Dear Mom and Dad

 

June 1, 2022

Dear Mom and Dad,

There is nothing I would love better than celebrating your 70^th Anniversary with you, sitting around with family and friends grouped around the lawn, the pond, up on the deck. We would raise a glass in a toast, Mimosas likely, and thank all who were there for celebrating such a rare feat of 70 years of marriage, and rightly so.

It might’ve been a bit cool when we started but don’t worry mom, it’ll warm up nicely. In the meantime, we’d be bundled up a bit and be warming each other with fond memories. Dad would be right next to you practicing his favorite pastime, keeping you warm; he was a great one for seeing you comfortable. Snippets of conversations would reach us and just as quickly, smiles would appear on our faces written in family script, age lines, some would call them, we prefer smile lines and expressions of joy accumulated over a life well lived.

I am so thankful for the legacy the two of you established for us. Cindy and I will be celebrating 46 years of marriage this year, Ashley and Matt notched their 20^th this past December, Lauren and Taylor will hit the 9-year mark in September, and Daniel and Ani just tallied up 8 years this past April. Not bad, not bad at all. Thank you.

The dance I will always remember is The Wedding Anniversary Dance in 2001 at Matt and Ashley’s wedding. It was a dance of attrition with the shortest marriages coming off the dance floor first. The last five couples were Matt’s folks Curt and Jean, Cindy and I, Kathy and Lee Craw (yet another couple the two of you had great influence with), Jan and Gene Mauk (Cindy’s parents), and you guys. What a testament!

You guys faced down events, trials, and circumstances that could have derailed the marriage. Well done. You didn’t start it off easy by getting married while the both of you were serving in the US Navy with dad being shipped overseas to Korea while mom was pregnant with me. I suppose that made me a Navy brat, short-lived as it was. You built a home in Torrance then made a big move to La Crescenta, no simple tasks.

Vacations! Oh, my Lord, the vacations we had. Bass Lake, a family destination and where we celebrated your lives, has left a multi-generational mark on us and all to the good. We had great times in Bridgeport California, fishing hiking, reading, exploring… Our family vacations with the Murphys at Balboa Island set up another tradition we still revisit from time to time.

But we cannot talk about family vacations without mentioning the trip we made to Kearny Nebraska in the Lemonwood Yellow Chevy Impala station wagon equipped with a 396 cubic inch engine. Dad had some magical way of packing gear on top of the car, one year it was a tarp arrangement and then he built a plywood box with slopped front and painted to match the car. We camped our way to Kearny to visit the Andersons. Four-corners, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, and driving through a tornado warning we had no idea was in effect. All we knew was that I had to stare out the front and call out obstacles as they appeared during lightning flashes because the headlights couldn’t penetrate the downpour.

Thank you for setting the tone for having family vacations.

I think I will finish this letter with a little about your faith and faithfulness and skip the maudlin part where I say how much I miss you and that all the memories I have come flooding back with the simplest of things, Dad’s intarsia, FB memories with Mom, and all the boxes of crap we took from your house and the treasures we are unearthing from them.

The thing that stands out the most to me is your faithfulness to Jesus, his church, and the needy folks he brought to you, people who lived with us for a time of healing, people who you served when they had nobody else. You both served as Elders in the churches you attended and your elderships had the beginnings in youth ministry as advisors and teachers and went from there to leading and guiding the churches. It has struck be recently that your ministry went from leading as elders to the pure ministry as Deacons, the get down and dirty ministry of serving the poor, the hungry, the lonely. I admire you for that.

Signing off now. 70 years is huge, one of the comforting things is knowing the count keeps growing only now in a place where you both are whole again. Thank God!

In His grip and with the deepest of loves,

jerry