Monday, October 3 — Like a Low Grade Fever

I wasn’t going to post this, but if I’m going to make this an honest, real-life blog then I figure I’d better at least make a stab at it.

The last couple days actually have been very difficult. It’s not that I don’t smile and interact with people when they talk to me. And I know that even writing this is risky, because then people even more, don’t know how to interact with you. But if you are reading this and wondering that… remember.. it’s not about you. Talk to me like regular, but remember, today when I am talking to you, I might be running a low-grade fever.

No, not an elevated body temperature. This low-grade fever has more to do with a sadness that’s just below the surface. Like Yesterday, Sunday. I knew that the sadness was there. I got up and went to church. But it seems like every song reminded me of her. I wondered how she was doing now, and what it will be like when I see her again. I could picture her smile as we would meet in Jesus presence, only she would be glowing and beaming in His presence. And of course my eyes would fill with tears while everyone around was singing and dancing in worship. It was there, this low-grade fever. And then when the worship time was over and people were greeting one another, I snuck out to my car. When I sat there alone in the car, I just began to cry with my head on my arm… and I drove home.  It’s hard. You don’t want people really to know you have the fever, but it’s not like you can react and talk quite the same as normal.

It’s not the kind of thing that words or even actions can soothe. It’s just there. Some days are worse than others. Some days you can go most of the day without any release. But there are always those private times, when no one is looking and your eyes begin to fill with tears and you try to not be seen till things clear up a bit.

They talk about going through grief and feeling a bit crazy. This must be part of that. It probably doesn’t help that when I threw back the covers of the bed this morning, I actually looked over to see if she would be there. She wasn’t of course. It’s still kind of unreal that she is never coming back here. So that low-grade fever just hangs around for a while.

That doesn’t mean I don’t like to be with you, or that Idon’t enjoy being with people. I do, and actually, I don’t mind talking about it. It’s just I’m running a low-grade grief fever… hahaha… maybe it’s like having allergies in the Land of Firsts… eyes water and  your nose runs… that must be it. I even got a chuckle out of that one… so now it’s time to try to sleep and maybe tomorrow the low-grade fever will give me a break for a day… maybe.

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011 3:28 PM, PDT

Reality bits in the Land of Firsts
Tuesday? Yea, it’s Tuesday…All of the preparations and getting ready for the Memorial Service are over….Family is all gone home…work calls…and life goes on.

The last few days have been those flashes of reality… you know… those things you are so used to thinking and doing that they come without forethought. A bit of news from a friend and the instant thought to share that when you get home…but, oh yeah, she’s not there to share that with. Turning over in the middle of the night and hoping you are not disturbing her…. oh yea, she’s not there to disturb. Many of those little bits of reality have been coming these last few days. Then, today as I was driving home, almost to the driveway…a sudden burst of reality, feeling like an elevator that is dropping out of control, she is not here! This house we moved into together… she will never be back.

As I got to the house and walked around inside, it struck like a bolt of lightning… seemingly out of nowhere… looking at her pictures on the board from Saturday’s memorial service…this isn’t some temporary little glitch… she’s gone, she will never be coming back here. And then it broke open… the wailing of grief,

over and over again, in wave after wave it came, uncontrollable bawling…”How could this be?” “How could this happen?” Still the waves continued to roll out of my insides, bursting out in uncontrolled sobbing and wailing. Gone…

It was like an underground river had suddenly been released… all the control that I had needed to get through these last days let go in shrieks of lament and aloneness.

It has nothing to do with faith, nothing to do with assurance of life eternal… it has everything to do with the one who is a par of you is  now brutally ripped out of your existence. She is not there to come home to. She is not there to share with. She is not there to laugh at my jokes. She is just not there … for the rest of my life on this earth… she will not be there any more. Final…reality. Reality, sometimes in bits sometimes in great heaving outbursts.

So, now I live in a new land. The land of Firsts. I don’t even know what that means, but here I am, on foreign soil. No choice but to move ahead and be ready for the “Reality bits” in this land of firsts. Kind of like the TV series, “LOST.”  Crashed on an uncharted island. Make a life for yourself, or get consumed by the island.

Only I am NOT LOST… I mourn, I grieve, and bawl and wail, but I am not lost. I guess it is all part of living here in the land of firsts. It has been 40 years since I have been this alone. But I an not lost and I am not alone.

Well, I’d better go wash my face with some cold water, and blow my nose good. My dear friends Terry and MaryLynn will be here soon. They are taking me out to dinner. And came all the way from Minneapolis, can you believe that? Oops, the eyes are leaking again… I’ll go wash my face, and learn how to live in victory in the Land of Firsts. With Jesus’ help, maybe I can be like old Caleb and conquer some mountains in this new land

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Saturday, October 1, 2011 8:47 PM, PDT

One month –
I could not think of anything else to put as an entry title… just “one month.” I actually watched the clock as it came to 2:45…the time one month ago she was drawing her last breaths… coming gasping, slowly, yet quickly…putting my finger to her neck to fell her slowing pulse.. ever weaker and slower… and I felt that last beat of her heart, and the time was 2:50. One month ago.
Time is a strange creature. A moment can seem like it goes on and on, yet a month can seem like it is just a blink of an eye. Four weeks…is that all? just four short weeks? Yet it seems like such a long time. The mystery of time and how we perceive it, and all of it is caught up in the middle of an eternity that is timeless.
One month, and I am starting to manifest some of those crazy symptoms of grieving. Thinking she is there when I wake up in the morning. Thinking she might have the light on, and be waiting for me when I come back from Saturday evening church. Tears at the craziest times. Wondering, “Who am I now?” When you are married as long as we were, your identities are so intertwined…”the two shall become one flesh.” Now, am I half a flesh? No and yes.
Questions fill my mind. Shall I keep this? What should the house look like? How should I decorate? How do I relate now to people? Could I have done more, or better? So many questions, no one can answer…I suppose I will discover the answers as I walk toward in this “Land of Firsts.”
I imagine that this will likely be the last, or nearly the last of these entries. I wish to thank each one who has been so kind and loving and open to allowing me these times to pour out the expressions of my heart. Again, there are no words to convey how strengthening you all have been. And now, a new chapter begins. A new land to explore. And wherever this adventure takes me, the person I will be there, will be a result of how Marilou touched and impacted and molded my life by her influence. She is indelibly stamps on my life and my character.
One month ends, and another begins
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Tuesday, September 20, 2011 8:18 PM, PDT

Falling…A Good Thing
Today, in the midst of all the other things that were going on, today was the day I had to go to the mortuary and pick up Marilou’s “remains.” Her ashes. It’s just weird. Genesis 3:19 states it this way,

You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again.”

It may seem kind of silly or morbid to some, but when I got home, I opened the plastic “urn” that they had given me ( I was prepared for this because my Dad was cremated) and I lifted the plastic bag a little ways out of that plastic box, and thought to myself…”Is that all that is left?”  A natural question given the circumstances, but of course as believers, we know that it is not all that is left. The Word of God makes it clear that for the one who places his/ or her faith in Christ as Savior, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord ( 2 Corinthians 5:6-8). Marilou is not in that box, she is rejoicing in the glorious presence of her redeemer, of Jesus whose face she longed to see.

And while I was driving home with all these thoughts going through my head, and this plastic box in the seat next to me… where she used to sit… my mind went again to that Newsboys song… “In The Hands of God.”…

“In the hands of God, we will fall, rest for the restless, and the weary, hope for the sinner. In the hands of God we stand tall. Hands that are mighty to deliver. giving us freedom… and when all is finished and we face the fearsome power of death, only One has overcome the gates of hell. In the hand of God, we will fall…”
And as I turned the corner toward home, it was as if I was allowing myself to fall… fall into the hands of our wonderful God. We do not mourn as those who have no hope… oh yea, the tears are still filling my eyes even as I write, but I know… it’s ok to fall… fall into the hands of the One who holds all things, and gently catches me. It’s a good thing… to fall… into the hands of God.

It feels good here…
In His hands…

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Sunday, September 18, 2011 9:29 PM, PDT

We Didn’t Have Enough Time!
This was one of those up and down, wave after wave kinds of days….
Thank you, Lord for the wonderful people who are praying for me. It is  so very encouraging, and I’m sure it’s those prayers that get me through these kinds of days.

Took a walk around the lake after “lunch.” Didn’t feel like eating much, in fact now, I can’t even remember what I had… but thought It would be good to take a walk, and headed for Lake Tye. After all, it’s close and it’s a good walk.

Good thing there were not very many people out walking around the lake today… I’m not sure what they might have thought if they saw me walking toward them. I got about half-way around and it just hit me like a great Tsunami wave… We didn’t have enough time! It all happened so fast. I’m not sure I’d want to be one of those that has to battle for months with such a thing, but…she was gone before…

She never said “Goodbye” I never got to hear her say her goodbye’s to me. Sure, we had talked, thinking we would have more time.We spent so much time battling the fevers, then it was hospital, then hospice, bang, bang, bang, one after the other. I was so busy trying just to keep her comfortable, and by that time, she was spending most of her time sleeping. The time for conversations was over.  And when she took her all too sudden turn for the worse, I told her how proud I was of her, how proud I was of the strength of her faith, of her testimony for Him. I gave her permission to leave, and be with her Jesus. On that last day, in those last few moments, I whispered in her ear that we all loved her and were there for her, and it was ok if she left. But we didn’t have enough time!

I wish now we could have had more time to talk about all those things that really matter. But we thought we had more time! And as those thoughts came flooding into my mind…I could not stop the sobbing, crying out loud… “Why did you leave me so soon?” “We didn’t have enough time!” “You never said Goodbye!””  (I’m going to  have to learn to bring Kleenex with me wherever I go now.)

And then tonight…it was a great time at the “We Love Our Kids” Community Prayer Time to pray for our schools. I loved it, but it was bitter sweet…I remember the day she came home so excited… telling me she had been walking downtown and saw this banner across Main street… “We Love Our Kids” and a prayer meeting! It was out introduction to the wonderful Church of Monroe. It just reminded me tonight that I will have all kinds of those memories…walking around the lake, driving down Main Street, looking at the mountains she loved… so many things.

I don’t have an answer for that…why didn’t we have more time? Why did it  have to happen so fast? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

And then, with wet eyes, I get in the car, and I hear the song from the Newsboys, “In The Hands of God.”  Yup, that’s it…”In the Hands of God we will fall… rest for the weary and the restless… In the hands of God we stand tall… hands that are mighty to deliver, giving us freedom.”
No, we didn’t have enough time, but tonight, I fall into the hands of God

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Saturday, September 17, 2011 8:32 PM, PDT

Ink on Paper and Blessed Assurance
Today was two weeks…I find it still hard to fathom that she is really gone. But is she really? Today was a day of trying to get some things prepared for next weeks Memorial Service. I bought one of those tri-fold foam boards to put pictures on, and as I was trying to pick out the right pictures and lay them out… the thought came to my mind…”Is this all that is left of her? These scraps of ink on paper?” I know the answer, but that doesn’t prevent the question from raising itself up in my mind. How can a few scraps of paper do justice to a persons life? The people who see these pictures… what are they going to know of the person they represent? Her spirit, her faith, her struggles, her questions and her love? I have boxes and boxes and boxes of pictures…and yet they cannot tell all the story of the life of this person who shared her life with me for forty years. Up to the end she still laughed at my jokes… I could still make her laugh. That was one of those things that drew us together from the very beginning, laughing together.

And then I received this wonderful copy of the Daily Bread from friends in Iowa, copied from September 12. I laughed out loud when I read the first paragraph… “As I was talking with a gentleman whose wife had died, he shared with me that a friend said to him, ‘I’m sorry you lost your wife.’ His reply? ‘Oh, I haven’t lost her; I know exactly where she is!” YES! YES! YES!!  What a great answer! I love it! Now if I can just remember that one!

The Scripture was from 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” Kind of like being absent from school…doesn’t mean you do not exist anymore, it just means that for that time period you were not in that location in the school. Maybe you were home, maybe your were on vacation with your family. So I looked it up…”Absent, not present at a place or an occasion.”  OK, I haven’t lost her, she is absent from this place, but I am absent also… I am absent from where she is, in the glories of heaven.

Doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. If your friend is absent from school, you miss them, but you await the time you will be together again. Still, the missing hurts a lot sometimes. I find  myself thinking, “Oh, I need to go share that with Marilou!… Oh, no, I can’t she’s not here.”

Two very special things came in the mail yesterday that just blew me away… still brings tears to my  eyes. One was a card from a dear, dear friend in Minneapolis who is a Messianic Jewish Rabbi. They sent a card saying that a tree was planted in Israel in Marilou’s memory. I can’t keep the tears back on that one. Her dad was Russian Jew, and we never got to Israel. And now there is a tree there in that homeland in  her memory. Thank you Seed of Abraham Congregation… wow.

The other was a card that had two hummingbirds on it that was sent from a friend from Australia (whom I have yet to meet). She saw that card, remembered the story of the hummingbirds here at the house and sent it all the way from Australia! How amazingly thoughtful is that? I was so blown away!

So when it’s all said and done, a persons life is so much more than just ink on paper. We who are here, still have opportunity to make those kinds of impressions and actions that will make a lasting impact on others. We still have time to say, “I love you.” We still have the chance to give that hug, or say, “I forgive” or “I’m sorry.”

Two weeks…I cannot wrap my mind around how long is seems and how short it seems both at the same time. What will it be like when it is two months, then two years?  I guess I’ll have to let you know. But just  remember… I haven’t lost my wife, I know exactly where she is!!

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Monday, September 12, 2011 6:21 PM, PDT

Marilou – Can You Hear Me?
Can you hear me? It’s one of the mysteries that we deal with on this side of the gulf we call death. How much are you aware of what is going on down here? I wondered today if you could hear me. Could  you see?

If you could hear, I would say thank you for obeying the Lord when you struggled with him in prayer about our dating relationship and he told you to give me a chance. Thank you for being so humble that you were happy about a wedding dress I bought you at J.C. Penny’s. I took it out of the closet the other day. It’s still there.
Thank you for being such a good sport when we were at our “cabin” on our honeymoon, and after buying TV dinners, we found that what we thought was an oven was in actuality a refrigerator. Remember trying to cook TV dinners on a stove?

Thank you for those difficult years when I was in school and working and you were such a loving and caring mother. Thank you for being willing to trust the Lord when we had to eat dinner on the living room floor with the cockroaches, and you stuck it out. Thank you for the many ways you supported and stood up for me.

We shared many pretty cool times. It was an amazing time for us to be able to live in Switzerland. Thanks for trying to hard to learn German. Even when you told someone that I had resurrected instead of recovered from my cold. Hahaha! We all got a good laugh out of that.

Thank you for working hard at learning the new culture, walking into the village every day to buy bread. Learning to be an excellent house frau.

Thank you for the years that you poured your life into those dear folks  who were developmentally disabled that you worked with. They all knew you loved them… it just showed all the time. I was looking at some of those pictures today. You made them smile a lot.

Thank you for trying so hard to be a good pastor’s wife, when we know at times you wanted to just punch some people right in the kisser for the way they treated us. But you prayed for them, and stuck it out. Thanks, Honey…Thanks.

I was looking at the pictures of our prayer journey to Morocco. Thanks for being an adventurer – even more than me. when we had not idea what we were ordering! Oh the adventures we had…

Thanks, Honey, for all the things you did that no one will every know.. except us, to love your children, trying to help them grow up to love the Lord. I know  how hard it was when you put Jonathan on the bus from Iowa to Florida when he left for the Navy, three days after High School Graduation. I know the tears you shed sitting on his bed.

Thanks how you encouraged Esther to  get involved in drama…you were always there to support and encourage her. You were so very proud of her. I know she was your little movie star.

Thanks for being so faithful in praying and holding down the fort when I was off traveling or busy with ministry. I know you struggled to know what your part was… but you knew it was to support me. Thanks.

Thanks for how solid your faith in the Lord has been all those years, even when you had no answers to all those questions you had. You had more questions than anyone I ever knew!  I am sure all of those are answered now that you are with your Jesus.

I looked through so many of our picture albums, and I was reminded of all the things we were privileged to do, and see, and experience in our nearly forty years together. Thanks for making it all very special by your presence.
Looking at all those pictures… can you hear me? I miss you a lot. A whole lot. And I would not take away from you what you have now… I just want to say…

Thanks, Honey. I think I even love  you more now. But I have to stop now… my eyes actually hurt from all the tears that are streaming down my cheeks…tears of thanksgiving that we had all those years together. They weren’t perfect!! HA! But they were good, because of you. I hope you can hear me

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Sunday, September 11, 2011 9:56 PM, PDT

Sunday – One Week + One
I did not write an entry for Saturday… I remember looking at the clock yesterday afternoon and trying to convince myself that it was really only one week ago at that very hour, I was calling the hospice hotline to report to them that Marilou had passed away. In so many ways it seems like it has been ages ago, with all the agencies to notify, and trying to find some kind of new rhythm for my life… and then it seemed like it was only a few short minutes ago that I gone out on the deck and shook with the sobbing cries that came rushing from deep within me after watching her take her final breath. There are those experiences that seem to mess with our “internal clocks.” This has to be one of the worst.

Finding a new rhythm of life. It has to be a very intentional thing, making yourself make choices to carry on. I’m not sure what that really looks like yet, but I have asked the Lord to teach me what that should look like, and how He would like to use me in this new phase of my journey with Him.  I know that I want to be a blessing to others that I am with. I want to be a fun “old man” to be around…I want our / my house to be a place where people feel welcome to come, a place of healing, a place that is comfortable.

Another part of finding a new rhythm of life happened today, when Esther came over and we went through Marilou’s clothes and took them off the hangers and put them into black garbage bags to take them to Goodwill. I could remember when she wore each piece of clothing, that particular t-shirt she loved to wear… those pajamas I got her for Christmas…what year was that? It almost felt like a sacrilege to stuff them in those bags, but they are, after all, just “things.” I am not interested in making a shrine, and she would hate to think I was caring that much about just physical stuff. But I could smell her on each piece, yet I knew that was not her. An besides, as Esther pointed out… most of this stuff she bought at Goodwill, so it is just “going back to whence it came.” (laughing) Marilou was the consummate thrift store shopper. I was always amazed at how consistently she would come home after hours at the thrift store and proudly show off some name brand blouse or pants that still had the label on it, and  tell me how she only paid three dollars for it. So what came out of the bag, went back into the bags and we loaded up my car and pulled up to the Goodwill donation site. Then what was hard was watching the guy throw them into a plastic dumpster of some kind they had there… it seemed so…disrespectful.

And now that part of the closet is only filled with empty coat hangers, another part of a new rhythm of life.
Then Esther and I went down to her favorite coffee shop. right across from the lake. The place that Marilou and Esther used to and hang out together before they would take their walks around the lake.

There was that awkward moment when the owner who was taking our orders asked us, “Well, what did you do today?” The funny feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when I heard answer, “well my Mom passed away last week, and we were going through her stuff.”  so we talked and shed a few tears together as we remembered that my wife, her mom carried a lot of “stuff” from her childhood, and now was free of that “stuff.”
I was glad to hear Esther relate how she was so glad that in these past months, she really came into a good place, and really enjoyed having her Mom as her friend.

Another week starts in a few hours…I’ll get into the office, and try to get back into some kind of “rhythm” there.  More notifications to take care of… go to the veteran’s office and see about applying for veterans health benefits. Trying to straighten out the mess with Marilou’s car title. HA! another part of finding a new rhythm of life, I guess.

Hmmmm… I wonder what the “rhythm of life” is like where she is at now? Interesting question that I have no idea how to answer…just have to wait to find out

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Thursday, September 8, 2011 6:41 PM, PDT

Thursday evening – Marilou’s Journal entry from Bazil
This evening I ran across one of Marilou’s journal entries from our time in Brazil last year. Please note that very last sentence. The Lord has a way of answering our prayers in ways we can not anticipate.

Monday July 10th – Went to the mountain in the morning. We brought chairs and stayed… This time we felt more of God’s presence. There was a quiet, and a shadow. I read some, and sang, and listened to music. I watched the birds circling and flying – I thought, I prayed – I really looked up and on the hill is a cross – Everything was done at the cross – My desire is to fly above all the stuff.

In our time in Brazil last July, Marilou came away with a greater hunger for the manifest presence of God, because she experienced it in real and tangible ways there… many times she shared with me her deepening desire for His presence, and her great burden to see that presence come here to our city of Monroe, Washington, and this Sky Valley area. My prayer is that she still might see that… just from her heavenly perspective. One of the greatest blessings of my life, was to have her there and see the affect that the presence of God brought to her life.
I think in some way, her longing for Him was so deep after those days, that her Heavenly Father could resist her longing no longer and ushered her in to His presence … where she longed to be. There is not regret for that… it is where we are made to be… in His Presence

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Wednesday, September 7, 2011 6:48 PM, PDT

Wednesday – 4 days after…
Words… words can be great things that lift us and transport us to far away worlds of fantasy or adventure. Words can be sharp daggers that injure us and inflict wounds that can last for years. But as I sat tonight and tried to write with tear swollen eyes, Marilou’s obituary, I was faced with another truth about words…they can be totally inadequate to truly express the longings, and the depths of the human heart. How is it possible to express the wonder and breadth of a human life in just a few short words? What I wrote seemed so shallow, so superficial. 

But the tasks must be done, the obituary, the phone calls the contacts, banks, insurance, and countless places and parts of the establishment that now need to be notified that this amazing person they never knew is no longer here. I guess it must be one of the crueler parts of death in our culture. 

On the other side of the scale of experiences, it was so good to be together with some pastor friends who meet together on Wednesday mornings. Their hugs and greetings were appreciated and again almost surreal…I had to keep reminding myself what was going on. But their sincere love and care was a genuine oasis for me this morning. Then it was back to the totally mundane things like fixing lunch, trying to get my PC to work… (it hasn’t yet). That again mixed with the sweet blessing of the plant that was sent from Bethany Alliance Church in Charles City, IA where we pastored in the early ’80’s. Wow, what a sweet gesture! The phone call from a pastor friend in Minnesota that I have known since seminary days.

The sweet and the bitter…the comfort of a call, and the tears that come from just looking at a picture. They all mix together in this strange tapestry that God weaves into our lives.

I didn’t get the lawn mowed again today, but somehow in the scheme of things… that wasn’t really that important…maybe tomorrow (snicker, snicker!!!)

Thanks for the kind words from you who have encouraged me to continue to write here. You are very kind and gracious, and I realize that this is cathartic for me as well, but this began because it was about Marilou. So, probably sooner than later, this journaling will also fade off into the dimness of the past. We will all move on, hopefully changed and effected in some way by a life that from my perspective anyway, ended far too soon

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