Christian Transition

Tears well up as I begin this Page of the four years series related to the family of wife and children that was gifted to me from God.  That is an important communication – a gift from God, but, emphasis here is on that person who bore to me four children, and surprisingly to her, lost a fetus some days after conception.  She sometimes thought of herself as having born five children although the lost tissue was not recognizable to her.  She knew no reason for abortion and the event during her ablutions one morning stayed in her psyche for some months.  I was the only one with whom she shared the loss, and the matter was moderated in that it occurred so early after conception.  With words of comfort from me, she said she was at peace.

The years slipped by.  Her greatest complaint was that we did not have enough time together – an important factor for a person of her disposition.  I totally enjoyed our times together, but my work was always demanding of time.  I was a model of the workaholic.  However, I gradually found ways to increase our time together.  I was always occupied filling speaking engagements, preparing more than 400 speaking and preaching events in 1976, my busiest year.  This did not include the classroom lectures/discussions.  I was president of a college, and busy with a writing program.  We lived in San Francisco, a busy city offering everything to everybody.  She was not fully comfortable there, and sometimes afraid in that city.  She bore it all because she believed I was doing what God wanted me to do.  I suspect that she and our children thought some of it was more of me than God.  I am unable to objectify on it.  We worked it out.

The moment of truth arrived for the college.  We could not build on our San Francisco property.  The city was not a popular site for the evangelical Christian public, so parents tended to withhold their daughters from matriculating in what they felt, at the time, was a Sin City.  We had more men students than women, which was (and is) something of a turn from the norm in Church related colleges.  In a matter of weeks it was discovered that I had prostate cancer, and that my wife had End Stage Uremia (kidney failure).  In its projected move from San Francisco to a site I identified, the college deserved healthy leadership.  I resigned, following seventeen service years – fulfilling for me.  I left it to Fern to decide where we would live.  She had gone everywhere with me during forty plus years.  Now she could decide.  She animatedly responded that she wanted to return to Minnesota where we had once served in a church ministry, while I was also a professor in a college in Minneapolis.  So we moved to Buffalo, Minnesota, to a four-plex owned by our son and his partner – then I became a partner.  She chose some appointments, even directing the order of the rooms.  I was monitored for the cancer, after extensive operations in San Francisco.  Her condition worsened, and she was put on dialysis.  A kidney transplant followed two years after our semi- retirement.  My own time was nearly as busy as ever in various business ventures, including church interims, but there was more time than formerly.  We made the most of life extensions.  It was a beautiful period of life with total personal choices for closing years.

My wife flourished for nearly twelve years.  Her surgeon was world renowned, and would remark to me about planning for her benefit.  We had a good life together, growing old.  I took interim local assignments.  Our sons and families lived nearby in the same town.  We kept close touch with our daughters in California. One returned with her husband, becoming neighbors.  Cancers appeared in Fern’s mouth, surgically removed.  Heart began to malfunction in beat.  There was some breathlessness.  She felt she could not bear additional treatment.  She closed off medical aid.  Six weeks passed.  She delayed the scheduled arrival of our elder daughter.  Arriving, our daughter animatedly visited with her for nearly three hours.  My wife broke the conversation gently and asked me to put her to bed.  The next morning she was in a coma. The following morning she died, at eighty years of age.  Fifty seven years had passed since our vows were exchanged.  Those vows remain as strong as ever.  The love never dies. The point never leaves me that these – my wife and my children – are gifts of God.  Gifts lift the spirit.  The receiver feels love, humility and grace.  There is a sense of presence when love abides.  The family gained closure.