A True Paladin

Needless to say, I could write an entire entry into my blog on the sweetness of Auburn’s victory over Ole Miss. Yet, no matter how much I articulate and memorialize the victory while sitting around the blogging campfire, it is not the subject for today.

Today, I want to discuss Auburn’s upcoming game with the Furman Paladins. Yes, that same Furman from Greenville, South Carolina. From my home, the drive to their beautiful campus is just over half an hour. It is a great school with high academic standards, and one of my wife’s best friends (as well as work colleague) graduated from there. Her name is Kim.

Kim is one of the dearest Christian women I have ever met. Her faith is real. Her opinions are well thought out. She is smart. She has an almost dry sense of wit and humor that I find not only funny, but also refreshing. The things she loves, she loves with passion. She is a great mother to her two children, one who is at Presbyterian College and the other at The Citadel. And her husband, Jeff, couldn’t have asked for a better wife.

Kim is a cancer survivor. Unfortunately, her husband Jeff was not. The two of them suffered through more physical difficulties, virtually at the same time, than any family should ever have to. This past July 20, Kim’s soul-mate Jeff passed from this life to the next after a long battle with colon cancer. She had undergone her own surgery and therapy for breast cancer. (By the way, whenever I wear a pink bow, I wear it not just for women in general, I wear it for Kim).

Frankly, this blog could have been about Kim’s husband, for you see, Jeff was an All-American at Furman, who went on to coach there and at N.C. State. He eventually was the athletic director at Boiling Springs High School when three of my daughters were there. In fact, one day, while it was POURING rain, he went to my second daughter’s car and turned off the lights….getting drenched in the process. That was just the kind of guy Jeff was.

But this is about Kim. Although she tells me that she is o.k. and plowing through, I can’t imagine how difficult the last three months have been. I’m sure there are times when she would say that she isn’t much of a fighter OR survivor, but that just isn’t the case. Kim is both. My wife has witnessed it much closer than I, but even from my distance I have seen it. I am proud to say that she is my friend. I am proud to say that she is one of my wife’s closest friends. I am proud to see her faith in action. And if Kim Snipes is anything like what a Paladin supposed to be, then she is the truest Paladin. And because of Kim, I can’t help but be a fan of the Paladins….even if I will be rooting for my Tigers this weekend.

WJLaneSR