1. The Early Years
2. The Depression Years
3. The Teen Years
4. Getting Married
5. Early Marriage
6. Fort Lauderdale
35. It was nice to have my parents visit me in England when I was working on my doctorate. Toward the end of my second year (spring 1995), I went to Germany for a couple months. In the lead up, my dad used the moment as an opportunity to revisit some of the places he had been during WW2. Mom of course came as well.
We visited Cheltenham in the south where my dad was stationed in England. I believe we drove to Paris, taking a ferry from Dover to Calais. In Paris, we have a picture of mom with the seat belt under her jacket by accident. It took a moment to figure out why she couldn't get out of the car. She had zipped up the coat over the seat belt. We took a train but didn't stop in Nancy where he had been stationed in France. We went to Mannheim where he had been stationed in Germany.
From there we went to Munich where we visited Dachau. Then we took a train to Zurich and on to Basel and Bern, places Dad had gone on vacation while he was in Germany. For all my planning, the train from Munich to Zurich briefly ran across Austria, which was not on our travel pass. Dad had to cough up a little unexpected money for that ever so brief passage of the journey. It was a meaningful trip for dad and fun for mom.
They came over for my graduation from Durham in December 1996. Professor James Dunn and his wife Meta kindly had lunch with us after the ceremony.
For a while, Angie and I found some excuse to go back to Europe at least every other year. 2001 was the year of the big family trip with both Angie's parents and my parents along with the four kids. I was giving a paper at St. Andrews for a conference, so we all started up there. From there we traveled to Paris. It was quite an ordeal getting all those children and all that luggage on and off of trains. We got home just weeks before 9-11 would change travel forever.
Angie likes to tell a story of us at a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. I was the only person who spoke any French at all, but I was pushing Tommy in the stroller (I don't think I sat down for five years). My parents kept saying in English, "We need to wait for Kenny to get back so we can order." The waiter spoke no English and was incredibly frustrated. Finally they all just pointed to who knows what.
The final trip to Europe with Mom came in 2004 when I was on a Fulbright in Tubingen. Angie's dad came too and we revisited some of the old haunts. We made a day trip to Munich and visited Dachau again. Angie took them to see the Grunewald altarpiece in France. I think it was the last time Mom was out of the country.
My mother was a little too proud of me. If I were to shoot someone and confess she would tell the police that I didn't really mean it. Soon after I finished my doctorate we were waiting to go into Outback to eat, and she began a conversation with the complete strangers next to her about how I was a minister and had just finished a doctorate in Bible in England. Very embarrassing!
In her later years when I would tell her what I had done on a particular week, she often assumed I had been involved in a grandiose activity substantially out of proportion to whatever it actually was. Now are you speaking there? Do they want you to be president there? No, mom, it was just a trip to Walmart.
36. Eventually they would transfer the lease on their cottage on the Frankfort Campgrounds. We had made that trip in early August every year. I think my mom had only missed one year in all her life up to that point.
That reminds me of my mother's ventures with miniature Schnauzers. My mother was not a pet person. She never had any desire to have a dog. But my sister Debbie wanted one early on in Florida, so they indulged her and got her a miniature Schnauzer named Misty. Then Debbie went off to Hobe Sound, leaving my mom to raise the dog. Suffice it to say, it became my mom's dog.
Then after Misty had died, Debbie wanted to get another dog to replace it. Not my mother's first choice, but they indulged her and got another miniature Schnauzer, Mindy. Then Debbie went off to Marion College and got married. Suffice it to say, it became my mom's dog again. Mindy died in my mom's arms at Frankfort Camp around 1988 and is buried next to our old cottage.
37. In the last years of my dad's work, GMAC flew him to Atlanta to work during the week. He would fly Delta up on Monday and fly home on Friday. In the early days, she would go up with him sometimes.
I was glad that my two stepdaughters Stefanie and Stacy were able to see the house in Fort Lauderdale before my parents moved to Lakeland. We visited in the summer of 1998. When I bought my first house on Harmon St. in Marion, we converted an attic into a room for the girls. Russ Gunsalus and I built some stairs into the attic.
My mother and father visited just after we had finished the stairs around 2000. As my dad started to go up, my mother with brutal honesty blurted out, "You're not going up there are you?" We laughed. Apparently, she wasn't sure whether my craftsmanship should be trusted or not. Wise woman.
38. As I began teaching at Indiana Wesleyan, my mother's voice was something like a little angel on my shoulder. If I said such and such, would it make her upset? Unlike Bud Bence, who wanted you to face your greatest doubts and rise to the challenge (the Houghton in him), I didn't want students to feel too uncomfortable. My far-too-subtle approach was to sow seeds that I thought would spring to life at some unexpected moment in the future as the implications dawned on them. Some of that was picturing my mother in the back of the room.
39. In her later years, my mother was not great at facing her fears. She had some cataracts that could have easily been removed by laser, but she wasn't interested, even though her eyesight was getting worse and worse. The first day I arrived at the hospital last week, she said maybe she could handle that procedure since she was handling the hospital ok.
In 2003, her brother David died of cancer. During his second marriage, he had become quite charismatic. In fact, he had disturbingly told his brother Paul that, if he had enough faith, his heart issues would go away. Now, we believe in healing, but we also believe that God doesn't always heal. And we believe in doctors too.
I don't know if it would have made a difference, but David waited too long to see a doctor. Despite his faith, he died from the cancer. My mom and her sister Bernadine came up to help him in those last days. Unfortunately, he fell off his bed at some point and my mother and Bernadine tried to lift him back up on it. My mother crushed some vertebrae and never fully recovered. That was also one of the last times she drove, driving herself from Marion to Frankfort.
Then a few years later when her grandson Jeremy graduated from high school, she crushed some more vertebrae trying to lift a stack of plates into a cabinet. Much of her immobility in her later years was because of her back pain. For over a year, she gave herself daily shots in the stomach to improve her bone density. I was proud of her for being able to do that.
When David died a month or two later, she couldn't bring herself to come back up to the funeral. Some of it was of course her back pain.
40. My father died in March of 2012. He had a significant event about a month earlier, maybe a heart attack. Again, in the category of, "if you hide it doesn't exist," they should have gone to the hospital immediately. Instead, they went to bed.
When he had his final heart event, at first my mother did call 911. But she hung up on them. They did call back immediately of course, but he was gone. I suspect there was some fear of hospital expenses in there.
My sister Debbie being a nurse has been an invaluable help this last decade. Patricia has born the brunt of taking care of my mother, and her husband Dennis has also been incredibly faithful. Patricia even hurt her back some trying to help my mother.
I have repeatedly said that my mother was a tank, but a lot of it was just smart health care under Debbie's supervision. My mother got COVID in late 2020, but smart work got her Rendezevir and a platelet wash immediately. She had a seizure at one point in which it was discovered she had a tumor around part of her brain. It turned out to be a kind that grows slowly and is survivable.
She has had countless UTIs and had pneumonia one other time. She broke her pelvis once. She has been in rehab twice. I think she overheard us talking rehab last week -- not something she would want to face at all. But she was a tank at 98!
Juanita and Debbie recently moved back to the Lakeland area. That has helped relieve some of Patricia's load. They also had some faithful helpers who would spend the night and help turn my mother when she needed it. Occasionally, Sharon and I would take a few days to help as well. My mother was incredibly fortunate to be able to spend her last days in her own home. Her mother and sister were not so fortunate.
I was able to be with her some in February, and was able to be with her for four nights last week. She was probably exposed to COVID Friday or Saturday, July 27-28. On Tuesday she was showing symptoms. On Wednesday they took her to the ER where they sat for four hours and were almost sent home without anything. They were basically sending her home to die.
Thursday they took her again by ambulance and the doctor didn't think she would make it. But she rallied and when I arrived on Saturday she seemed to be on a good path. I spent the nights with her. Monday the steriods had her saying crazy things. They had her on Lasix to drain fluids on her lungs, which meant she was constantly thirsty. I have to think those things were incredibly tiring to her body.
After I left on Wednesday she continued to decline. There were new infections in her lungs. On Friday she was telling my sisters to stop when they offered her water and food. She told me she loved me on the phone Friday night, and she died around 4:15am Saturday morning. It was pretty unexpected. The nurse called about 1am in the night to get permission to give Albumen, but she thought she would make it. But a little after 4am, her heart slowly stopped. She doesn't seem to have suffered.
And so shall she ever be with the Lord.
41. I wrote a poem when my father died, so I thought I would write one for my mother as well.
'Tis So Sweet
We cannot choose our day to die.We cannot always say goodbye.
But gratefully our time with Mom,
Allowed for us a gracious sum.
A century she walked with us.
She loved; she prayed without a fuss.
She taught us how to trust in God,
Whatever comes upon this sod.
She loved the Lord; she loved his Word.
She studied thus her soul to gird.
And when the trials upon her came,
Her God was with her through the same.
She looked for Jesus soon to come
And any day his kingdom done.
But now she'll beat us to the air,
And we will follow to her there.
We look to see you on that side
Where we forever will abide.
And until once again we meet,
Enjoy God's presence oh so sweet!
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