PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 358: LOSING A HUSBAND
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 358: LOSING A HUSBAND
Robyn, also a New Zealander, but now living in Texas, shares today. Beginning in a de facto relationship, coming to Christ, getting married, and serving God together, she then tells the story of losing her husband of 40 years and how God brought her through.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies again! And yippee! You’ve got another New Zealander talking to you today. This time it is Robyn Coughlin. At one time, she was Robyn Edmonds. She’s going to tell you her story.
Well, Robyn, it’s such a joy to have you here. What a great time we’ve all had, enjoying one another, and talking about the old days, the good old days. Actually, they were the good old days. Wow! We’d love to have some of those good old days again, wouldn’t we? They were also part of our glorious church life where the Holy Spirit was moving back in those days. Robyn, just start off! Let’s start off from the beginning.
Robyn: Kia Ora, which is our hello from New Zealand. I met up with you in 1978.
Nancy: Wow!
Robyn: I know and that is quite scary because you see how long ago that is. We were so young, but we got saved in the Christian Center. That was amazing and baptized. Then I started to go to Sue Kuru’s Ladies’ Bible study and your Wednesday night meetings. My husband, Lee and me.
It was amazing, because I’d been brought up with a mother who came from Exclusive Brethren Church and father not a Christian. Lee grew up with a single mother whose father died when he was seven and then an abusive stepfather. We didn’t know what it was.
I remember when I was pregnant with our Kelly, our first. God spoke to Lee. Lee was beside himself because he said, “I don’t know how to be a father! I don’t know. I’ve never had a father. I don’t know how to be a father.” And God said it was OK, that he had His hand on it, and He would be a father to Lee, and Lee would be a father.
It was really amazing, because that was when we came into Christian fellowship, and all we’d meet were these strong fathers in our church where men of God are. We so needed to have men in the church. It’s blessing to have women, but to have men in the church too. We were really blessed to be under some really great men. That’s how we learned to be parents. That’s how we learned what a family looked like even. That was our beginning.
From there we moved up to Taranaki and New Plymouth. We would minister. We were very involved with the AOG Church and the Elim Church. We loved it there. But with all that, we really didn’t get it together. We met at 16 yrs old. It was my 17th birthday, and Lee was 16 years old. We were babies having babies, really.
Nancy: Now, today, you have 19 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, so far!
Robyn: Absolutely. The blessings of my heart. Beautiful children. My oldest granddaughter is 27. She’s married with two children. My youngest is one. His mom is pregnant, and due in April.
So, we moved to New Plymouth. We loved God. We did love God, and we ministered for God, but we didn’t always click. Marriages are fluid, it goes, but I knew that we could do better. I was really praying to God one day. Someone had given me a message by Larry Lee. I don’t know much about him, but he used to preach on the Lord’s prayer.
I listened to his video, and I couldn’t tell you a thing he said about the Lord’s prayer, but he made one comment. He said, “I’ve been married for 10 years, and it was the best thing that has happened.” I thought, “Well, I’ve been married for 10 years by then and it was sometimes hell.”
I thought, “Lord, I’m not doing this right.” I’d had you as an example. I thought, and I looked at my measure and I’ve written in the book I’m writing, and that I’m about to publish on marriage. I put in there about Nancy Campbell, and you had given us a measure stick to what it looked like to be a wife.
I’d done that. Run a bath when he came home. Made sure I did all the things you taught us. Made sure there were potatoes on the element boiling so he’d come home to the smell of food. He was a Maori and Maori people love food. I’d do these little things. Lee’s mother would say, “You’re making a rod for your back!” But I loved serving my husband and my children. But I thought, “There is something that isn’t quite right.” I went on search about what it was to have a kingdom marriage. That’s what my book is on.
From there, I put these things into practice. We became pastors and assistant pastors in 1990. We took over church in 1994 in Taumarunui and then we planted a church in New Plymouth. Even though I put these things in process. I realized that it was nothing to do with Lee. It all came back to what I was as a wife.
Proverbs 31 is my favorite chapter in the Bible. I could see that she made her husband look good. He would sit in the gates. That was always my whole desire, to make my husband look good. I became a manager of a social service. Even then, I thought, “If I make my social workers look good, I look good! If my husband looks good, I look good!” It was always my mission to make sure that he looked good, and that he had everything he needed, that he was blessed that I served him.
It became my heart’s desire. Lee would say, “What would you like for Christmas,” or “What would you like . . . ?” To be honest, my whole desire was always to be the best wife I could be. If you know God said, “What would you like to pray for?” “I want to be the best wife.” “What would you like, Robyn?” “I want to be the best wife.” It’s always been my heart’s desire, always, to be the best wife.
We had some beautiful years together. It was a terrible time in 2010. That’s another story. We moved to Auckland. In 2014, Lee had a heart attack on Kelly’s birthday. He was in hospital. He had six new arteries put in.
In March of 2014, he had a massive stroke, which left him in a wheelchair. It was a terrible time. Eight months in hospital having rehab. We were in Auckland at that time. He was in the Middlemore Hospital. They wanted to take him to the Auckland hospital because after a stroke, your brain can swell. We were there for four days.
They wanted to take us back to Middlemore Hospital. But he just had gone downhill. I got very annoyed with the hospitals. They said, “The ambulance is here.” I said, “Look, there’s something wrong. I’m not letting him go anywhere until a doctor comes.” They were fighting me on it. But in the end, I was very stern. I can be very stern.
I said, “We’re not leaving here until a doctor comes.” Praise God, I praise God, because his brain had swollen. If we’d got to Middlemore, he would have died. They took him into surgery, removed his skull bone. He was eight months without a skull bone. Then he went to rehab.
Then he came home, still with no skull bone. My brother died and I was at the funeral. They rang to say, “Bring him in.” They were going to put the skull bone back in. I had to go home. When they put it in, they screwed his skull bone in, and a screw came loose from his head.
I’d get up in the morning and I’d go to work. By the time I got home at lunchtime to make sure he was OK, his head had sort of crumbled in, if you like. It’s hard to say. For six months I took him to hospital. I went to the doctors. They would tell me it was normal. It’s gravity. But what was happening at nighttime to put him to bed, to lay him down! The pain was so bad we both cried.
Nancy: Oooh.
Robyn: They got him a bit of movement back in his arm, so I rang and asked for physiotherapy to come back. They said he’d never walk again. We’d already proved that wrong. I’d help him move his leg and by Christmas, with help, he was sort of able to walk a little bit. He was in a wheelchair. She came. I was at work. My daughter was home. We had moved in to be with them.
She walked in the door, and she said, “Oh my gosh, what’s happened to his head?” Because it was all caved in. Rebekah explained I’d been trying to get help, and she said, “Well, I’m not prepared to do anything.” She had a neurologist doctor, and she went back to talk to him, and I got a phone call at work. “Bring him in straightaway.” I took him straight to hospital. I was really annoyed because we had to fight to get him into a ward.
Nancy: Oh, my goodness!
Robyn: We didn’t see anybody. They came at three o’clock and took him. I didn’t know they were doing an MRI on him. He was a big man, so it was quite stressful for him. Brought him back.
They came in at five o’clock, and said we could go home! I said, “I’m not going anywhere until I see a doctor! What’s going on?” They came in to say that the screw had come out and that they had to make a plastic skull for him. We would have to come back in two weeks. They’d put staples in his head when they put the skull back on. I said, “Please don’t put them back in his head!” Because they just pulled them out. It was such a traumatic time.
Two weeks later, we had not heard from the hospital. So I rang, and she said, “Well, I ordered the skull from Australia, and I’ve got nothing for him.” Oh, my goodness me! I’m very stern at times. She said, “I’m onto it.” Another two weeks later, we got a phone call. Had to take him back in. Came back out with a new skull. The staples in his head again. I was so angry. So angry.
But he came out of it crying. The nurse said to him, “Are you in pain?” I said, “No, he’s not in pain. He’s relieved.” She said, “I’m asking him. Are you in pain?” He pointed to me, and I said, “I told you what’s wrong with him.”
Why don’t they listen? There are so many things in the hospital that were so wrong. They told me I wasn’t able to visit him in the morning because the visiting hours are at two o’clock. And I said “Well, that’s lovely. I think it’s a very good thing that the visiting hours are as of two o’clock but I’m not a visitor. I’m his wife and I’ll be here first thing in the morning!”
I slept there to start with and then they told me I couldn’t do that. I slept there on the floor, and I wasn’t allowed to do that. I wasn’t allowed to sleep in a chair. So then, they gave me a room with a little bed underneath the window and I’d sleep on there. That was to start with.
But the second time he went back, I’d go up in the morning after work and stay and put him to bed and go home. That was our life. Then he came home with his nice new skull bone. And he was really good. He was walking a little bit. I advertised in the church for someone who could take him out one day a week.
I was told I should put him into respite, so I said to him once, “Do you think you need to go to respite?” He said, “Well, if you need a break.” I said, “When you took all your boys on your motorbike down to the South Island for a ride, it wasn’t because I needed a break.” He wanted to go. “But if you want to go to respite, I’ll do that. But if not, I’m not getting respite.” And he didn’t want to go. I said, “Well, you're not having to go.”
One dear man, Jeff, would take him out once a week. It was what he needed. It was fantastic. He knew something was happening. Lee made me promise not to resuscitate him. We’d talk about all these things. If I’m really honest, things were really hard. I had to get him into bed at night, get him into the car.
I had to learn how to use a wheelchair. Wheelchairs have no toilets when you go to movies, they have disabled toilets but are either in the men’s room or the women’s room. I had to push him into the women’s room, and quickly help him, and wait till everyone went out then push him out again. No one thinks about wheelchairs, but I must admit I hadn’t before either until having my husband in one for two and a half years. I have now my husband was in a wheelchair. Now if I see anyone in a wheelchair, my heart goes out to them. People at times helped me, but I want to say, it was a lot easier just to do it myself.
We bought a van and an electric wheelchair. In New Zealand, if you have an accident, they’ll pay for everything. But if you’ve got medical, and no insurance, you pay for everything. We went from two wages to one wage. God was good, but I have to admit, one part we thought we would end it all. He couldn’t cope with it all and I said, “Well if you’re going, I’m going!”
“But we can’t do this to our grandchildren,” I said. About a week later, he said, “Should we end it?” I said, “Too late, we’re living!” It was hard.
But it was hard. It was hard. You don’t want to live in pity, so you go to church with a smile. I used to lose him. He’d be in there with his wheelchair. The lights would go out and I’d be running around the church trying to find him, because he would have gone off to talk to men in his wheelchair.
But then he had the last massive stroke. It was about two weeks before he’d wake me up and say he wanted to run away. He’d had enough. So, we talked about our life for hours. He said, “You’d better go to sleep.” He touched my hand and said, “It’s OK. Summer’s coming.”
Nancy: Summer’s coming.
Robyn: Summer’s coming. I thought he was going to be healed. We’re going to get back into the ministry. It’s going to be OK. And he died two weeks later. I thought, “Well, maybe he was telling me he was dying.”
For two-and-a-half years. When he had a massive stroke. We took him to the hospital, and they said the first stroke had had taken the right side of his brain. That’s why he was paralyzed on his left side. It was completely mushed. But the second stroke he had took the left side of his brain, so his whole brain was mushed. They said if he came out of it, he would never be able to communicate. We couldn’t communicate with him.
What should I do? Well, you know, when you're asked what do you do? “God, what do I do?” You feel like you're playing God. What do I do? Basically, do I let him die? Well, I wanted to take him home, vegetable or no vegetable What do you do?
Praise God, his brother, who was a pastor Mahau, he came. I talked to him. I said, “What do I do?” He said he knew we’d have this death talk. He said, “What does he want?” I said, “Well, he made me promise never to resuscitate. He said, “Oh. So basically, you've got to choose what you want versus what he wants.” I thought, “It’s a big decision to make.” So, I prayed God. I don’t know what to do.
We had this dear friend come up. They had been friends with us for many years. Unknown to me Lee had had a word for him Sunday in church, which was spot on, just a few weeks before that. He said to me, he’d been praying that morning, and God had told him to come and tell me to let him go. And he said he was scared to tell me, because he said, “You're such people of faith.” He thought I would chastise him and say, “Don’t say that to me!” But I said, “No, I’ve been praying, “God, what do I do?”
With that, my dear, dear friends from New Plymouth, Martin and Debbie came in, I was telling him, “What do I think?” Debbie said, “Martin, did you tell her?” He said, “Not yet.” He’d been praying for Lee that morning before he came, and God said, “He’s already with me. He’s already gone.” That was what I knew. I said, “God, I release him to You.” Ten days later, he passed away. We had been together 40 years on October 30th, and he died on the fourth of November.
Nancy: Oh, wow.
Robyn: I’m over it but I miss him. But the story is not finished yet.
Nancy: God’s story is never finished.
Robyn: When he died, a lady came up here and said to me, because I was pretty mad. “God, he’s only 57. We were getting old together. We were going to get old motorbikes, Harley Davidsons. Those ones that you go round. We had planned to be 80.” She said to me, “Well, that was God’s purpose for Lee.” And I don’t know where it came from, but I said, “No, that was God’s purpose for me.”
I thought, “Oh, I can’t say that!” But anyway, I thought, “Lord, I just trust You.” I couldn’t rid of him saying, “Summer’s coming.” I thought, “Oh, no. He knew he was dying. Let it go. Let it go.” But anyway, I went down to my brother, and he pastors a church in Masterson, Solway Park, a great church in Masterson.
I went down there. They had someone speaking. They had a friend called Cornelius Perez whose wife died two months after Lee. We’d talked together as widows who had both been married for years. I said, “I’ll come down and see Cornelius.” He said, “Well, there’s a pastor with him called Mark.” I have to admit, he did send me a photo of him.
Nancy: But wait on. Before you get to this, you were telling me about what happened at the unveiling of your husband. Tell them about the Maori culture, and what happens there, because your husband was a Maori.
Robyn: He was Maori. When you're Maori . . . oh, it was beautiful, actually. It really was beautiful. We took him to Destiny Church, and we had a night at the church. Apostle Tamaki had him on the stage. On Sunday we had a funeral service, and it was beautiful. We had some Harley Davidsons on the stage because he was a real Harley rider.
We took him down to the Marae on Monday, which is where Maori . . . He is from a little place called Halcombe. Out the back, there’s a Marae called Tokorangi. That’s where his family were. He had always said, “I just want to go home.” That was home to him. For two reasons that was home to him.
But secondly, for Maori, Home is like a big, how do you explain it? Just a little village but it’s like one big house. You go to stay, you put the mattresses out on the floor. It’s family.
Nancy: I can remember going to a Maori marae. Here you are. It’s so amazing. All the mattresses are on the floor and it’s a day conference. You listen to a speaker but if you get tired, you just go to sleep on the mattress. You wake up again and there’s another speaker started. This is the Maori way. And then you’ll have a “Maori hangi,” which is cooking the food down in the ground. Then we’ll all have that together.
Robyn: He also wanted to go home, because it would mean his children would come home. It’s very important to have that. They knew who they were. So, we did. We took him down there. What happened is we have three days and it’s a very tiring thing. People come from over.
We had so many people come to see him. They come before the actual funeral, then the “tangi” (meaning “to weep”) the funeral that day. They come to give their love, and their wishes. So, what happens is they come on, they get called on, which is “karanga” (exchanging greetings, paying tribute to the dead). A beautiful woman cries out “Welcome.” And the people of the land from there would sit up and say who they are. Then you sing. They sing. Then the next people speak who had come to visit and they say who they are. Then they sing. When you’ve got lots of people it can take a while! We were there for three days.
Nancy: This is the funeral.
Robyn: This is the funeral. We had an open casket. It was so beautiful. They closed the coffin in the morning before sunrise. That’s the way they do it. I heard some lady saying it was the most peaceful covering a body they had. It was beautiful and we worshipped all night with him there.
He’d always loved Mrs. Green, who is Sue and Rebecca’s mum. We’d gone to her funeral. We worshipped around the grave afterwards. He always said . . . we were only in our 20’s, I think then. He used to always say, “When I die, I want a funeral like Mrs. Green’s.” So, we worshipped like Mrs. Green’s all night. It was just beautiful. That’s what they do for the funeral. Then we go over and we bury him and that was beautiful.
A year later, we come back and have what’s called an unveiling. I got this beautiful big headstone, and it’s a big Harley Davidson headstone. He had his favorite verse on the back, because he always wanted everybody to know who his family was. On the back, “Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
He wanted his children to always remember whose he was and who they are. That’s on his grave. But what we do is uncover the gravestone. It was covered over so we uncovered it, and we read what’s on it.
Nancy: This is Maori culture.
Robyn: This is Maori culture. It’s beautiful. It’s a time for that whole year to grieve. When you uncover that it’s a new day. So, on that night, we had all stayed at in Marae that night. We all spoke. I got up and said, “If you’ve ever read a really good book, and you’re on the last page and you don’t want to finish the book, because it’s been such a beautiful book, but you have to close it, because you have a new book . . .” I said to them, “Tomorrow, after the unveiling, I’m starting a new book.”
A lot of them had been in our church, and they called me Pastor Robyn. I said, “First, please don’t call me Pastor Robyn anymore.” Some of them were, “What are we going to call you?” I said “Well, not just late for lunch. But don’t call me ‘Pastor.’ My name is Robyn, or Nana Robyn, or whatever you want to call me.” And my granddaughter was four years old.
She said, “Mum! Nana’s having a new name! Can I have a new name?” She said, “Yes! What would you like to be called?” And she said, “Hulk Smash. So, she’s been Hulk Smash ever since. She’s 12 now. It’s just a family joke she’s picked up from there when she was four years old. Amazing.
We did that. I started my new book. I started my new chapter, never realizing what would be involved with my new chapter, but I knew I wasn’t finished from God.
Nancy: Just before you go on, tell me how this affected your children.
Robyn: Oh, he was such a huge part of our lives. He was a huge part of our grandchildren’s lives. We had a lot of grandchildren living with us. We have always been, in fact, the first church we built was on the backs of our children. The second church we built was with our children. They were very much a part, and it devastated them.
In fact, we knew he was dying. He had ten grandchildren. I brought them in and set them down and told them that Granddad was going to be with Jesus, and that they needed to say good-bye. We set them down and it was really hard. They all said they had spent time with him and said goodbye. It was a really beautiful time.
But my oldest granddaughter, she never actually grieved. She had a miscarriage after her daughter. She just bawled and realized that she was also grieving. We saw now, this is a whole new thing, and I don’t want to offend anybody at all, because we’ve all taught our children about familiar spirits, people going to do Ouija boards and mediums. It’s demonic. It’s wrong.
But I believe after this experience, we haven’t talked about me talking about this. We had so many strange things happen after he had died that I could write a book. The first one was my granddaughter Olivia had prayed for his sister, and had really broken something off her.
She dreamt that night that we were at our church in New Plymouth. Lee came, and she said, “Koro.” They called him Koro (usually a term to address an older man). “What was that demon that came off Renae? I prayed for her.” He never said a word but on a piece of paper he wrote, “Garth is a spirit.” The next morning she rings me and says, “Nan, what’s a ‘Garth-spirit?’” I said, “What?” And she explained her dream to me. I just got cold.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I rang back and I said, “Did he write ‘Garth is a spirit,’ or ‘Garth is a demon?’” She said, “He wrote ‘Garth is a spirit.’” They rang me back and I said, “Garth is your mother’s brother. Before we had Kelly, I had a miscarriage, and we called him Garth.” We had never spoken to anyone about him. It was just between the two of us, even the name. So, I said, “He is a spirit.”
Nancy: He’s alive in eternity.
Robyn: Yes, But I could go on and on. That’s a whole new subject. I could go on, because that’s not the only thing that happened. When I see people now, I say, “So, what strange things happened after your loved ones died?” And they look at me, with this “Hmmm!” to talk about that, because Christians don’t.
But I tell you, there is stuff about death we don’t know. Honestly, I’ve had such amazing experiences. I could write a book alone on what’s happened with our family since he was dead.
Nancy: But what a beautiful confirmation that this little one, “Garth is with the Lord, in eternity, waiting for you.”
Robyn: My granddaughter had her miscarriage because she knew instantly that child was her koro. That was beautiful. There was such healing. God never wastes anything. God uses everything. Absolutely everything. Every tear, everything. It’s beautiful.
Nancy: Yes.
Robyn: So, now I’m in America. Now I’m Mrs. Coughlin.
Nancy: Yes!
Robyn: They’ll have to tell that story.
Nancy: Well, maybe we could do it in the next podcast.
Robyn: Well, I could do it very quickly. Basically, he said, “Summer’s coming.” I met Mark. He asked me to come to Texas. We got on so well. We kept in touch and a month later I came to Texas. I had a terrible time getting here. Missed a flight, delayed a flight, lost all my bags. I came from the middle of winter to the middle of summer. And Texas summers are out of this world.
Nancy: Everyone won’t understand that if they don’t know New Zealand, because New Zealand has such a very temperate climate. When we left the shores of New Zealand, the first time we left the shores of New Zealand, we went to the Philippine Islands. We were going as missionaries there. I will never forget the first night I was in Manila. I truly didn’t know whether I’d get through the night. I didn’t think I could breathe, it was so hot!
Robyn: I’m not used to that, but I walked into his house. I opened the door, and I was beside myself, because here I was. I didn’t really know him that well. And he said to me, “Oh, it’s OK. Summer’s here.” The last words of my husband, “Summer’s coming.” The first words from Mark when I arrived here to spy out the land, “Summer’s here.” And I knew that God had a plan for me in America.
Nancy: Yes. How many years had you been on your own?
Robyn: I’d been on my own for two-and-a-half years after Lee died. I’ve been married to Mark; it will be six years in September. God is faithful.
Nancy: Wow! That’s so beautiful. Over all these things, the Lord has taught you many things about marriage, especially during the years with Mark. I think it would be good if we could do another podcast. Would you like share some of the things that God has shown you?
Robyn: Absolutely. Because one thing I was thinking, “Oh, my gosh! I’ve written a workbook.” I’ve done it with our churches and our leaders had to do it. The marriage course is being taught in America and New Zealand, both.
Then I’m married to another man! I’m thinking, how’s this going to work? This workshop was mainly based on Lee. Do you know what? The principles work. Mark had been married before. I was a widow. We’re older in life and you can get set in your ways when you're older.
Nancy: There are more challenges!
Robyn: There are. But you know what? The principles that God gave me for my kingdom marriage work with Mark as they did with Lee. It’s not about the man. It’s about what God has done for us as women and the power that you have as woman. Amen. Hallelujah!
Nancy: Well, would you like to pray?
Robyn: “Oh, Father, Lord, I thank You. I want to thank You Nancy. Father, I thank You for the wisdom that You poured into us, that, Father, here I am. Not quite the next generation, but Father, it’s so alive in me that I want to pour it into the next generation. And Lord, You said older women teach the younger. The sad thing is a lot of older women don’t know the very precious gems that we were given.
“Father, I thank You to be reconnect with Nancy. Father, we thank You that You’re there for us. I thank You, Lord, that this podcast, and I pray that every woman, Father, that is listening to this podcast, that Father, You would pour into her life the gems that You have for her as a woman. Lord, we are in a day where the world that is trying pull down and destroy womanhood. Father, we lift it up high, because Father, it is Your design. We thank You, and we praise Your mighty Name. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Nancy: Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS PODCAST, “LIFE TO THE FULL” WITH NANCY CAMPBELL.” DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF. IT IS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS.