Blog 3417 – 03.12.2025

If Ever I Would Leave You

In the fall of 1973 at Bible College I met and fell in love with a pretty and vivacious young woman from Laurel, Mississippi. The narrow fundamentalist sect that ran the Bible College had prohibitions about most everything that the young people of that day or any day really would consider fun. One of those prohibitions was regarding movie theater attendance. Linda Gail and I both felt this restriction was a bridge too far and so every Saturday since there were no classes to attend our extracurricular activity was going to the movies. Lin as she prefers to be called these days was and still is a Barbra Streisand fan and the romantic movie starring Barbra with Robert Redford as her leading man, The Way We Were, premiered that fall so we must have seen in at least three or four times. Another of the films we watched more than once was a revival of the 1967 hit movie Camelot with Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero in the roles of King Arthur, Genevieve, and Sir Lancelot respectively.

Today’s song (linked below) is my karaoke style sing-a-long of that song from which the title of today’s blog comes. The first of June the year following our autumn adventures at the movies and falling in love as Katie and Hubble did and as Jenny and Lance did as well, Linda Gail and I were wed in her home church in Laurel. At the wedding she sang If Ever I Would Leave You for me and to me. Even so barely three years later she did leave me and I left her as surely as Hubble left Katie and Lance left Jenny.

In love, promises are made and vows are taken, specifically “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part” or words to that effect. Yet often those vows are broken as another of my favorite songs Broken Vow by Josh Groban illustrates so well.

I went on to marry two other women after Lin and had one previous to her, four in total. She would marry seven more times with even the last of those ending in divorce. I’d say we both believe in love and marriage.

In 1989 I married for the last time another lovely and vivacious woman, Linda Lee. This August tenth we will celebrate our thirty-sixth wedding anniversary. We were however separated for almost ten years and I worked away from Houston most of that. I thought we would also divorce, but Linda Lee as my mother predicted when she took me aside after first meeting Linda Lee to say, “Son, this woman is never going to let you go.” For a long time, when we had troubles and especially during our long separation, I thought mom’s words were meant as a warning, but I have come to believe they were more of a promise. I think my mom knew that Linda Lee was just the kind of woman that I needed in my life, one that would never leave me, nor let me go.

All those years I was working out of state, Linda Lee would drive to wherever I was and spend days and sometimes sever weeks with me in my 19 foot pull behind RV camper trailer that I lovingly referred to as my Little House on the Prairie on wheels. On a four month work assignment in Bemidji, Minnesota in late 2018 Linda Lee drove up from Houston and stayed a couple of weeks with me in the campground there. At the time I was having some medical issues and she drove me to the hospital emergency room on more than one occasion. Both of us thinking I was better, she headed back to Houston. She had only gotten a few hundred miles when I called her to tell her I was still having problems. She turned right around and drove back to take care of me and see that I got the medical attention that I needed. It was then our separation ended for me and any thought of ever divorcing her left me forever. Though I had three other out of state work assignment after that one, the last one being as six month assignment to Nebraska to replace all the savings that we used up during the COVID 19 lockdown, I have no plans of ever leaving my wife.

I had hoped after Nebraska to retire and that Linda Lee and I could travel together, camping in campgrounds all around the country. Barely two months after I retired in December of 2021. Linda had a terrible bout of Shingles and a mental break episode following that. We have stayed pretty close to home ever since.

I recently purchased another 20 foot pull behind RV Camper that I plan to set up on my son’s property near Bon Wier, Texas. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are picking it up for me this Saturday and driving it to their home in Indianapolis. I am hoping that Linda Lee will be up for a road trip in May to drive up with me to get it. Maybe we can stay in a campground or two together in it on our way back.

It is very likely that Linda Lee will leave this life before me in death. Trust me that is the only way that she would ever leave me or I her…till death do us part.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bbv-2M7_nUKAn-NeXIzCHgcHMBTaOBi2/view?usp=drivesdk

If Ever I Would Leave You