When I first began chronicling my wife’s struggles with cancer I discussed with her my public discussion of her private life.  She agreed sharing this time of our lives might help other people.  We also felt she needed a degree of privacy so I always referred to her as my wife.  Those who live near us knew her name so it made no difference to them.  Now that she has gone away it makes no difference to withhold her name.

My wife’s name is Janet Eugenia Hawkins Cowling.

When she was born in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia in 1948, she was diagnosed with polio in the throat.  Janet spent months in a Richmond hospital.  She was a small child with a voice like no other person I even heard.

But when she spoke, her words were witty, sharp and showed she cared not a whit what anyone else thought.

Janet was a small woman, only five foot two but she spent a thirty-year plus career as a probation officer—going into the homes of axe murderers, rapists, serial killers, drug addicts, hot check writers and every felon in between.  Just to make sure they were behaving.  No matter how seedy the neighborhood or what hour of night or day.  If she happened to see a breach of the law she did not confront the transgressor but reported him to the sheriff’s office which sent a deputy out to arrest the offender.

After all, Janet explained, she wasn’t stupid.

She was fair but firm.  When she sent people back to prison they had to admit it was their own fault.  And those she guided through the labyrinth of the law to unrestricted freedom, she was their angel.

On her own time she loved to ready anything and everything—as long as it was factual.  Janet didn’t care much for fiction, which, strangely enough, was what I write.  She told about what she read—ancient religions and civilizations, English kings and sunken ships.  I’m so much smarter just for listening to her.

So this is my wife.  This is my Janet.  And why I miss her so much.