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Monday, February 14, 2005 Volume VII Number 7
by Ken Kemp
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t was our turn to bid farewell. Ted and his daughter Jo Ann were there when Dorothy transitioned from this world to the next. Jo Ann, an accomplished vocalist, sang to her mother there by her bed as she breathed her last. Ted and Jo Ann stood on either side, each holding one of her hands and then across the bed they held each other’s - the circle complete. Somehow, Jo Ann wanted her mother to know she had permission to let go. So, gently she sang a sweet refrain, in a tender but clear voice, “Come home, come home; ye who are weary come home…”
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And at the end of the chorus, “Softy and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling sweet Dorothy, come home…” And she did.
So the rest of us gathered this weekend on a rainy afternoon - as though the heavens wept, too. Some of Ted’s best pals flew in from all parts of the world. With the aid of a walker, he made his way to the front. You know you are in a big church when the “Chapel” seats over a thousand people. So there in The Chapel, we remembered her. Old hymns swelled from the grand piano and people who know how to put a sentence together and hit the punch line told stories and reminisced and painted a picture of a woman who will be long remembered for her charm, her wit, her poise, her grace and her deep faith.
It was a gathering of folks who love this couple. It’s the extended Engstrom clan – all of us part of the family. And in the Sky Room afterwards, we all reveled in being included in it. Hundreds of conversations - all energetic and animated and filled with joy as a family reunion should be. No one wanted to leave. Carolyn and I were among the last to go.
The same weekend we packed up and left our beloved Valley Center. Another kind of farewell.
Our family and friends came out, in a pouring rain, which let up just long enough to load three large vehicles – two trucks and a trailer. Looking something like the Clampets, we rumbled ninety miles down country roads and up the Interstate for the last time. The trip has been a “commute” since November 15 last year. The long haul, accompanied by faithful and generous friends, would be the final run.
There was a welcoming brigade waiting for us in our new town. It helped. Boxes, some of them wet, and disjointed pieces of furniture filled the rooms of our new house. Barnabas, our Golden Retriever, sniffed around the new territory, puzzled. The hugs and the smiles and the laughter and the teasing all said WELCOME. It was especially good, because it offset those teary good-byes back in Valley Center.
In these transitions, it’s a faith handed down through the generations, rooted in reality; faith that has become the tapestry of our lives that binds us together. We turn away and let it go at our own peril. When in the beginning Dorothy caught Ted’s eye, she let him know that she had no interest in any man who did not share her commitment to Jesus. It was straight talk. He made a straight line, on a search for people who could help him understand what she meant. He found them. Their commitment brought them to Wheaton, Illinois (among other things) to start a little church – The Church by the Side of the Road, they called it. One summer, someone knocked on our door and invited us kids to Vacation Bible School. I was in the second grade. At week’s end, Mom attended the closing ceremonies. She was so taken by the challenge made to parents that night that she came home, put us to bed, sat my Father down in the living room and told him what she saw and what she heard and what she felt. “It’s time we get ourselves right with the Lord,” she said flat out. It was the same tone Ted heard from Dorothy a few years earlier. Dad knew she was right. He agreed. So right there, on a Friday night on Evergreen Street in Wheaton, Illinois, my mother and father, young parents of four going on seven children, knelt down on the couch in the living room and through their tears confessed their foolish pride and claimed forgiveness and opened their hearts to Jesus and there they pledged from that day forward to be a God-centered family.
And from that day on, everything changed.
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On this Monday morning, you are a leader.
It will be a lonely Valentine’s Day for Ted. For sixty-five years, he took Valentine’s Day seriously. Dorothy knew she was cherished. He made sure of that, every year. This year, she’s a newbie in Heaven. It’ll be a lonely dinner table without her.
Think about that when you look across the table at your Dorothy. Or your Ted. Look long enough into those eyes to see the gift you’ve been given.
Cherish the moment. Someday, there will be a farewell.
But not tonight.
Posted in Placentia, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2005
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