Yesterday was Lars’ birthday; kudos to him. There was someone else born on October 25, however, a very special someone who has an important place in this family, too: me!

Where’s my party hat? Where’s my king-for-a-day treatment? Where’s the blog devoted to the subject of me? And most importantly, where’s my cake?

Although I can’t remember my actual birth, my place in the litter or how many siblings I had, I do recall the most important day of my life, the day I became a Nyman.

By the time I was nine months old, my first family was in turmoil. Strange things were happening at our house, and my owner, a seven year old boy I dearly loved, kept crying. A For Sale sign went up in our yard, which was upsetting enough, but then the unthinkable happened. My boy, who had named me Stitch, told me he was moving but I couldn’t go. I felt like saying, “Grab a leash and let’s run away together!” But then I noticed his mother crying, too. She would need to keep her boy.

The two of them put me in the car, and before I knew what had happened, I was locked up alone in a cage in a room full of cages, each one filled with a barking dog.

Although my boy had already hugged me goodbye, as I sat in the cage trying to understand, I heard his voice one last time, just around the corner. “When Stitch gets a new home, be sure this toy goes with him!” He was sobbing, and the man in charge told him he was sorry he had to lose his dog. I was sorry, too.

Suddenly there were a couple of young girls and a mom standing right in front of me. “What about this one?” a girl said. “He looks sad.”

Amazingly, after the girls and the mom looked at the other dogs, they decided to take me home with them. While they were signing papers, the man said, “This one’s been in the cage less than an hour. Good timing.”

Then he talked about my little boy. “It was wrenching to watch the owners bring him in. Something about a divorce and relocating. I felt sorry for the kid. Anyway, he wanted Stitch to have this doggie toy when he went to his new home, so it’s all yours.”

When I learned I shared a birth date with one of the Nymans, I knew I belonged.

Although I’d had no experience with girls before, getting acquainted with Louisa and Birgitta was fabulous. Girls give endless hugs and kisses, and their abundant love helped me not to miss my boy so much. I didn’t even mind when they switched my name to Jack. It’s actually Captain Jack after Jack Sparrow, and I think it suits me much better than Stitch.

Officially I belong to the girls, but I give a great deal of myself to Midge, too, especially since Pidge died. I know how hard it is to lose somebody you love, and I want to help her feel better.

As for skipping my birthday celebration, I’ll let it slide this once. But from now on, my party should take precedence over Lars’. After all, he’s 36 to my 56, and it’s a simple matter of respecting your elder.

“Teach what accords with sound doctrine. [The] older.… are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.” (Titus 2:1-2)

Parent Weekend at the University of Iowa with Birgitta was meaningful and successful. When a family has seven children, one-on-one time with any of them is a treasure; one-on-one with the baby of the family is especially important, since she grew up in a crowd. The two of us had a good time, although together we missed Nate.

As we walked the brick streets of Iowa City on a balmy October evening, we talked about him. “He was gone before I decided to come to this school,” she said. “He never knew.”

“I think he does,” I said. “And if he knows, he’s very happy about it.”

Nate loved education and was energized by the process of helping a highschooler chose a college. He got excited about visiting schools and read all the literature they sent to prepare us. He liked studying course catalogs and especially liked learning the histories of each college.

Birgitta said, “If he’d been with us this weekend, he’d have been educating us about this university, all the things he already knew that we didn’t.” True.

The two of us enjoyed sharing what we each thought he might have been saying as we passed different buildings and attended the different functions of the weekend. We agreed he would have spent time upstairs in the Old Capital building at the center of campus (now belonging to the university), studying the college archives and museum rooms.

Birgitta didn’t say it, but she could easily have been thinking, “As the youngest, I got gypped. The older ones had a dad until they were in their 30’s. I lost him at 19.”

But of course none of this was ours to orchestrate, not her position in the family or Nate’s passing away before she went to college. God has reasons for arranging these things as he did, and our role is simply to trust that he is wise, even if frustration results from how it all unfolds.

Birgitta and her father do have one university experience in common, though. When Nate was only 13, he began researching which college he would some day attend. During one of his high school summers, he looked seriously at the University of Iowa, where a summer school debate clinic was being offered. Because he was the captain of the debate team, he opted to attend. So he lived and studied at Birgitta’s school, walking the same brick streets and sitting in the same classrooms.

As Parent Weekend progressed, our conversation led to the what-ifs. What if Nate had never gotten cancer? With resignation, both of us acknowledged the difficult truth. Pushing through the many activities with a bad back would have been nearly impossible.

Even if he’d had no cancer, this weekend would surely have been a one-parent event. His desire to attend would have been strong, but excruciating pain is a last-choice travel companion. I don’t like being a single mom, especially after having had a partner at every other Parent Weekend. But the old adage, “receive what you’re given,” turned out to be a good guide for me. What was given was three days with my daughter celebrating her good choices, and conversations of gratitude for her father… who would have been extremely proud of her.

“A heart at peace gives life to the body.” (Proverbs 14:30a)

I feel like I’m living in a crystal ball and have the ability to predict the future. That’s because I’m thinking about last year at this time and know what happened next.

On this date, October 20, Nate was two weeks from his death on November 3. We all knew the situation was severe, but none of us knew the end would come so soon.

I’ve been reading last year’s blogs, and today we were signing Hospice papers, including the most emotional one, a living will. Our children demonstrated great strength that day when I was feeling weak, stepping forward to sign as witnesses beneath their father’s signature on the document. Could there be any more difficult task in the life of a child?

As I’ve been remembering, I’ve also looked at the giant wall calendar from 2009 on which we jotted notes about each day, kept track of Nate’s appointments and recorded the names of visitors. Surprisingly, in examining the negatives, several striking positives have emerged:

1. First of all, as we’ve read our words, new waves of appreciation for Nate have washed over all of us. That’s definitely a positive. Once someone is gone, all petty grievances disappear. It becomes easy to focus on the good, and all of us are wholeheartedly thankful for Nate, without the slightest reservation.

2. The second positive result of looking back has been a giant-sized gratitude toward God, who repeatedly pulled us out of a sea of sadness and set our feet on solid ground. When everything around us was stormy, the Lord kept us calm, and that included Nate. He showed his involvement daily and kept every scriptural promise. He didn’t stop the cancer, but he held us close throughout the ordeal, and does so still.

3. A third positive is becoming aware of the progress we’ve all made. Today we’re all veterans of grief. It’s hard work, it lasts a long time, and it involves plenty of tears. But during the past 12 months each of us has increased in our understanding of what it’s like to mourn someone we love. We’ve also learned that the process includes times of well-being and peace, side-by-side with the sorrow.

4. Because of our experience in losing Nate, all of us can commiserate with others who’ve lost their husband and father, which is positive number four. We can say, “I know how you feel” and mean it. We can offer a shoulder to cry on and experience genuine sympathy for a hurting friend.

5. A year ago, our days were packed with problems, losses and emergencies. We had no time to process what was going on or think too deeply about it. The demands of each day called for putting one foot in front of the other and getting through “just barely.” Now, though, as life has regained routine, we have the time to ponder what really happened, an important positive. Putting events into slow motion to absorb their full impact is helpful.

6. And one last positive is our stronger focus on eternity. Part of last year’s October 20^th post was the detailing of a new strategy: we decided that day to start talking about heaven. I wrote, “The time has come to shine a spotlight on his brightest hope.”

It’s true none of us lives in a crystal ball, but because we know the Lord, we can accurately predict that our separation from Nate is only temporary. The future sees us together again in heaven, and focusing on that is positive indeed.

”I give [my sheep] eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)