Bernie and Jennifer: A Story of Love

Bernie had three generations of Jens in his life: his mother Jennie gave him life; his wife Jennie – whom he called Jen – gave him love and seven children; and his granddaughter Jennifer gave him the opportunity to be the presence of love.

Bernie grew up in a time and culture when a man was expected to represent strength and leadership; displays of emotions were relegated to the weaker sex. Bernie struggled to play his role, but underneath that hard-nosed exterior of pride and machismo was a heart crying out to share an intense love that had been bottled up for generations. There were occasions when a bottle of another kind gave him the courage to release, but the results were never the real Bernie. The real Bernie came through as a new widower when, probably for the first time in his children’s lives they heard a teary-eyed Bernie say, “I love you Jen” as he said good-bye to his wife of fifty-five years at her gravesite in Paramus, New Jersey on a cold December morning in 1976. A new Jen came to seventy-six-year-old Bernie’s rescue: his bubbly four-year-old granddaughter, Jennifer.

Thanks to the efforts of Jennifer’s parents, Marilyn and Tony Crossley, Bernie was comfortably quartered in his newly renovated suite, formerly the Crossley’s two-car garage attached to their split-level home in Wyckoff, New Jersey. The spacious suite was complete with all the amenities that offered Bernie self-sufficiency. The door connecting Bernie’s suite with the Crossley home was Jennifer’s portal to play with her septuagenarian playmate, her Grandpa. For the next seven years their bond grew dramatically. Bernie was finally able to shed the hard-shelled exterior that plagued him for so long to let his love flow freely from the place of excellence within him, and Jennifer was the recipient of that nurturing love. The love that Bernie found so difficult to express to his wife and children finally found root with Jennifer, and she blossomed. She responded in kind, and kept Bernie’s heart filled with her unconditional love for seven years until his emphysema overcame his will, and he passed through the veil on July 11, 1983.

Eleven-year-old Jennifer was devastated at Bernie’s passing. She recovered, and her adventures with her Grandpa remain etched in her being. Based on those experiences, Jennifer wrote a college entrance essay entitled, “A Letter To My Grandpa,” and on the strength of that essay, coupled with her high school grades, she was admitted to American University in Washington, DC. From there she furthered her education and experiences in child behavior, which eventually led to her founding Including Kids, Inc., in Humble, Texas, with the support of Marilyn and Tony.

Psalms 24:7 reads, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.". In the metaphor, we are the gates and the doors. The act of lifting our head is getting into the right mind, the Christ mind. In that attitude we stand as the door letting the Holy Spirit through. The Holy Spirit stands as the door letting God (the King of glory) through, letting God be love expressed, extended, embracing all. When Bernie opened his heart to Jennifer, he became a door letting God be love expressed, extending, and embracing her. Jennifer then became a door letting God be love expressed, extending, and embracing the kids at Including Kids., an extension of Bernie’s love that continues uninterrupted today, three decades after his passing.