Musings on 30 Years of Marriage--10

In every life a little rain must fall...

You can't share life together without some clouds, rain, heartache, and pain. And we've had some in our lives.

There have been experiences of great loss.

While we were on internship Jan's grandma passed away (May 10, 1983). Jan flew up to Minneapolis with Alycia (a toddler) and Mike (just a couple of months old). A few years before she died she moved into a new place and essentially gave Jan her house.

In 1988 Jan's mom discovered, after some issues with her eye, that she had colon cancer. After three surgeries within five months it was evident that she was not going to live. So we began to make plans for Jan's dad. He had parkinson's disease and Jan's mom didn't want him living on his own. So they built us the house we currently live in--a house big enough to house our kids and Vic. Jan's mom passed away on April 21, 1989. She was in Phoenix so we had a chance to visit her often. We flew up to Minneapolis for the funeral. Phadoris was a woman of strong faith (and a strong will!). She traveled the mid-west singing and telling her story of faith. We butted heads at times, but we loved and respected each other. She was a great mom and grandma.

On October 24, 1989 my Grandma died. She was the only Grandma I knew. She and my mom were extremely close. Grandma helped raise us. She was a marvelous woman. Her last years were spent living with my parents as they cared for my Grandpa who had alzheimers. One day, now living in a care facility, my Grandma called up my dad and said, "Don, I can't do it anymore." He rushed over to the nursing home. When he walked in, Grandma sat down and died. I headed back to Minneapolis to speak at her funeral.

A few weeks later, November 5, 1989, my Grandpa died. Grandpa had a profound impact on my life. I wanted to be a pastor because of him. He was pretty aware during grandma's funeral. But the day after he didn't recognize any of us. But he always kept his good humor. I had the privilege of speaking at his funeral, too.

Jan's dad moved in with us after the funeral for Phadoris. Vic was a quiet man, who in spite of his parkinson's, was able to get around quite well. He didn't need much care. But it wasn't all that easy for him to live here (he wanted his independence) and it took away quite a bit of privacy for us. One day he started acting loopy, and as the day went on, it grew worse. We found out he had stopped taking his meds. Once he got stabilized, he decided he wanted to move out and we figured the best place was in a graded care facility. He hated it. So he bought two houses in Sun City, one for himself, and one across the backyard for his sister so that she could take care of him. It all worked out pretty well after that. One morning, November 15, 1993, after breakfast, Vic told his sister he was going to lie down for awhile. He never woke up. We held the funeral in Minneapolis. Vic was an extremely successful business man. He was very generous but quiet about it, as he was in most things. Jan and I have been extremely blessed as a result of his success and generosity, which is minor to the blessing he was to us a father, a father in law, and a grandpa.

A few years after Vic moved out, my parents, living in Minneapolis at the time, lost everything. We had to move them down here. Eventually they came to live in our home. Again, while it was good to have them here, it was also difficult for them and us. They had their own bedroom and den, but to get to the kitchen they always had to walk into our living area. We had virtually no privacy, and it did get wearing. We eventually were able to move them to a house in Sun City.

On February 18, 2007, my mom passed away. Jan and I, along with Jeff and Diane, were in Hawaii at the time. We lived through her last moments via phone updates. We were so grateful that so many people were with mom in her last moments, including my son and his wife. The funeral was held at the Zuni Hills Elementary School where we hold worship services for Grace. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who came out and by the numbers of people who were impacted by my mom.

We were fortunate in that we never had any broken bones in our immediate family. But we had some wounded emotions. I suffered my first major panic attack in 1988 while in California. I drove home in the middle of the night absolutely panicked for no reason I could think of. It began a long journey of ups and downs learning to be free of it.

Jan has struggled with depression--not debilitating, but challenging. Her med is her life-saver.

We went through some absolutely devastating years when Mike was a young teen into his teen years as he battled clinical depression. The process of finding him the right med was horrific for him and us. Mike had his first panic episode in New York City. It was so severe I had to fly out to bring him home. Those were dark, dark days. But he's a healthy young man today!

Alycia has also been blessed with some of our emotional stuff, lucky her. But she keeps pushing along, making a life for herself in spite of it.

My dad has had over 20 heart attacks in his 72 years, a major one coming in 1998, just a few weeks before we moved to our new church campus at Community Church of Joy. Amazingly, he's still here. A walking time bomb and walking miracle all in one.

Jan's brother, who lives up in Minneapolis, has faced severe challenges in his life since he was a kid, diabetes and seizures being at the root of them. In fact, he had his first seizure while driving on a freeway with Jan in the car when Jan was in 9th grade. Thankfully his foot let up on the gas and the car turned to the side. Jan was able to hit the brakes. Along with those medical challenges have been emotional ones as well.

The one constant has been the grace of God, sometimes powerfully felt, sometimes seemingly absent, walking with us through these times of life, getting us through and putting the pieces back together. I don't know how people face these kinds of things without God's presence.