On October 12, 1920 Fern A. Erway was born in Sacramento, California. She became my wife in 1943. She bore our four children, and she gave them to me. She lived out her life, growing, sometimes fitfully, in ways she wanted to mature, despite dismal depressions that would sweep over her. She died peacefully, on her own terms, on January 15, 2001 having achieved a full eighty years of earthly sojourn. She lived for twelve years following a kidney transplant. The drugs that resisted rejection of the organ were taking their toll, especially on her heart. She simply decided to end the ingestion of the necessary prescriptions. We knew, six weeks before she died, that she would die. It was a special time for us – to discuss topics we had never fully addressed to each other. One of those topics related to the progress of our lives, both spiritually and as a married couple, through the decades. The conversations became benediction.
At her memorial service, the pastor read an item he found written in her Bible. It was copied from some unknown source that quoted Martin Luther in translation:
This life, therefore
Is not righteousness
Not health but healing
Not being but becoming
Not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be
But we are growing toward it.
The process is
Not yet finished
But it is going on.
This is not the end
But it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory
But all is being purified.
She asked me if I was truly pleased that I had married her. Was I disappointed? Only in one matter, I answered. I was disappointed that many days I could not make you happy. Your depressions would come on, for no apparent reason. They would hang there. When I tried to relieve pain, you struck back, and I fell silent. I must have been clumsy. She then replied, in a comforting statement: You seemed always to be happy, and that offended, but your joking, your lightness, your attempts to help me, made a difference. I would not let you know, but I was lifted inside, sometimes only a little, but in the right direction. You will never know how you shortened the wrestling of my spirit. As you know, the depressions became lighter. I learned to manage. I do not know how that could have happened without the Lord who lifted me through you. Prayer and Scripture were her resources, and mine. These have been so successful with persons using them that I wonder at the lack of their use. So it was that taking the better and higher road, we found relief, peace and maturity. Love was always there. When we were in college together, she was the catch of the class. Everyone believed her to be preferred. She let me know before our marriage that she hid her prevailing depressions that had made her privately suicidal. We moved forward, and I loved her. I still do. I am content. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020