Category Archives: Saying Goodbye

Love Letters

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I laughed the other day when a radio commentator made reference to today’s students as the “I-heart-you generation.”  She was referring to the abbreviated communication between boyfriends and girlfriends that has replaced traditional love letters. Texts and tweets are preferred over hand-written messages that were, in bygone years, scented with perfume, sealed with a kiss and read over and over again.

I still have every one of Nate’s love letters, written to me in the late sixties and early seventies. They span the weeks after we met, the time during which we developed a friendship, the months of his active duty in the Army and our five month engagement period. As I recall, they included a vocabulary of love, original four-line poetry and an abundance of longing, although I haven’t re-read them in forty years.

Nate was a frequent letter-writer during those days but also spoke the language of the I-heart-you-generation long before 21st century kids ever thought of it. Always the gift-giver, in our early years together he communicated his love with heart-shaped necklaces. The first was a small one made of ruby chips which I’ve worn hundreds of times. After that, any heart that would strike his fancy found its way home.

His most recent heart gift came during the summer of 2007 just after our son Hans got married. It was time to go home, and we were painfully late for our flight to Chicago. As we raced through the Manchester airport dragging wheeled bags and carrying many more, my eye caught on a display of chunky heart-shaped glass pendants in a glittering gift shop. “Oooo!” I pointed as we ran past. “Look at those!”

I never broke stride but ten paces further realized Nate had. When I looked back, he was stopped in front of the necklace display, reaching into his pocket. “Might as well get rid of our British pounds,” he said, looking at me. “Come and pick one fast!”

No problem, since they were all gorgeous. We made the plane, the whole crowd of us, just before they closed the doors, and today I have my glass heart, along with that joyful memory of Nate’s desire to please. I never had cause to doubt his love.

Nate loved me in a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of way. In doing so, he was being Christ-like, and I wish I’d thanked him for that. God’s love for his children can’t be duplicated, because he’s God and we’re not. And his greatest love-gift, that of his Son Jesus, represents a depth of love beyond all human possibility. Nevertheless, he wants us to reflect his love as we try to love others. Nate did a good job of that.

In the days immediately after he died, my heart hurt. I wore his heart necklaces often, sometimes under my hoodies, thinking about the circumstances that prompted each gift. Then one day while opening the mail, I came to a padded envelope. A college friend who knew nothing of Nate’s penchant for heart pendants had sent a golden heart with the word “Nate” engraved on it. She said, “You don’t have to wear it in the traditional way. Just pin it to your pillow, hang it over a mirror or slip it into your pocket.”

I was touched deeply by her thoughtfulness, and it seemed a fitting final necklace to add to Nate’s series of hearts. He “hearted” me, and one of these days I’ll celebrate by re-reading those old love letters. On a cold winter night, it’s bound to be a warm walk down Memory Lane.

“Love comes from God… for God is love. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (1 John 4:7,8,10, parts)

Emotional Eruption

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We’ve passed the two-month mark now. Life is speeding along around us, and we’re doing our best to keep up, but every once in a while, we bump into a road block of anguish.

This morning I looked at the mountain of reading that has accumulated in the weeks leading up to Christmas, still untouched but calling loudly, and decided I’d better shuffle through at least some of it. Sorting it into piles was helpful: 1) for much later, 2) as soon as I can, 3) now!

That sounds efficient and well organized, but I am neither. Turning to leave with my pile of “nows” in one hand, the December Focus on the Family newsletter caught my eye. It was atop the “for much later” pile, but in a flash I was reading it.

Each December that newsletter breaks with the format of the other eleven months and shares a warm Christmas story, the kind families could confidently read around the holiday dinner table. I look forward to each December’s story and this morning found myself into it even before I had my pajamas off.

Sitting down with coffee, my “nows” and the newsletter, I read a husband’s story about his wife’s surprise pregnancy after cancer and intense radiation. Although they’d been told she would never have children, there was a positive pregnancy test, which unleashed nine months of anxiety over the condition of the child.

Their miracle baby due at Christmas, arrived at Thanksgiving, tiny but healthy. The young couple, without money for Christmas gifts, put their tiny month-old newborn under the tree with a miniature red Santa hat on his little head. His daddy wrote, “He was our gift to each other that year. Nothing else could have come close.”

They saved that Santa hat, and every Christmas since 1976, have topped their Christmas tree with it. The husband wrote, “It serves as a reminder of how out of the depths of despair and the shadow of death can spring hope and expectancy, and ultimately affirmation [of new life].”

This morning as I read that story and landed on that last sentence, I broke into sobs like I haven’t since my encounter with the homeless man weeks ago. I couldn’t stop. And once again, I didn’t know why I was crying. My head was hanging down, and tears began pooling in the lenses of my reading glasses. What was this all about?

Maybe it was the husband’s positive statement that hope and expectancy can spring from death and despair. If that was it, my tears were those of happiness. I might also have been unconsciously thinking of the three newborns God is sending to our family, one due in three weeks, the twins in about three months.

But also underneath that emotional eruption was Nate’s death and disappearance, along with my yearning never to let the memories fade. Maybe I was unconsciously asking, “What represents our Santa hat for Nate?” Over the next few days, I’m going to think about it.

In Old Testament times, the Israelites had their Santa hat. It was called a “rock of remembrance.” God instructed them to set up stone markers as reminders to them and future generations that he was the master of rescuing, of performing wonders and of bringing new life from the death of old ideas, habits and hopes. This morning while reading the baby story I realized afresh that God is the same today as he was in 1976, and the same in Bible times, and the same even before time began at all. One of the best things about him is how he still brings life from death. Always did and always will.

God saved the life of the young wife suffering from killer-cancer but even greater than that, he brought new life directly from her. This is the kind of spectacular work God does. He doesn’t always cure cancer or send new babies, but he always, without fail, brings new life. The categories in which he works are myriad. If we don’t believe it, it’s because we haven’t seen it. And if we haven’t seen it, it’s because we haven’t asked for it. When I ask, he shows me, and when I see, I’m overwhelmed with pleasure and hope, just as the young couple in the story was.

I know God will bring new life from my husband’s death. In a way, he already has by using Nate’s life as the focal point of this blog. With every positive feedback, a little something new is born. For that, and for all the new life I have yet to see as a result of Nate’s death, I am truly thankful.

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)

“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

Widow Warriors

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The word “widow” is all about negatives. To qualify, a woman has to lose her husband to death. She becomes half of the whole that marriage had been for her. Her marriage label is withdrawn, and she embarks on a journey characterized by alone-time.Websters widow 2

Wives are into togetherness. They understand partnership and burden-sharing. My Mom’s generation used to say, “When you get married, you double the joys and cut the sorrows in half.” Marriage is a joint venture in which one person can bounce ideas off the other, get a second opinion before making a decision, and balance a singular point of view with the opposite approach. Scripture underscores the reality of all this affiliation in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. “Two are better than one… for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls, for he has not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone?”

When widowhood arrives, the twosome is pulled apart. She falls, maybe just emotionally, and wonders how she’ll get up or even if she will. One of Webster’s definitions for a widow is “a woman deprived of something greatly loved or needed.” Such a definition evokes raw emotions for me, because like it or not, that’s my life.

But as I move deeper into widowhood, I know I’m not alone. First and foremost I have my Heavenly Father who promises to step in for Nate as God the Husband (Isaiah 54:5). He’s already fulfilled that promise on several occasions.

I also have my fabulous, attentive children and children-in-law, who go above and beyond for me, day to day. I have my fantastic sister and her husband who notice and then respond to my needs in ever-creative ways, ministering kindness (and gifts!) again and again.

Although I used to live with my own lawyer, now I have my talented brother going to bat for me in handling Nate’s law practice and managing his personal financial affairs, no small task for my husband, who was deficient in filing skills! He signs his notes, “Your brother and lawyer.”

I have scores of people backing me up with prayer on my behalf, some every single day.

And if all that isn’t enough, I have my Widow Warriors List. On this list are 14 women who have gone ahead of me into this foreign land, a place to which none of us wanted to travel. Each of these ladies has pointedly told me, “I’m here for you. Call me. Here’s my number. Email me. Here’s my @ address. If you have questions, ask me. Nothing is off limits. I’ll check in with you from time to time,” which they have. And their most meaningful comment: “I know what you’re going through.”

One widow friend has been energized and organized by God to set up a valuable web site for those of us in the widow club: www.WidowConnection.com She works tirelessly for all of us and says, “We’re available even during your darkest night when everyone else is sleeping and you can’t.”

How blessed I am! I feel like someone looking out the window at a wild blizzard, knowing I have to head outdoors but being told, “Take your coat off. We went out there on your behalf, so you can stay in. Come over by the fire and get warm.”

Webster has one additional definition of a widow: “a short line ending a paragraph and appearing at the top or bottom of a printed page.” To me that indicates something came before and something new is coming after, which is the truth of my situation. Life as we know it has ended for Nate, but for me, the half that remains, something new is coming.

“The good deeds of some people are obvious. And the good deeds done in secret will someday come to light. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. For you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.” (1 Timothy 5:25, James 1:27, 1 Corinthians 15:58b)

Thank you!