Comic Relief During Dark Days

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Margaret

We’re doing a great deal of reminiscing about Nate these days, especially in reference to the last couple of weeks of his life. The kids and I are still eating dinner in the living room in front of the fire, just like we used to do with Nate. Tonight we got to laughing about some of the silly moments God sprinkled among the sad ones.

Nelson remembered a phone call Nate made to him from our car as we were driving from Chicago back to Michigan. Nate was under the influence of several drugs at the time and spoke slowly, deliberately. He mixed up the names of the children as he made reference to them in his voice mail and chatted at length about miscellaneous details. Then he began thanking Nelson for all he’d done to help us.

“Thank you… sooo much… for… everything,” he said, repeating it three times. After a pause, he concluded the long message with, “In Jesus name, Amen. Goodbye.”

Linnea had been in the car at the time, and we caught each other’s gaze in the rear view mirror, giggling through our eyes. Nate never caught his mistake, and tonight we enjoyed remembering how he was in a near-prayer mindset that day, even when conversing on the phone.

A second silly situation happened the night before the day of Nate’s death. God saw the heaviness we all felt because of what was coming and knew we needed to laugh. Mary and I were keeping watch overnight for the third night in a row, Mary on a straight backed chair at Nate’s feet and me in a wing chair at his head. Those were the only spots to squeeze chairs into the room except for one little corner where our overnight nurse, Dee, sat on a short stool.

During that long night, all of us battled to stay awake, not wanting Nate to slip away without our attention and love. Mary gradually slumped to her side as sleep overtook her, and at one point she opened her eyes and saw Dee’s knee and leg right in front of her. She asked herself, “Is my head in Dee’s lap?” Mortified by the thought but too exhausted to do anything about it, she closed her eyes and told herself, “If I’m on top of Dee, it’s really comfortable.”

In reality she’d been on a pillow, but had she been in Dee’s lap, Dee would have been fine with that. Such was the nature of the tender-hearted Hospice nurses.

The last humorous episode occurred at a time when no one ought to be thinking funny thoughts. It was at Nate’s grave site at Rose Hill Cemetery. I was seated in the center chair immediately in front of the casket, sitting next to Linnea and holding a red rose.

After the pastor had finished his scriptural remarks and a prayer, the funeral director asked me if I wanted to put my rose on top of the casket before it went down. Of course I did, but I’d just realized one of my thigh-high nylons had lost its grip and was sliding down my leg. It was perched just beneath my knee, directly under my hem line, and when I stood up I knew it would go sliding to my ankle.

I turned to Linnea and said, “My nylon is at my knee and going down. What should I do?”

“Pull it up,” she whispered. But a row of people standing to the right would have seen that move. I would have had to reach under my skirt, grab the edge and reveal a full leg to the audience, right at that very sad time. Linnea and I did something absolutely incongruous for that moment. We giggled.

Feeling pressure to stand and put my rose on the casket, I pressed my knees together, hoping to pin the wayward nylon, and took a mini-step in that direction, laying my rose down and stepping back into my chair immediately.

As soon as the casket had been lowered into the grave, Linnea said, “You’d better get up, Mom. No one will leave until you do.”

I stood with my knees together and hobbled quickly to our mini-van, which was close by, catching the nylon’s plunge just as I stepped into the car. I’m sure the pastor, whom I didn’t stop to thank, figured my hasty exit was a response to overwhelming grief.

”A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.” (Proverbs 15:13)

We won’t ask why.

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Margaret

Many times each day I walk past the little room where Nate’s hospital bed used to be, the place where he lay hovering between life and death for three straight days. It was in this small space he defied all odds by hanging onto life well after the nurses said he couldn’t possibly do so. Despite the exhaustion and stress of those days, sometimes I wish we could still be watching and waiting. If we were, Nate would still be with us.

I’ve never asked God why he let Nate die, because God doesn’t usually answer our why questions anyway. Even Jesus, hanging on the cross in agony and asking why, didn’t get his answer. When calamity comes to us, God has either caused it or allowed it. He is very much a part of the negatives. He has important reasons why he does it in each case but apparently doesn’t feel we need to know them.

Last Friday morning, as our family faced the wake, funeral and burial of our husband/father, Nelson and I sat at the dining table early in the morning. Although there was much to do, we decided to take a few minutes to think, talk and pray. When I entered the room, Nelson had been reading the biblical story of Jesus calling to the disciples from the beach. The men had been out in a boat all night fishing without any success and were about 100 yards off shore, most likely giving up and coming in.

Jesus yelled for them to throw their net out one more time in an attempt to catch something. Without questioning him, they did it and caught “153 large fish.” (John 21) As they dragged the massive catch behind the boat toward shore, they saw Jesus standing next to a fire and smelled the fish he was already cooking for them. What a breakfast of blessing this must have been for these hard-working men, both in respect to the giant catch of fish and the incredible joy of dining with Jesus.

Nelson said, “They’d already fished all night, and the fish weren’t biting. Jesus asked them to do something that didn’t make sense at the time. What difference would it make to throw the net again after a night of failure? But they did it anyway.”

From the story, we know their obedience paid off handsomely. Nelson and I talked about how life is going to be different now that Nate is gone. By allowing Nate’s death, God has already asked us to do a new thing. In many ways it doesn’t make sense to us, but there the Lord stands, asking us to think and act differently from this point on. When Jesus called out his fishing idea to the disciples, they didn’t shout back across the water, “Why should we do that ?” They just threw their net over the side against all human logic. We aren’t going to ask why about Nate, either.

Nelson and I decided that morning we want to follow God and do what he’s asking us, which is to live life in a new way. Although it seems there can’t possibly be any blessing in going forward without Nate, we chose that morning to believe God will surprise us (just as he surprised the fishermen) and make it happen.

^“Then [Jesus] said, ‘Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some [fish]!’ So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it.” (John 21:6)

The Funeral

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Margaret

What makes a perfect funeral? Strong attendance, beautiful weather, meaningful music, a powerful program, an abundance of flowers and good food. Yesterday we had every bit of that.

As with any pre-planned event, there were moments of quiet drama leading up to it. For example, Louisa struggled to find something of her dad’s she could wear or display throughout the day as a testimony of her love for him. We didn’t accomplish that, much to her frustration.

As people entered the room at the funeral home, they could track Nate’s life on 14 poster boards full of photographs, arranged in chronological order. There were also enlargements scattered here and there, along with our wedding album. All of us were greeted with the scent of many flowers, and sunshine streamed through the windows. Crowds began arriving well before the start of the service, and at the stroke of noon, music filled the air.

Family members sat in the first several rows of seats, and I took one last look toward the back of the room just before we sat down. It was standing room only with extra chairs in the hallway, and as we began the service, folks were still arriving.

Planning the program had been easy, once we learned our former pastor, Colin Smith, was available and willing to deliver the meditation. A second pastor, Ted Olsen, agreed to MC the meeting, and our favorite accompanist was at the keyboard, assisted by a beautiful alto singer.

All seven children plus our two children-in-law stood side-by-side facing the audience as the service started. Adam prayed, and the four girls welcomed everyone with thank you’s for the unending loving care so many had shown us during the last whirlwind weeks. Then the four boys read the eulogy, written by Linnea. Several had difficulty but all pushed through their readings with courage. Nate would have loved it.

As I scanned the line-up of our kids, ages 19 through 36, my heart ached with deep love for each one. They were gaining in maturity by leaps and bounds as a result of these difficult weeks and the death of their father and father-in-law, because it’s during life’s crises that we grow.

Nate’s and my brother-in-law read parts of Psalm 103 from the Old Testament, and my brother read from 2 Corinthians 4 and 5, interspersed with Nate’s two favorite hymns: “Blessed Assurance” and “Beautiful Savior.” Pastor Colin delivered an effective message from Revelation 7 with five points highlighting what Nate was doing right now, four days after his death, in heaven. His powerful invitation for others to be sure they would one day join Nate there was an answer to my prayers.

After folks had filed past Nate’s casket giving us the chance to see each one who had attended, we got one last opportunity to look at the body of the man we loved. Standing there crying, there was only one thing to do: pray. My kids put their arms around me and each other as we thanked God for Nate’s life, for our family, for each person who came to celebrate his life and most of all for God himself, the one who’d been with us all the way through and who we knew would not leave us now.

As the casket was being carried out by our four sons, our son-in-law, Nate’s brother and a young man who was like a son to us, the funeral director handed me a small green velvet pouch. “His wedding ring,” he said.

I turned to Louisa standing nearby and said, “Here’s Papa’s ring. Would you keep it safe for me?” Finally she was “wearing” something extremely representative of her father, just as she’d hoped, and I saw the Lord’s tender touch in how and when this had occurred.

Since the cemetery was adjacent to the funeral home, our train of cars, though long, traveled only a matter of blocks. The unusually warm November day helped the cemetery service go well as Nate’s body was committed back to the earth. We each put a red rose on the casket, along with the seven pairs of white gloves worn by the pall bearers.

After the benediction, people hung around the grave site enjoying the sunshine and summery breezes. Although most leaves had already fallen, color was still evident in the mighty oaks nearby, and we all appreciated the beauty of the day. We waited to watch the casket being lowered into the ground until it hit bottom. In my mind, that was the moment when it was finished.

Driving to a local church for a lunch put together by dear friends, we feasted on fruit and salads, sandwiches and cake. Precious moments of conversation with those who stuck with us to this end were especially valuable.

The only thing missing was… Nate.