Love Poems for Dodie: A Love Story Bordering On the Eternal

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Introduction to Love Poems for Dodie

By Pastor Kara’ Lynne Brubaker

My husband, Jay, and I are pastors of Positive Impact Worldwide Ministries in Saint Petersburg, FL where we had the wonderful privilege of being pastors for Joe and Dodie. Our first meeting with Dodie was in a little chapel where we were teaching a Sunday night service. Dodie and her sister were regular attendees. The three of us ladies decided to go for prayer in a beautiful prayer room a few miles away. That is where Dodie met Joe.

Dodie was one of the most beautiful women on the inside and out that you could ever have had the great honor to meet. She loved the Lord with all of her heart. Dodie, like most of us, had her ups and downs in life but when she gave her heart to the Lord, she was sold out. I have never seen anyone more pure, kind and trusting than Dodie.

When she met Joe she was sure that he, too, loved the Lord the way she did. I will never forget the gleam in Dodie's eyes as she spoke of the tall, good-looking Christian man she had met at the prayer room. Joe, too, was smitten with her beauty and love for the Lord.

It was love at first sight for the two of them. They started building stories together about all that God was showing them and how their interests were so similar for God and each other. When they came to us asking if we would perform their wedding ceremony we were not surprised. We were honored to have such a happy Christian man and woman join their lives together.

I think you will find Joe's book an interesting account of their love for one another.

Pastor Kara’ Lynne

Kara’ Lynne Brubaker

Positive Impact Worldwide Inc.

2750 34th Street South

Saint Petersburg, FL 33711

Phone 727-865-8292

Dedication

LOVE POEMS FOR DODIE

A LOVE STORY

This book is dedicated to the memory of my dearest and closest friend, life’s companion, extension of God’s Love, my precious and beloved late wife, Dolores Dodie Callihan.

This is a love story bordering on the eternal, far different from anything you will find coming out of Hollywood. Our Love story is based on faith, dignity, mutual respect, companionship, fidelity, sincere commitment, laughter and joy. What you are about to read is a true story. The facts as related in this story have in no way been altered to glamorize or change the truth.

In a time when so many marriages end in divorce, Love Poems for Dodie offers a glimpse into the kind of wedded bliss many only dream of finding. For me finding Dodie was a dream come true.

Love Poems gives the reader the opportunity to learn of two hearts filled with love, which became one. Honest communication, sharing and caring, with the desire to build upon Jesus as their foundation, were the ingredients their love fed on daily. Dodie and I were destined to meet and bring our love story to the world.

Lastly, the most extraordinary and wonderful woman you will be reading about was real. She was not a fictional character, nor a figment of my imagination. But she never could have been all that she was without having surrendered her body, heart, soul, and spirit, to her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I like to tell people that in taking Dodie for my wife, I was robbing the cradle. When in 2005 I first met Dodie, I was a 31 year old man (becoming born again in 1974, at the age of 30. Dodie, born again in 1996, was only 9). But in spiritual maturity she far exceeded me.

I believe one of the best things I can say about this book is every word, every story, actually happened as told. So although this book is dedicated to my wife, it brings honor and glory to the One who made her His beloved daughter and my wife, our Father in Heaven.

HOW MY LOVE POEMS CAME TO BE

You ladies may want your husband to read this. It comes from the heart of a manly man. Should they decide to call me a sissy boy, tell them the man they are talking about once was happy to offer to knock their teeth out for such a thing as that! Today I only feel sorry for their lack of understanding of what it takes to be a real and committed man of God.

But here is my story. I admit to being a romantic man. Perhaps I am one of the last of a dying breed. satan wants generations today to grow up not believing in true Love and Romance. Just look at the movies and songs he uses to dissuade them about ever finding true love. Old movies which depict faithful love and romance are looked upon today as corny and not about reality. Today, people so easily buy into satan’s lie; rather than seeking God’s help in finding and sharing a lifetime reality of true love and romance with their mate.

I have always looked at true love as a very special gift from God. Sharing it with one of the opposite sex makes life exciting, new, and a beautiful adventure every single new day! Being as how it is special and a gift from God Himself, we never should take it for granted. Neither should we allow it to become a stale or a dull routine part of our life.

With great appreciation we should explore its many wonders everyday. Every new day, I tried to find ways of letting Dodie know how loved and appreciated she and her love were to my life. She did the same for me. This is why the words of my love poems, seem to flow from my heart to pen, then on to the pages of paper.

Revelation: It took a long time for me to find someone as special and loving as my Dodie. For decades, I said a lot of I Can’t and I won’t, but never I do, until I was sixty three years old. In my youth satan supplied me with a lot of physically beautiful women, who seemed to find me attractive. It became so easy to fool around with what the world calls sexy, desirable women. I did more than my share of that! But always it left me feeling empty inside.

Having no commitment of love on either part, I felt used, alone, and unfulfilled in my life. Many were the times in those lonely years, when I would cry out to God in pain. Asking if I ever would find someone to love, like my dream woman (Dodie). How I wanted to sincerely and faithfully love and be loved, the way God intended for love to be shared between a man and woman. All the while never realizing the sinful lifestyle I had adopted was making me unworthy for God to allow someone like Dodie to come into my life.

Sadly it took me a long, long time to finally figure that out. One day, I chose to repent, and once more get my life right with God; seeking to being led by His Holy Spirit in traveling on only the narrow path toward eternity. At that point God said: HOY VE! Have I got a WOMAN for you!

He then brought into my life all of the wonder of love I had been seeking to find for decades. Her name was Dolores, but we knew her as Dodie. God (True to His Word), did exceedingly and abundantly far more than I had ever hoped or dreamed of finding, bringing into my life a beautiful little 5’ 3" bundle of female love!

Now every night and each new day, I thank Him for each precious moment of life and love I was given to share with my Dodie. Truly she was the Love of my life!

Chapter One

Dodie’s Story

On June 17, 1940, a wonderful event took place for the Nichols family. Born in Chicago, Illinois on this date, a special bundle of Love was sent from Heaven by God. My future beautiful wife, Dolores Nichols came into the world. Sadly, she did not get a chance to really know her mother. Her mother, Florence Nichols, died of cancer when Dolores was a young child, subsequently Dolores was raised by her father, Forrest, and older sister, Pat.

As a child she was outgoing and possessed the delightfully mischievous spirit of an Irish lass. I’m happy to say it stayed with her throughout her life. Spunky, blessed with a rare sense of humor, and growing more beautiful each day, Dolores was a lot for her father and sister to handle. In the mid 1950’s, her father moved to Tampa, Florida. Not long after he remarried, and had three more children by his new wife Helen. Being of a Catholic family, Pat and Dolores were sent in their developing years to a Catholic school for girls run by strict nuns; the kind devoted to seeing the girls under their care grew up to be devoted to serving only the one, holy mother, Catholic Church.

Not long after graduation from Sacred Heart Academy, Dolores got married. The guy seemed nice enough, but unfortunately had a little flaw. He believed he made a more beautiful woman than his wife. In the presence of others, he acted and appeared as a normal man. But he hid a secret life. In Dodie’s presence, he loved to dress and act as a woman. Dolores was confused by this. The nun’s had never told her about such deviant behavior, so she put up with it until she learned better. When she became aware how perverted this guy was, naturally that marriage ended in disappointment and divorce.

I should point out here that somewhere along the way my Dolores got the nick name of Dodie. She liked it, and would answer to either name. To her friends up north she was Dolores. By the time I got to know her, she was simply known to all her close local friends in the South as Dodie. But unfortunately, that time was still a long way off.

Both Dolores and her sister had moved back to Chicago and took jobs in the windy city. She enjoyed living there. Especially the times when she and her sister took in the best Chicago had to offer. But a few years later Dolores married again. This time her husband was from one of the Ukraine countries under Russian control. They moved to Maryland and Dolores got a job working as a beginning clerk in the state’s Department which dealt with runaway children.

Dolores was married to husband number two for a decade. But one day she discovered husband #2 had a very serious mental problem which far too many husbands seem to have. He had difficulty understanding what fidelity in marriage meant. He cared little for the vow of cleaving only to his wife. In other words, he was the typical kind of JERK who did not appreciate what a wonderful woman he had for a wife! When this became evident Dolores confronted him. She learned he was one of those idiots who believed a man had a right to as many concubines as he wanted. Vows made to his wife before God had no meaning or value to him.

I can’t imagine taking someone as wonderful, tender hearted, and beautiful as my Dodie; and treating her as if she were just another toy to provide for his physical pleasure. Sadly, there are men (and women) out there who permit demons to lead them around, blindly ignorant and uncaring about the feeling of others. Naturally, upon Dodie’s discovering his idea regarding the sanctity of marriage, it led to the end of his game and their marriage.

This being her second disappointment in marriage, Dolores vowed to God and herself she would never marry again. (God was thinking: One day, I’m going to introduce you to a man named Joe – then you will know true love and happiness My daughter). Meanwhile during the ten years of marriage, she had advanced rapidly on her job. At the request of her supervisor, she first attended Baltimore College. Then upon further request, she went on to Johns Hopkins University to pursue and attain her Degree in Management. She would work during the day, and drive back and forth to school at night. Her efforts were rewarded when she was appointed head over the department where she had first come to work as a clerk. Her boss was none other than the Governor of the state.

She was well respected, both on her job and also among others from different states holding the same position. In fact, once when they held their annual meeting in Las Vegas, consisting of the department heads