Vera's Journey

One of my nieces, Judy Yoder, who lives in Floyd County, Virginia, recently researched and authored a 700 page volume, “Vera’s Journey,” the life story of Vera Early Heatwole, a woman who lived most of her 102 years in southwestern Rockingham County.

The book, which details the life of a remarkable local woman who raised 11 children and overcame the trauma of becoming totally deaf in her late thirties, has sold some 7000 copies to date. Part of what makes it fascinating is the way it chronicles the profound changes ordinary rural Mennonites and Brethren in western Rockingham County had to adapt to during Vera's century of life, from 1906 to 2008.

Reading it brought back some of my memories of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, which our children loved having us read to them at bedtime, stories that took us back to simpler times and often to times of great hardship, when families had to live and work together for their survival through good times and bad.

Most of us have been spared many of the stresses that were commonplace even a couple of generations ago. Which leads me to wonder whether our being so sheltered has made us soft and less resilient, less able to cope with hard experiences our children and grandchildren may yet have to face in the years to come.

None of us necessarily wants to go back to life as it was then, but a strong case can be made for spending a lot more time with our children reading the stories of good people from the past they can learn valuable lessons from--and a lot less time with mindless screen-based entertainment.

Praying for Sanford

We feel blessed by reports of my brother Sanford's improved health since his heart attack.

Here his beloved Martha is praying with him in his room at Hospital Mexico in San Jose, where he has been moved for possible bypass surgery. This is one of the best government hospitals in Costa Rica, an above average Central American country which has invested its resources in education and health care instead of in military might (Costa Rica has only the equivalent of a National Guard).

My brother and his family joined other several other Beachy Amish families in moving to Costa Rica in 1968, where they have established numerous churches and now have a publishing enterprise that produces La Antorcha de la Verdad, which now has the largest circulation of any Mennonite publication in the world, according to a piece by John Roth in the April 2, 2012, Mennonite World Review.

We invite your continued prayers for Sanford and his family and for the churches they have helped establish in Central America. Three of his sons are pastors, editors and writers who are active in providing leadership in the work, along with numerous indigenous pastors and leaders.

A remarkable story.

P. S. My nephew Pablo Yoder has written numerous books, including a beautifully illustrated nature book, "The Work of Thy Fingers" and one for younger readers, "My Father's World."

Beloved Brother

My oldest brother Sanford has lived in Costa Rica as a self supporting missionary and pastor since 1968. Last week he suffered a serious heart attack and remains in critical care at the San Carlos Social Security Government Hospital. At 81, this came as a shock to all of us, since he had never been diagnosed with heart problems and was in reasonably good health for his age.

There were nine of us children in our family, and I am the next to the youngest. Sanford has always been a special brother, a powerfully positive influence in my life. As a teen he went through a time of anger and rebellion in which he gave my parents no end of grief, then turned his life completely around and became a consistently Christian model and mentor who’s been a great blessing to me, as have my other eight siblings.

It’s hard to think of him in this condition and not be able to be there to personally tell him I love him.  I so wish I could hold his hand, pray for him, and to offer my support to his amazing Martha, by his side through nearly sixty years. I’m glad all of their ten loving children have been with him this week, some who flew there from the states to be with their dad.

I’m told that when I was a toddler I called my brother “Gah-Tah” for some strange unknown reason. My older siblings repeatedly tried to correct me, would patiently tell me, “Now say, ‘SAN-FORD,’” carefully emphasizing each syllable. I would soberly repeat, to everyone’s amusement, “GAH-TAH,” with equal emphasis, thinking I was saying the name correctly.

Right now I would love to be the child again, and say from my heart, “Gah-Tah, I love you!” to my big brother. He would understand. He would cry and give me the big bear hug I’m needing right now.

The Susanna Heatwole Brunk Story

Each year as a part of my JMU Lifelong Learning Institute class, "Mennonites in the Valley," Ruth Stoltzfus Jost joins us at the grave site of two-year-old John Brunk at the Bank Mennonite Church cemetery, where she sings the following piece written by her sister Helen about their great-grandmother Susanna Heatwole Brunk's experience during and following the Civil War. It is printed here with Helen's kind permission:

THE BALLAD OF GREAT-GRANDMOTHER SUSANNA
by Helen Stoltzfus

In the valley of Virginia,
my great-grandmother Susanna
met and married Henry Brunk.

They had a son.

But not long thereafter the Civil War broke out.

Henry felt he could not stay true to Christ and be a soldier.
He, along with 69 other young men, rode out
of the war zone
hoping to escape.

They were captured by Confederate soldiers who demanded that they surrender their arms.

They surrendered their Bibles.

The Confederate soldiers took their horses and put the men in prison.  They gave them three choices

One: Put on uniforms and take up arms; Two: haul supplies as non-combatants, or Three: stay in prison.

I have a young wife and a baby son.  I will haul supplies as a non-combatant.

But Henry's conscience still bothered him.  He felt that he was still a part of this machinery of war.  One day he simply left his team of horses in the field and walked out through the orchard and the woods, a deserter, with a price on his head.

He hid in attics of kind strangers, weaving willow baskets to earn money, while Susanna, pregnant, cared for their son John. One day, one day - she gave birth to a daughter, Sarah.  But not long thereafter their son John died.

Henry heard the news.  At the funeral, he knew the Confederate spies were there to track him down.  So he had to hide at his own son's funeral.  Standing in the back like a stranger, leaving before the last hymn was sung.

And Susanna stood alone at her son's grave.

Henry and 17 young men managed to escape to the North.  Henry sent a message to Susanna:   Meet me in Hagerstown!

She put her possessions in a spring wagon and set out with her baby and her sister.  They rode northward into war territory.

Suddenly they were surrounded by Confederate soldiers who seized Susanna's horse.  At the same moment, the Union army began to close in on them.

"Yanks, the Yanks are coming!  Follow us!!!"

(as Susanna)  "I'll do no such thing!"

And since the Confederates were fleeing from the Union Army, they had no time to force her to  follow them.  So she rode on, continuing northward.

She was almost at Hagerstown.  She only had to cross the Shenandoah River.

But when she reached Harper's Ferry the bridge was burning.

Behind her were Confederate soldiers,  before her a burning bridge, a baby in her arms.

A miller appeared.  He showed her a place where others had managed to cross.  She plunged her spring wagon into the Shenandoah and  crossed safely.

She arrived in Hagerstown.

"But will I find Henry?"

She rode down the street.  She looked from left to right.  She passed a store front, glanced in the window at a shoemaker repairing shoes.  Henry looked up.  Their eyes met.

The story doesn't end there.  They moved to Illinois. Susanna, age 26, bore five more children in  the next eight years.  Then, like many others, they decided to move west to Kansas in a covered wagon.

Even though the Civil War had ended, the feelings of resentment were still very strong between the North and the South.  Missouri was a slave state.  Kansas, a free state.  The Missourians refused to let settlers, on their way to the "free" state of Kansas, drink water from their wells.

So Susanna, pregnant, Henry, and their six children drank from the streams and the ponds.

When they arrived in Kansas, Henry unhitched the horse, turned them out to graze, built a wigwam shelter made of boards, and lay beneath it.  He never got up again.  He died of typhoid fever. 

In the next six months, three of Susanna's seven children died of typhoid fever.

My grandfather remembers his mother, my great-grandmother Susanna.  She is leaning over the kitchen table, tears streaming down her face.  Silently she cuts up her husband's suit to make clothes for her children.

Her ten-year-old son took work in a mill.  Then in the middle of the night, men came knocking on her door.  "Mother, mother, your son has been hurt.  He fell asleep, his arm got caught in the wheel."

They brought him in from town and laid him on that same kitchen table and cut off his arm.

It is told how near the end of her life, she ironed a dress, but left the ruffles, the beautiful ruffles... unironed.

The following is an additional stanza written by Ruth Soltzfus Jost:

In later years, she told these stories to her grandchildren.
They remember many Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners at her prairie home.
They remember the little cakes she sent home with them after a visit.
And though they could never remember her singing before,
When the end came, she sang.
She asked her family to sing.
She asked her doctor to help sing.
And they all sang her favorite song,

"Oh happy day that fixed my choice
On thee, my Savior and my God."

Celebrating the Real St. Nicholas

Some years ago I read about Mike Sherer, a Lutheran minister, who with his wife Kathe, a registered nurse, decided to celebrate Christmas without Santa Claus when their first child was three years old. They had come to see Santa as little more than a prop for the great North American Christmas Marketing Machine, and so decided to focus instead on his venerable ancestor, the real life St. Nicholas.

This third century bishop of Myra, who lived on the southern coast of what is now Turkey, became legendary for his generosity in helping the poor and needy in his parish, according to stories about him passed down through the generations.

Because this real saint seemed to be a good alternative to the jolly old elf of recent invention, the Sherers have begun celebrating the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, which is on December 6, as an early part of their family’s Advent, and each year designate 5% of their December income to give anonymous help to a needy individual or family in their community, in the spirit of the good bishop of Myra.

They do put up a tree, but cover the floor all around it with good books about Christmas instead of the many other gifts for themselves that used to accumulate there. The books they then put away each year with the tree decorations, to give them a rest and to make them “new” each Advent.

The Sherers report that their giving up a fake Santa for a real saint they feel embodies the true spirit of Christmas has been a richly satisfying change, one they would recommend to everyone

The above is adapted from one of my 90-second radio spots aired on the following stations: 
WEMC 91.7 FM 11:58 am (M-F) Sun 7:58
WBTX 1470 AM 9:20 am 4:20 pm (M-F)
WNLR 1150 AM 11:28 am (M,W,F)

Remembering Dad

My father died on this day in 1985, after a long bout with emphysema and bronchiectasis. I had spent my last memorable twelve hours with him two nights earlier, taking my turn being by his bed at the Waynesboro, Virginia, hospital.

At age 80, dad was down to a fraction of his normal weight and strength. Sometimes disoriented, he couldn’t understand why I had to restrain him from getting out of bed or removing his oxygen tubes. In a strange reversal of roles, I was now the parent wishing I could somehow hold and comfort him in his pain and distress.

I don’t cry easily, but I couldn’t help losing it during my 45-minute ride home. Not only was I grieving the loss of my one and only dad--gentle, hospitable and generous to a fault--I was also mourning the father with whom I had never fully connected as I wished.

Financial struggles as I was growing up limited my father’s energy and time for us nine children, especially us younger ones. I realized in a new way on that long ride home how much I ached for more memories of fishing, playing ball or going for walks with my dad. I also wished I had been able to share with him more of my feelings, struggles and dreams as I was growing up. I also realized that any lack of closeness between us as adults was as much my fault as his.

Yet I was very much aware that he had given me much more as a parent than he had ever received from his own father. That truth had come to me in a new way a year earlier, when he and I had a 1 1/2 hour conversation in which I recorded many of his childhood memories. While I already knew much of the story, to have a recording of it in his own words was priceless. 

A defining point in my father’s life was his losing his mother when he was three. And this was my grandfather Dan’s third time of becoming a widower. His first wife Lucy had died of measles at 23 after only four years of marriage, leaving him with a two-year-old son and nine-month-old daughter. On the day of Lucy’s funeral, daughter Anna also died of measles.

A decade later Dan’s second wife Rebecca died of tuberculosis at age 30, leaving him with five more children. Later that year their youngest daughter Mary died of the same disease, also at nine months of age. 

Two years later Dan married Elizabeth, my grandmother, and had three more children, the youngest being my father, Ben. Then at 35 Elizabeth died of complications from her fourth pregnancy, leaving Dan, at 44, with nine living children.

My father has few memories of his next five years except of sometimes crying at night wishing he had a mother like other children he knew. He also wished for a warmer, more nurturing father instead of one he aptly described as a “man of sorrows.”  Surely he was "acquainted with grief."

As if this weren’t enough family drama, five years later Dan married Miriam, a widow with nine children of her own. While eight-year-old Ben was glad to have a real mother again (and some new siblings) their blended family didn’t blend well, and the rest of my father’s childhood was marked by constant family tension and friction. 

I’ve sometimes wondered what kind of dad should have come out of this troubled story, this mys-functional family. But instead of his becoming a highly depressed or bitter man, Ben became one of the kindest and most gracious people I’ve ever known--even though he had never learned how to hug us as children or to lavish us with praise (we did teach him to hug in his later years!).

On his deathbed he breathed the words of his favorite song, “Blessed Assurance,” the title of which appears on his tombstone, set right next to my mother’s, who had died of cancer fourteen years earlier. With her he had learned to live a new life, celebrate a new lyric, as in, “This is my story, This is my song, praising my Savior  all the day long.”

He left no estate to divide among us, and barely enough savings to pay for his funeral. But we all received a much more valuable legacy, that of a sturdy faith and a graciously lived life.

Today I wish I could tell my father one more time how grateful I am for the way he turned his grief into an amazing grace. As I reflect on his life story, I am better able to embrace my own.

Twinspeak

Near the end of a recent eight-hour return trip to their Rochester, NY, home, our daughter had the following conversation with their six-year-old son about his younger twin siblings. At four months of age, they were doing their usual "talking" and making baby sounds to each other.

“What do you think they're saying?” daughter asked.

“Let me listen,” the first grader offered. After taking some time to do this, he reported, “Mom, they’re saying they’re really tired of being in their car seats and want to be held.”

“Well, tell them we’re almost home, and we'll have them out of their seats real soon.”

“But, Mom, there’s a problem. I understand their language, but I can't speak it!”

A little later, though, John did try to address them in their "twinspeak" language. At which point they became completely silent, as if to say, “How dare you break into our private conversation?”

So much of what infants know and feel remains a mystery, but all of us wish we could understand more of what’s going on in their rapidly developing minds. I’m sure they are absorbing far more from us than we realize.

All We Have is Love

 We just returned last night from being at our brother-in-law Vernon Zehr's memorial service at the Greenwood (Delaware) Mennonite Church, a bittersweet time of remembering, celebrating and mourning. It was one of the most moving funerals I have ever attended.

On the return trip, emotions still fresh and raw, I kept thinking about a piece our singer/songwriter son Brad wrote in 2005, and which is recorded on his latest album. He had just been with us for a weekend, and on his way home reflected on what he felt for members of his family, no matter how challenging relationships with loved ones can be:

           love is all I have for you,
           it will have to do,
           if you were looking for a miracle,
           the fact that we’re still here, 
           well that’s miraculous as anything
           that I have seen magicians pull,
           but I forgot the tricks I knew,
           love is all I have for you..

love is all I have for you,
love is all that’s left after the wind has blown the chaff away,
I laugh at what I tried to save,
and disappointment’s just a lens to magnify what might have been,
but none of that was ever true,
love is all I have for you,

I close my eyes, I’m a child by the water,
casting stones so circles spread,
then blink twice, and we’re old on a park bench,
watching birds eat scattered bread,
in between we lost track of time,
but she is kind enough to remind us..

the little space between goodbyes is really only pocket-sized,
I carry you around with me in case I need some sympathy,
this fear that we’re not good enough will disappear when morning comes,
‘cause none of that was ever true,
love is all I have for you..

miraculous as anything that I have seen magicians do,
but I forgot the tricks I knew,
love is all I have for you…

In the end, love is what endures. More than even faith or hope, love never dies. It's what we have left after everyone and everything else is gone.

Vernon Zehr 1934-2011

Our brother-in-law Vernon Zehr died Sunday at age 77 in Greenwood, Delaware. His obituary appears in today's Daily News-Record.

One of the many blessings of being married to Alma Jean has been inheriting 14 (yes, fourteen) wonderful in-laws, and Vernon, married to my wife’s next older sister Freda, was one of our favorites. They spent most of their adult lives in Wilmington, Delaware, where Vernon served in a dual role as a pastor and a special education teacher (and later principal).

As my wife commented to me this morning, there was so much of Jesus in this man. He loved everybody, reached out to the under served and ignored, saw every human being as special, wasn't afraid to question the religious establishment, and was as friendly, open minded and open hearted a man as one could find anywhere.

One of his nieces, Mary Ann Yutzy, daughter of another of my wife’s sisters, posted this on her blog Sunday in memory of her beloved uncle. I asked her permission to share this excerpt, which captures so well the kind of person he was:

I remember one time when Uncle Vernon and Aunt Freda come to visit us, and I was in the throes of young adolescence ('Addled Essence" would be more accurate, to be sure!).  My hair was a mess, and my dress was dirty.  I had been trying to clean up the kitchen, and I was talking to Uncle Vernon.  We stored the frying pan in the oven at our house (Still do in my house, to this day!)  But I had put a cake in to bake just a little before, and it was almost done.  I was talking animatedly to Uncle Vernon, who always engaged me in conversation, and without thinking, I grabbed the frying pan and put it into the oven without looking, right on top of that almost baked cake.  I felt an unfamiliar thud and then I looked in disbelief at the flattened and scrunched cake.

My Sweet Mama was not happy with me for ruining the cake.  We had plans to use it for a dessert the next day that is similar to Cherry Delight.  The only difference is that you use the baked cake as the bottom layer instead of a graham cracker crust.  It was all the rage back then, and I am pretty sure that Mama was expecting company for lunch the next day.  I don't know what she must have thought, but it WAS a result of not paying attention.  (Something I was, unfortunately, quite famous for.  Still am.)  Uncle Vernon and Aunt Freda were the current company, though and so she didn't scold me too hard.  But I felt awful, and I cried.  We tried hard to repair and salvage, but it was still rather sorry looking.

Later, I was back in the kitchen, and Uncle Vernon came up to me and said, "Mary Ann.  Come here."  He took me to where our living room and dining room met, where there was a large, full length mirror, and positioned me in front of it.  "Take a good look," he said.  I did.  Didn't particularly like what I saw, either.  "What do you see?" he asked.

It really wasn't much to look at.  My hair was stringy, falling down over my face.  I reached up and tried to tuck it behind my ear.  My dress, made of the shirtwaist pattern of the day, was an aqua gingham, rumpled and dirty.  I was dreadfully self conscious.  "Um, I don't know.  Me?"

"Now, Mary Ann," he instructed kindly, "I want you to straighten your shoulders.  Don't slump.  And I want you to smile.  You can smile."  He took my hands gently in his and crossed them over my tummy.  "Hold your hands just so.  Like that.  Now look at you.  I see a beautiful young lady," he said with energy, confidence and enthusiasm.  "Look at you!  You really are a wonderful young lady.  You are intelligent and you will go far."

I looked in the mirror.  I smiled at the girl in the mirror and she smiled back.  I felt a surge of confidence like I had never known before.  I didn't feel beautiful, but I felt capable.  I knew I wasn't gorgeous.  I certainly didn't have a reason to be vain, but I really did feel like I could meet the challenges of life, and that I had something to offer this old world, and it felt really, really good.

I have always blessed him for that day.  It was pivotal in my life.  It was many, many years before I understood how "Uncle Vernon" that was.  He lived and breathed encouragement.  He looked for something to praise, something to give hope, something to affirm. 

I pray that part of Vernon Zehr can live on in each of us.

May he rest in peace.

Small Child, Big Heart

Our oldest grandson, at the age of six, became big brother to a set of twins this June, a little boy (he had his heart set on a younger brother) and a baby girl. He has taken a great interest in them and has done a great job helping care for them where he can.

Recently, when they were about 3 1/2 months old, he came to his mother, our youngest, and said, in all seriousness, “Mommy, if we ever get so poor that any of us have to live in an orphanage, let me go. The twins are way too small to have to be away from their mommy and daddy, but I could take care of myself better.”

Needless to say, she was startled by his offer, and they are still wondering where he learned that poor people sometimes have to have their children raised in an orphanage, or why he feared his own family might become that impoverished. His dad, after all, is a neurologist and his mom, until recently, a college teacher. But all of us felt profoundly moved by his unselfish offer.

For me, one of the better evidences for the existence of a good God is that in spite of evil and suffering everywhere in creation, there is also in all of us the capacity to rise above that, and to behave in truly altruistic ways.

Where does that come from? Is there a gene for that? Can it be taught? Or caught?

I hope so. Certainly the world could use a more people with a lot more concern for the common good even when it may not seem to be in their short term self interest.

Out of the mouth of babes.

So Long, Saigon Cafe

Today, after 15 years of serving a blend of great Vietnamese food and gracious hospitality, Ty and Bich Truong are closing the doors of their Saigon Cafe on East Market Street for good. Not that their unique restaurant hasn’t attracted enough customers. The past several days have seen nothing but long lines of loyal patrons waiting to enjoy just one more taste of the Truongs’ fare.

The couple just decided it was time to take a break from the 12-14-hour days they've been putting in every Monday to Saturday, 52 weeks a year, and to try something new. They also plan to put their house up for sale and move to California sometime soon to be closer to some of their grown children.

Our own ties with Ty and Bich go back to 1979, when the church I was serving as pastor, Zion Mennonite near Broadway, sponsored Ty and several of his siblings and cousins as refugees. They were among the many “boat people” who had made a perilous escape from Ho Chi Minh City after the fall of Saigon to escape the difficult conditions in that war torn country. With some 650 people in a vessel measuring 90 feet by 40 feet, they somehow made it to an overcrowded refugee camp in Thailand.

There Ty met Bich and the two fell in love and were married. Since their marriage wasn’t recognized by the U.S., Ty had to come here without his new wife, who went to France to be with relatives until she was finally able to rejoin her husband in 1982--through the efforts of the Mennonite Central Committee’s refugee resettlement program. It was my privilege to perform an official American wedding ceremony for them at our church later that year.

I recently spoke with Ty about their experience of adjusting to a new world. “I get really upset when I hear people complain about their lot here,” he said, with deep feeling. “This is heaven compared to what we’ve been through. What do people want, something better than heaven?”

Thanks, Ty and Bich, for all the courage, hard work and contagious optimism you’ve demonstrated through all these years. We’ll miss you a lot, but your warm spirit and your tasty entrees will be memories we’ll savor forever.

I’m Just Fine For The Shape I’m In

This ole house is a-getting shaky
This ole house is a-getting old
This ole house lets in the rain
This ole house lets in the cold

Lately I’ve begun reflecting more on this lament from an old song by Stuart Hamblen.

The thought of getting old and shaky is new for me, since most of my 72 years I’ve enjoyed exceptional health, been physically active and have never suffered a single broken bone or gone through any major surgery. In fact it wasn’t until August of 2009 that I had my very first overnight hospital stay. I wasn’t even born in one. And that overnight at “Hotel RMH” followed a simple procedure my doctor first led me to believe would allow me to return home the same day, but he changed his mind for the sake of being able to check me over early the next morning.

Now I’m learning from experience that good health isn’t to be taken for granted. Things can change without notice and without my being ready.

Not to bore you with details, but early this year my blood work showed an excess of “antinuclear antibodies” (I joked to my friends that my being an “antinuclear” advocate for so long has finally gotten into my blood). Anyway, I was told that my 1:312 count of said antibodies (should be 1:40 or less),  may be associated with having a recent diagnosis of Ménière's disease, a condition that isn't life threatening but can have unpleasant symptoms like increased hearing loss and nauseous spells of vertigo, both of which I've been experiencing too much of lately. I'm on some Triamterene/hydrochlorothiazid (!) now that may helping, but my good doctor isn’t promising a "cure" as such.

So this ole house does feel a tad shaky. For someone who listens to people for a living, to have to strain to hear well is no fun. And to feel tired much of the time, and not to be able to enjoy singing and other activities as I once did, was hard to adjust to.

Today I’m finishing a two-week regimen of Prednazone. I can bear testimony that this is a miracle drug, though one I can’t stay on due to its undesirable long term effects. But for the moment I feel younger and more energized than I have for months, and the inside of my head and my sense of hearing feel about 90% normal.

I can live with that. And I know there will be many more adjustments to make as I grow older. That’s just the way life is, I tell myself. Meanwhile, I want to enjoy each day as if it were my last, and make the most of every opportunity to  live life to the full, and to learn to “number my days and so apply my heart to wisdom.”

On the plus side, this has been a wake-up call about taking better care of myself. By simply eating oatmeal or an oat cereal with fruit and skim milk for breakfast, and by enjoying more salads and home grown vegetable stews for lunch and dinner (while cutting back on breads, sweets, salt and desserts) I’ve been able to shed 16 pounds since March without going on any "diet.” Or maybe it’s just the Ménière's . Who knows.

I do know that God is good. All the time. And yes, Stuart Hamblen, “I’m getting ready to meet the saints.”

I just hope that won’t be right away. I want to see a little more of our grandchildren growing older first.

Goodby, Lucy (1929-2003)

I wrote this as my quarterly column for VALLEY LIVING soon after my sister Lucy's death, and post it today in her memory:


While we were watching around her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn’t see...
She saw Old Death,
Coming like a falling star...

And Death took her up like a baby...
On to the Great White Throne,
And there he laid sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.

I thought of these lines from James Weldon Johnson’s “Go Down, Death” as we gathered around my dying sister Lucy’s bed September 15, 2003, just eight years ago. At 74, she was in what seemed like a deep sleep, each breath becoming slower and more labored.

Hers had been a 19-year struggle with Parkinson’s disease, and it was ending with her at home, surrounded by those dearest to her, her husband Alvin, her four daughters and two sons, all present to the last. There could be no more wonderful way to go, I thought.

I was only nine when Lucy, whose name means “bringer of light,” married the love of her life, Alvin Schrock, one of the most stable and gentle men I have ever known. Their children, blessed with good genes and great parents, turned out remarkably well, and were supportive and caring beyond the call of duty during their mother’s long illness.

One of my regrets is that Lucy’s marriage had her leaving home well before I was finished growing up. She was the third in our family and I was number eight, next to the youngest. As a child, Lucy didn’t thrive, health-wise, like the rest, but managed to grow up to become a hard worker and a great Mom. She always seemed a little less argumentative, less aggressive than her three brothers and five sisters, a quality I associated with her saintliness and self-control.

Life isn’t always fair, one of the ministers at Lucy’s funeral reminded us, and yet, he added, it often offers us more blessings than we deserve. For those of us left behind, Lucy was clearly one of them.

At the close of her memorial service the congregation sang together while we went to a private meeting room at the church for a last family viewing. Only Lucy’s husband and her children and ten grandchildren stood around the open casket at the end. Alvin, though an ordained minister, was now less the patriarch and pastor than the grieving husband of nearly 55 seasons. After a time of silence, he shared halting and heart-felt words of memory with his family flock, then personally arranged the cloth casket lining around Lucy’s body--as if tucking her in for the last time--and solemnly closed it for good. Our tears came freely as we heard the congregation nearby, in beautiful four-part harmony, sing “O come, angel band, come and around me stand. O bear me away on your snowy wings to my eternal home.”

At the burial site, with signs of Hurricane Isabel approaching, the pallbearers, three nephews and three grandsons, lowered her casket into the grave and lovingly covered it with Augusta County soil. Other friends, family members, grandsons and granddaughters likewise took turns shoveling blankets of earth over the grave. No professional funeral directors were present, only Lucy's loved ones surrounding the family gathered under the white canopy, singing from memory hymns of faith to strengthen the soul and comfort the heart.

A bittersweet goodbye to our Lucy.

Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter--weep no more;
She’s only just gone home.              (James Weldon Johnson)   

Re-membering

I heard a story on NPR some time ago of a man using a table saw who accidentally cut off one of his fingers. The severed body part flew off into the corner of his shop among scraps of wood, sawdust and other debris. After he managed to stop the bleeding he and his family looked frantically for the missing finger, hoping they could take it with them to the hospital to reattach and save it.

Remembering is something like that. Sometimes an important part of us becomes lost, has for some reason become dis-membered. Maybe our parents or others have intentionally kept some troublesome parts of our family’s narrative from us. Or maybe we’ve just plain forgotten some things from lack of reviewing significant aspects of our story. Or we may have willfully cut off some painful part of our past we simply didn’t want to deal with, or some relationship we no longer wanted to be a part of.

But distancing ourselves from parts of our past can be like losing a part of ourselves, like a body part, or member. In remembering we are re-attaching, are re-connecting, so that healing and growth can take place.

Twin Heaven (no night, lots of angels)

I'm wrapping up a second tour of northern grandparent duty this week, and my wife (who will have been with our grandblessings for two weeks) and I will be returning back down to earth again on Thursday.

Being around babies inspires belief in the miraculous. Twins Maria and David are angels for sure, and they bring out loving and angelic behavior in their admiring six-year old brother as well. Their parents likewise demonstrate a kind of 24/7 patience and good humor that seems far beyond human, even when stress and fatigue bring thoughts of purgatory as much as paradise.

These days I reflect on some behind-the-scenes players as well. I’ve been thinking a lot about the legacy the twins inherit from the “cloud of witnesses” who have gone ahead into the next life, maternal and paternal ancestors from whom the babies have inherited good DNA and the kind of faith and wisdom passed on from one generation to the next.

Take our own parents, and all eight of these twin’s great-grandparents, for example, all of whom are gone except great-grandma Irene, from whom little Maria gets her middle name (it means “peace”). I pray our grandchildren can each be mindful of all they inherit from the lives and stories of great-grandparents Michael and Alma Wert and Ben and Mary Yoder on their mother's side of their ancestry, and Howard and Irene Showalter and Roy and Mabel Heatwole on their father's side.

None of these good folks ever made headlines, but their quiet and consistent influence inhabit our space, continue to shape our actions and beliefs. There is not a crime, divorce or infidelity among them, as far as I know. They had Bibles in every room, blessings at every meal. Their lives reflected a love for God and for God’s people that was demonstrated in unselfish service to their families, churches and communities. Their integrity and generosity live on in their offspring.

I thank God for them. Without them, we would not even be here, and without their exemplary way of life, our lives would certainly not be the same.

May their spirits ever hover over us and our children, and their children's children. Like angels.

Gone With the Twins II

Father's Day weekends don't get much better than this. We got to be with our youngest (and only) daughter and husband's six-year-old son and their newborn twins (!!) near Rochester, NY. Then our oldest (singer/song writer) son Brad joined us there from Pittsburgh. Only our second son, his wife and their three very special young children (the ones who live nearby!) were missing.

And are the former little womb-mates just totally adorable or what?! And good as gold. David now weighs over nine pounds, Maria is just under eight, and they are healthy and delightful as can be. Big brother is so proud to have them.

Here's the routine for their care, repeated routinely every three or four hours:
1) Observe restlessness and slight sounds that may indicate hunger.
2) Feed whichever baby seems hungriest, then drape against shoulder to "burp".
3) Feed other baby, repeating burping procedure.
4) Check for soiled diaper ("soiled" means "large deposits in very messy Pamper").
5) Dispose of soiled diaper, clean and lotion baby's bottom, and attach new diaper, hoping no new accidents occur while doing so (frequently happens).
6) Repeat with second baby.
7) Wrap each infant in clean blanket and place face up in crib or baby seat.
8) Wait for item 1 to occur and repeat above process.
9) Do this every day and every night, 24/7.

Their mother, father and grandmother actually took care of most of this during my stay, though I tried to do my share. And they are so sweet you almost never mind. In fact, it brought back many good memories of our own babies when they were living by that ancient text, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

Some day the rewards are almost sure to far, far outweigh all of the investment of time, toil and tears this requires. As when your children call to warmly thank you for being their dad, and when your youngest gives you a Father's Day card with words you feel you don't deserve--but which make you want to cry anyway:

they say a man's actions
speak louder than words,
and your actions have always 
       spoken of love.
what a wonderful difference 
you've made in my life.
Happy Father's Day!

Of course, when it comes to the parenting department, my good wife deserves way over half of the credit. She gets to remain in New York for another week or so, where I'll soon rejoin her for another round of blessed grandparenting duty.

Thanks for your prayers, and for sharing our joy.

Grandblessings Alert!

At about 11 a.m. this morning, while I was meeting with some friends to help plan a memorial service, my wife called me at my office with the news that our youngest and only daughter's twins had arrived. Needless to say, we were ecstatic, along with their father and our grandson, age 6, all joyfully welcoming 7 lb., 8 oz. baby boy, and 7 lb., 6 oz. baby girl into our grand-family. They join their little Yoder cousins ages 6, 4 and almost two.

What a juxtaposition of events, I thought. One life, that of a 51-year-old former student of mine, remembered for all of the good gifts she brought to her family and many friends, and now new life was breaking out 400 miles away, a sign of hope and promise of more grand things to come.

Such is life, the bitter and the sweet mingling together, beginnings and endings overlapping each other. We are continually blessed by how precious each life is, and then mourn because all, like the wild flowers and grass of the field, wither and fade away. But life goes on and love gets passed on, one generation to the next, a part of a continued story. The best is always yet to be.

Our daughter was the youngest grandchild of both my parents and Alma Jean's, the last of dozens of cousins in her generation on each side of the family. It looks like her latest births may actually mark the last of the next generation of cousins in both clans as well. We've been told, at least, that our own number of grandchildren will likely remain at six, a fine number indeed.

One never knows for sure, of course. Thirty-five years ago we were quite certain we would have no more than two children, our sons. Then miracle daughter came along, without a doubt the very best mistake we ever made :-) !

Without her, we wouldn't be celebrating this grand event, and with twins, we feel doubly blessed.

Thanks be to God.

Her Children Call her Blessed

"She speaks with wisdom,
   and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
   and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
   her husband also, and he praises her:
'Many women do noble things,
   but you surpass them all.'
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
   but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done..."

The above words describing the "virtuous woman" of Proverbs 31 could have been written of my Amish mother, Mary Nisly Yoder. She died of cancer nearly forty years ago at 68 years of age, which now seems so young to have to say good bye to everyone and everything you’ve loved here on earth. And she was truly in love with life and with her nine children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

On my mother’s tombstone are the words of a gospel song she loved and lived by, “I need no mansion here below.” My mother had only a sixth grade education, was born poor and always lived very frugally, but she knew how to make her life truly rich in a multitude of ways, by her love of flowers and of vegetable gardening, by her enjoyment of nature and of raising canaries, by her love of singing and reading, and by her gracious hospitality and her many friendships.

As a child I was nurtured by her warm hugs and her stories and by her example of a quiet faith and unselfish life. She was well known in our community for the generous help and encouragement she gave her family, her neighbors, and her many church friends. Our house was a always a haven of hospitality.

But it was certainly no mansion. My parents lived in a nicely kept mobile home in their retirement, and that is where she died. She was happy living as one who believed there was a better life waiting for her after this one was over. Hers was the melody of a truly rich, active woman who could sing with conviction, “I need no mansion here below...”

A lump-in-the-throat thanks to you, mom. In your honor, I hope I can pass on that some of that same spirit and legacy.

A Million-Thousand-Million Earthworms

Our six-year-old and four-year-old grandchildren could hardly wait for spring to come this year, looking forward, among other things, to helping me plant the season’s first seeds in our garden.

Today was the day. It was actually a day before the official start of spring, but the weather here along Hamlet Drive was as spring-like as one ever dream of, and before long we had two long rows of sugar snap peas and some onion sets carefully covered with humus-rich Valley soil.

That mission accomplished, for the next hour-and-a-half our Madelyne and Ian, now joined by their very active 18-month-old younger brother Keaton, amused themselves by digging around in some freshly dug garden soil and backyard compost for earthworms. You could have thought they were in Disney World, or had just discovered a back yard full of new Fisher-Price products, but here they were, delighting in earthworms.

“Look grandpa, I’ve found a million-thousand-million of them!” Ian, the four-year-old, exclaims.

Life doesn’t get much better than that, seeing your grandchildren relishing simple pleasures like kneeling in some good dirt and enjoying a soil full of God's humble earth-workers, all devoted to making creation everywhere more fertile and productive.

It was Ian's older sister, at five, who told me last summer, after helping me harvest some of the vegetables we all enjoy, “You know, grandpa, I don’t think I’ll go to college when I grow up.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, I already know how to do so many things, I don’t think I’ll have to go to college.”

“So what would you like to do when you grow up?” I asked.

“I’m going to be a ‘nature helper,’” she said. “I want to teach people about nature.”

I’m sure she’ll  change her mind many times between now and when she gets through high school, but if she were to be able to fulfill her dream of being a “nature helper,” even without going to college, I would feel truly blessed.

Letter to my Daughter

Today is our only (and favorite!) daughter's birthday. The following is the text of a letter I wrote to her ten years ago, soon after she was engaged:

Dear Joanna,
    It was no surprise when your special friend Chad took your mother and me aside and asked if he could marry you. Not that he needed our permission. You’re both graduated, gainfully employed and on your own. But we loved it.
    And we love Chad. For one thing, we think he’s shown excellent taste in his choice of a mate. “I just wanted your blessing,” he told us. “I love her very much--she makes me so happy.”
    We understand. For 24 years you’ve been making all of us happy.
    I’ll never forget the moment you were born. Without voicing that immediate infant cry, you seemed to want to first size up the situation and decide what to do next. Needless to say, it was love at first sight for your parents and your two admiring brothers. Then in no time you found plenty to do, entertaining us in an animated, non-stop fashion that kept us in stitches. But you also relished being held, read to, cuddled. I sorely miss my baby girl.
    Not that you ever liked being considered the “baby” in the family. Even as a preschooler, you seldom admitted being afraid. When you heard creepy nighttime noises or saw strange shadows outside your window, you would quietly enter our bedroom and say, “I can’t sleep.” We knew what you meant. I still remember one warm night taking you out on our front steps, holding you, and talking with you about the bush that made scary shadows and about other things that ‘go bump in the night,’ trying to help you feel more secure and safe.
    And how well we remember your many drawings and dramas and stories. To us they seemed wonderful, like you. You made us happy, too, with your hard-won achievements in school, your eagerness to please us at home. If anything, I’m afraid you kept too much inside, may not have felt free enough to raise your questions or express your frustrations. 
    I especially recall the summer you were fourteen and looking for a way to earn some spending money. With a little encouragement (and trepidation) on our part you made granola and baked things--pies, cookies and homemade bread--to sell at the Farmers Market two mornings a week. You didn’t get rich, but gained some great experience.
    Then there was your anxious call when you had a driving accident at an intersection in town a few years later, one that totaled the family car. It wasn’t your fault, but you were worried sick over the damage to our vehicle. Believe me, all we could think was how grateful we were to have you alive and unharmed.
    The memories keep coming. Your summer mission trip to Chicago, your sophomore college year in Ecuador, your recent two years of voluntary service with BorderLinks, shuttling back and forth between Tucson, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. Today you’re putting your experiences to work as a migrant services worker in Rochester, New York, and preparing to marry your Chad, a first year resident at nearby Strong Memorial Hospital. 
    Joanna, your name means “Jehovah is gracious.” Your life has been a wonderful gift indeed, more than we ever deserved. Now, so soon, must we really give you away?
    With Tevya at the time of his daughter’s wedding to Motel (in “Fiddler on the Roof”) we muse,

    "Is this the little girl I carried?
    Is this the little boy at play?
    I don’t remember growing older. When did they?
    Sunrise, Sunset... swiftly fly the years...
    Laden with happiness and tears."

    With all our love (and a few tears),

    Dad c. 2000