of light to guide them through this final portal. For our deceased loved ones are not gone; they have simply gone ahead.
About the Author
Eddie Martin received a bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of South Carolina where he met the love of his life, Jennifer Nates. They were wed and blessed with four children. The couple walked away from successful careers to start a business of their own, Louisiana Gifts and Gallery, Inc., in Prairieville, a suburb of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The business was successful and allowed the Martins to lead many mission trips to Honduras and Liberia, Africa. Jennifer’s time on this earth came to an end after thirty-five years of marriage and fifty-five years of life. Eddie, already a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church, then entered Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is now ordained as a Catholic priest, currently serving at St. Aloysius in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He enjoys his three children and five grandchildren. 1/25/2021: Eddie Martin is a Louisiana native who met the love of his life, Jennifer Ann Nates, in Columbia, South Carolina, at the University of South Carolina. She was studying pharmaceuticals, intent on running the family drugstore she had been overseeing since the death of her father when she was seventeen. Eddie was studying chemical engineering. They were wed in 1978 and were blessed with four children, three of whom are still alive today. Eddie worked as a chemical engineer until their first child, Alex, arrived. Shortly thereafter, the two created a family business, Greetings of the Heart, based on Eddie’s artistic skills and Jennie’s entrepreneurial energy, which eventually evolved into Louisiana Gifts and Gallery Inc., just outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In the year 2003, Eddie felt a strong pull to give his life more fully to service of others through the church. He enrolled in the diaconate formation program and was ordained as a deacon of the Catholic church in 2010. Following the birth of the love of his life to heaven, he returned to seminary and was ordained into the priesthood in 2016. His is a unique priestly perspective with his family background and the five grandchildren he enjoys today. He was inspired to write this memoir to help others better cope with difficulties in life, such as cancer and the loss of a child or spouse, and to celebrate the joys of two living as one through the bond of matrimony, a bond that survives and carries us through the death of a spouse. His prayer is to bring peace to all whose faith is shaken by tragedies of life and to give hope and solace to those who wonder how God can let bad things happen to good people.