The Gene R. Mauk Effect

 

I have known Gene Mauk for around 51 years. Knowing Gene for that length of time, I am bound to have been influenced by him, especially when 96% of that time has been spent as an in-law. Some of Gene inevitably rubbed off on me, and I believe that because of his impact, I am a better man.

The great love he has for Jan, his wife, and his four children, Cindy (Cynthia), Steve (Stephen), Rob (Robert), and John (John) worked wonders in making me a better husband and father.

Gene’s attention to detail showed in restoring his beloved 1930 Ford Model A made me a better woodworker on my various little projects and a better mechanic on our various vehicles.

Gene’s passion for hiking and mountain climbing, and his focus on the many lists for these and other pursuits, including seeing total eclipses, overnighting in all 50 states, and others, inspire me to be aspirational. I’ve created a list based on the trifold, “City of Glendale Trails and Fire Roads”, which I found in Gene’s office. I am hiking them to honor my Father-in-law.

Jan and Gene both valued education and were awarded college degrees. Jan demonstrated this by investing in the PTA and serving on the board for several years in various capacities, including as President. She also worked in libraries serving children at the heart of education. Gene manifested his value of education in the drive for his degree by working a full-time job and being a father while attaining his degree from California State Los Angeles.

The effect was that all four of their children attained four-year degrees. Rob earned a PhD in Molecular Biology. Cindy received an AA at Glendale Junior College, then completed Nursing School through Pasadena City College, and followed those up years later with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, leading to her receiving master’s degrees and a Doctorate in Psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary. All three of Cindy’s and my children received degrees. I am thankful that Gene and Jan set the bar high. They probably would have locked Cindy away from me had I not earned my degree before we got married.

The Gene Mauk effect reached across generations. He loved being a grandfather and getting involved whenever he could with whatever his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were doing.

The Grand Effect:

From Ashley Cornelius:

List of how I think grandpa has affected my life:

- love of nature and outdoors

- love of experiencing new places and learning about them

- knowing the value of family

- being responsible

 

(In these four bullet items, I found volumes of Gene’s effect on my kids and their lives. I am grateful to him for the affection he showed us all.)

 

From Trevor Mauk:

 

Anyone who knew my grandfather (Papa) would agree that his sense of adventure and admiration of the world's beauty is contagious. I've thought about a couple of ways he has affected me throughout my life, and how I can carry on Papa's legacy through my own mindset and actions.

 

Ingenuity and Curiosity: I recently asked Papa to confirm this story during one of my recent visits because I find it incredible, especially through the lens of our modern information era. When he was a teenager, Papa was passionate about astronomy and set out to build a telescope. Using only books he checked out from his local library, he constructed a large, fully functioning telescope; this included machining various mirrors and lenses and repurposing industrial pipe to act as the telescope body. Incredibly, though unsurprising considering Papa's grit, he got it to work. This was the same telescope I viewed stars and planets through in the La Crescenta backyard when I was a young boy. 

 

I think this is a wonderful example of how Papa lived his life with curiosity and the discipline to understand how the world works—a burning desire to understand the beauty and complexity of the universe, and a relentless determination to take a 'peek under the hood' at how it functioned. I try to carry this same spirit as I move through life, whether it's understanding how the latest car engine functions or how a snippet of code powers a web app. He taught me there is joy in understanding the details of the world.

 

Adventure and Beauty: Anyone who knows (or even knows of) Papa will know he has an incredibly adventurous spirit. I am grateful for the breathtaking hikes, camping, and summits he pushed us to tackle during our winter and summer camping trips. I find more and more of this in myself, especially as I grow older. I've begun to go on weekly hikes, challenging myself to achieve new distance/elevation personal records and seek out new beautiful places. This has allowed me to connect with the beauty of the world and myself in unique ways that I'm doubtful I'd be able to find within other areas of my life. I'm grateful for Papa's inspiration, which has pushed me to seek out natural beauty and appreciate the details in my environment.

 

I'd be hard-pressed not to mention how Papa kept this adventurous spirit going up until the very, very end. Not everyone can say they completed a 14-mile alpine hike with their grandfather in their 90s. Papa's ability to carry this mental and physical strength late into life has encouraged me to take care of myself so that I can do the same—and has made me look forward to the later years in life knowing I can still find joy and adventure in the outdoors with great company.

From Riley Mauk:

 

My grandfather, or "Poppy," as I would come to know him during the first 28 years of my life, is nothing short of remarkable in terms of the life he lived and the impact it had on me.

 

He was always there, from my earliest memories of celebrating annual holidays and family birthdays at his house to going to my basketball games and school activities. He never missed anything in the world. I am very grateful for his presence throughout my life, as it instilled the importance of family in me at a young age.

 

His sense of adventure runs in the family, and I witnessed it firsthand from my early memories of backpacking in the Sierras to our desert trips exploring old, abandoned ghost towns. I'm so fortunate that I was able to share these experiences with my grandfather, like hiking along the PCT with him in the Sierras and Cascades.

 

One of my fondest memories was when he stood at the trailhead of Whitney Portal to congratulate me (and the rest of the team) on successfully reaching the peak earlier that day.

 

My grandfather affected my life in a number of ways, most notably: the foundation and importance of family, his love of the Sierras, and the State of California, as well as the Los Angeles area, and the passion for traveling and exploring new places.

From Lauren Chambers:

My Grandpa, Gene Mauk, was always a loving presence in my life.  But as a child and growing up, I always gravitated towards Nana.  After Nana’s stroke and she was living at Oak Park Healthcare Center, I spent many mornings or afternoons visiting Nana.  Sometimes the visits had numerous people there, and sometimes it was just Grandpa and me.  I got to know my Grandpa in a whole new way and grew a deeper relationship with him.  For me, this was the bright silver lining of the dark cloud of my Nana’s stroke.     This relationship ultimately led to my daughter being named Becca Gene.  I hope the “Gene Mauk effect” will continue by passing down their stories and acting in kind, loving, and thoughtful ways. 

From Daniel White:

In the mountains and the night sky, in an overture of classical music, I am with my Grandpa. Grandpa’s relationship with these elements has forever affected mine.

By far, the most epic backpacking journey of my life was a trip I took with just me and him - 75 miles of the PCT in 10 days, from Sonora Pass to Tuolumne Meadows. We all know of Grandpa’s meticulous planning and tracking with lists, but what I remember most about that journey was simply his joy of being in his element up in the Sierras. One day in particular was a difficult hike, up the side of a deep valley, reaching the apex, only to look across another valley we were to traverse before dark. Every time I reached a peak, I would wait for a few minutes for him to catch up, and every time he caught up, a huge grin from ear to ear, showing both his satisfaction of overcoming and pure wonderment at nature’s marvel. Another day, while we took our lunch break, we decided we would try to camp out by a lake a little off the trail instead of the designated campsite. We had so much fun just locating this lake we found on the map. We reached the point in the trail where we calculated the lake to be, got our compasses out, and headed directly into the dense forest. And we ran right into it, it turned out to be little more than a pond, but he took so much delight in our successful diversion from the plan and finding a place a little less travelled.

He also affected me in my appreciation of the sky. As you can imagine, we spent a fair amount of time looking up at the cosmos on our trips while we sat by our humble campfires and pondered our place in the universe. I also admired his dedication in building his own telescope and the way he took great pleasure in capturing views of other worlds so far away. I often think about those times still, when I stargaze today.

I also have a greater appreciation for classical music because of Grandpa. We would listen to classical music on our long drives to the trailheads. I then started mixing some into my rotation of alternative, grunge, punk, and ska. He would sometimes test me if I knew the composer of a song that came on and he would look so full of pride when I would get one right occasionally. I remember he asked the question at a family party one time, and I was the only one who got it right - Vivaldi, if memory serves me right - and I felt a great sense of pride as I saw how happy Grandpa was that I had gotten it right.

So no big thing, Grandpa only affected me by teaching me to appreciate the mountains, the sky, and the sound of music.

Dear Chrissy

Dear Chrissy,

How can the sun be shining? That is what I asked myself this morning as I hiked up the mountain with Todd. It seems to me that the day should have been overcast, drizzling, and dreary, and more befitting of my feelings since getting the news of your going home. Once I got over my indignity at the sun for such an outrage and disgust at the gentle breeze that cleared the way for me to see the ocean, I could see that this was the perfect day for your homecoming. I know that you were greeted by Jesus with, "Welcome home, good and faithful servant. Well done."

I have missed you these past weeks. There will be an empty spot that, thankfully, Jesus will need to fill and most assuredly will. At your darkest hours, you can make me feel blessed and warmly received. I felt like a rock star whenever we saw each other, all because I had the good fortune of spending a little extra time with your kids, which was a huge blessing to me.

Austin and Nicole have been at the center of your world, they were two of your reasons to hold on as long as you could. I don't believe you feared death but instead were possessed by a fierce desire to live, to see your kids well on their way in life, to hold on to Todd for as long as possible, and to be there for your friends while you were about the business of the Kingdom of God. After all, we have only a short time here with our loved ones and an eternity with Jesus. You thirsted for life; indeed, you thirsted for The Life, and I know you found it and shared it unabashedly.

Grief will visit us. It will be sharp and poignant for your family and the closest of your friends. It will come to them in waves. Some waves will lap at their feet and be gentle reminders of all you are to them: your kindness and love and your ability to make them the center of your universe. Some waves will try to overwhelm them, and we'll need to stand with them to ensure they are not swept out to sea. God's grace is sufficient, and He will provide.

I know that for myself, I asked, "Why Christine? Why was there no miracle healing?" Honestly, I've been a bit miffed. Others will feel the same. I went down that deep dark path years ago with a friend when I held on to my anger far too long, so long that it turned to bitterness and that bitterness separated me from my Lord. I caution folks to let the anger go, hold on to the love with their big hearts, and let God be God. We may never know his purpose in our losses. He must be enough for us.

I will continue to be sad for myself, sad for that marvelous core group of friends of yours, and sadder still for Todd, Nicole, and Austin. But I will also spend a lot of time marveling at nature and the lush green pastures and the valleys you now have with their lakes and streams, and I will praise the name of Jesus that I have the good fortune to call you my friend.

In His grip,

Jerry

PS – I have taken the liberty of scanning some of the comments from your friends and family and have listed some that ring particularly true to me here. Some of these are only a piece of what they wrote, some are all. At last count, there were 180 comments on the family post at this writing and these are but a few:

From Phil Van Horn, "Brokenhearted and inspired…all at the same time."

From Alfred Berumen, "I share your grief for someone with such a beautiful soul. Chrissy was always a gem of delight and personality and she had fabulous "Hair Pirate" hair. We all loved her so much. Peace and strength sent to your family."

Sarah Rush: "I'm sending you all my most heartfelt love and will be praying for you. I was heartbroken to hear the news of precious Chrissy's passing last night. I've prayed so fervently for her the last 5 years. I know she's with Jesus, but my heart is so heavy. God bless you dear ones."

Karen Gee McAuley, "We are so blessed to have known and loved her. We will remember her, full of love, light and baked goods to rival a pastry chef, her sense of humor and humanity. God called her home and while we miss her so much, we are grateful that she is finally at peace."

Lisa Li: "What a loss, such a ray of sunshine no matter the clouds. May she fly high as know she would."

Jennifer Horn: "Such an amazing woman filled with so much sparkle…"

Alice Hill: "My heart breaks while her soul finds peace. I know she is in the loving arms of our Lord, with no more pain and no more fear, only love. She will be missed by everyone left behind, because she was truly one of the special ones. Her loving spirit lit up a room as soon as she walked in and I am sure heaven felt that amazing spirit when she arrived."

Sue Volz Peters: "I'm so very sorry to read this news! Chrissy was a bright beacon of light!"

Sharon Marks Boudreaux-Stam: "I'm so sorry for your loss. She was such a beautiful person inside and out."

Michele Hetherington Fernandez: "We love you all so much & our lives have been forever changed from having Christine & your family in them."

Greg Stoney: "I'm so gutted. Such a sweet human taken from us much too early. I feel honored to know her…"

Amanda Minkey Granier: "Gonna miss my sweet friend so much  but so blessed to have had her in my life for so many years. I will cherish our times together, our laughs, our cries, our talks and everything in between."

She was truly one of a kind and touched so many hearts! She loved loved her family and was so proud of all of you!

Terry Kappen: "OMG!!! I am shocked to hear this news! My heart is breaking! I am so sorry Todd, Nichole, and Austin. Chrissy fought the long fight. She trusted God to see her through this for 5 years and never gave up. She now can have the peace she and everyone that loves her have been praying for. She was the kindest, God-fearing person I knew, she had helped me through many of trials in my life."

180 and counting…

It Will Find You...

 

I have spent the whole day running from it, ducking into anything to hide from it, evading it at nearly any cost. Like from Dodgeball, “Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.” I poured myself into useless phone apps in the predawn hours. I read the L.A. Times, mostly for the funny pages. I did crossword puzzles to distract myself because I work a puzzle, I get zoned in on it.

Then I inundated myself by waking up hibernating projects. I took a writing piece to the next stopping point and handed it off and still the worry nagged at the edges of my heart and mind. I worked on digitizing old VHS tapes of my grandfather’s 8mm film reels. The device I’d been successfully using crapped out on me so I drove them to a pro with a next step of viewing Cindy’s and my VHS tapes to do the same with the ones we want to preserve. The old DVD/VHS player didn’t play the tapes at all and I was stuck again. To prove the stupid box is connected right I stuck in a DVD and it played masterfully. I let Silverado play through getting lost in western gunfights and awesome dialog. Still, it was always in my periphery. So clearly was it in the edge of vision, I almost cursed the talent that helped me steal hundreds of passes and disrupt even more plays on the basketball court.

I stayed off social media because of Facebook’s constant reminders of past posts on this day four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, last year. I forced myself not to group text; “let them be”, I told myself.

Grief.

The simple definition for this unfathomable process is a deeply poignant anguish caused by bereavement. This is the “it” that has been dogging my tracks today on the fourth anniversary of my mom’s death. The honest truth is that grieving her loss, which followed so closely the loss of my dad, provides a one-two punch that is difficult for me to slip and get in an offensive rhythm of my own. Most days I can dance around the ring and trade blows while staying on my feet and scoring a few touches of my own. I can get things done that need doing, do things that I enjoy doing, and tackle responsibilities that, while I’d rather do something else, I can do them anyway.

What I find most effective is staying toe-to-toe with grief when it enters the ring and face it for what it is. Sometimes it is even better to get close, close enough to get into a clinch and wrestle with it. The only referee for me in a fight like this is Jesus. He can pull us apart and send us to our corners, give me a standing eight-count when I need it, and keep the fight fair. The problem with a bout like I had today is that when I run, hide, and avoid the conflict, my Referee can’t act and I end up exhausting myself. Fighting grief is best done as a tag-team match with our closest of confidants.

We handle grief in our own ways and wrestle with it and grapple with emotions that are as individual as our fingerprints. I don’t recommend running from it nor do I suggest we engage with it to the point it consumes us. Do not deny it, it will only build up to a breaking point. Don’t fill the void with excessiveness or stupid things. Playing hide and seek on a blank canvas surface surrounded by ropes designed to keep combatants together is not a productive approach.

When I spend too much time with pointless mechanisms to handle losses, I end up not being an effective person; I don’t love right and I don’t serve effectively, and these things lead to a self-loathing whirlpool. Breaking the hold with these things weighing us down is doggone difficult and many times we need help in getting back into the flow of life. Reach out and tag them in to help.

When grief taps you on the shoulder and challenges you to meet in the parking lot, turn ever so calmly, look it in the face, and take grief on right there. Don’t screw up the rest of your day worrying over meeting a bully later.

In His grip,

jerry

It is a Pilgrimage

 

Photos courtesy of my Storyblocks subscription

I have been consulting with my friend Webster about the word ‘journey’. The word is all around us these days and I’ve thought about it quite a bit but recently two young friends lost their mother and referred to their experience with her failing health into home-hospice care to its conclusion as a journey.

Now, Noah and the Merriam brothers have given me some formal meaning to journey. As a noun, three descriptions: 1 – Something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another, 2 – an act or instance of traveling from one place to another (trip), and 3 – in a chiefly dialectal sense, a day’s travel. As a verb, intransitive and transitive respectively – to go on a journey or to travel over or through. They go on to give me all sorts of great information about the word but that’s not my point and I don’t want to derail my thoughts.

Journey is an apt and excellent word to use when describing path taken with a loved one from hale and hearty through illnesses and their treatments to hospice and working hard to graciously escort the loved one to end of their time on earth.

My problem with the use of journey is not in their usage but in the banal use of the word for everything from a person’s rise to stardom from the ashes of poverty (not a bad place for the word) down to their ‘journey’ to the pet store for cat litter. Since when did the commonplace act of getting into the car, driving to the pet store, waving their Apple Pay at the device, and coming home with cat litter become a journey? Unless the person got in a wreck, was arrested for dangerous driving or maybe got into a road rage incident, and barely made it home alive and just in time for the cat, it was not a journey. And even then, there are more apt and exciting language to use for those types of things. We have cheapened the word ‘journey’ with overuse and stale thinking.

My trek for a descriptive word for what we go through as my young friends have done took me from Webster and friends to Roget and on through basic internet searches. I won’t overload you all with the many alternatives I have come across, that is for your own excursion. I’ll get right to the word that struck paydirt for me – pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage, defined by Merriam-Webster as a noun is: 1 – a journey of a pilgrim, especially one to a shrine or a sacred place, or 2 – the course of life on earth. It works as a verb as in, go on a pilgrimage. For the Christian, or any religious order believing in an afterlife or next-life, pilgrimage works wonderfully. For the atheist, not so much – there is only life, then death and whatever good the body is put to afterwards. Alas, no sacred place for them so not too much of a pilgrimage.

When we accompany someone along the inexorable path of life that leads from living to the doorstep of the next life, whether if be as a family member, a friend, or as a nurse or volunteer at a center to people previously unknown to them, we have been given one of the deepest of privileges. It is an honor to serve as a guide, a companion, or even as a crutch to a person on their last leg of the pilgrimage of life. It is crushing to hold their hand as they breath their last and hear someone say, ‘she’s gone’. Crushing until we can sit back and understand the courtesy we’ve been afforded by being present when our companion is in ultimate rest after so much pain. Better to have held their hand than to have had them taken from our presence only to pass away a short time later.

If we are tasked with walking side by side with someone in the final stages of their pilgrimage, we need resources to draw from – other friends, family members, and a higher power – in my case and in the case of the two young friends I wrote of at the beginning of my post, Jesus Christ whom we know greets our loved ones and welcomes them home.

While considering these things, I have come to a better understanding of what I went through with my mom and dad a few short years ago. I see it now in a more favorable light as though a photographer of great artistic talent captured the true nature of their subject. It’s easier on the eyes and warmer in the heart to believe their pilgrimage was successful. I am more thankful now for the courtesy afforded to me by my Lord to have been alongside my folks to see them home.

I hope and pray that this helps my friends find a greater measure of peace when they read this as I hope it does other readers. May God grant that this reaches the mark.

With peace in my heart and I in His grip,

jerry

Dear Ric

 

Harmony Pines - September 1995

My friend, I heard you left yesterday to walk through the gates where I am certain you heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Welcome to My rest.” While I am happy with that outcome for you I must confess that I am saddened by the loss, I’ve missed you for years and now I’ll kick myself for not taking a ride to Prescott.

We were partners in ministry to some incredible young people, including our own children. We washed feet together, broke bread, and hustled after kids decades younger than us. While we served under some incredible interns, directors really, we had enough in the tank to teach them a thing or to. We weren’t afraid to share our injuries with them and because of that, they were open to our hearts and heard the Gospel from us in real terms.

Many of those kids are parents now themselves, incredible parents. There are some great cooks and teachers and youth workers and yes, even an ordained Presbyterian Minister of the Word and Sacrament. Indeed, well done Ric, and well met.

One of my favorite memories with you was the Harmony Pines Camp we did along with your outstanding wife Peggy and the ever faithful James Delbis. We were between interns at the time and the four of provided the content for the weekend, “It’s Not About Me”. My future son-in-law was among the campers. But maybe I’m mixing up the camps as we did several of them up there including the one from 1995 pictured in this post.

Anyway, the lesson you brought one night was classic as you did a riff from the story I share with kids about not being bitter against God and how it separates us from Him. We were in that small meeting cabin with about a dozen or so Junior Highers with a nice fire in the fireplace and firewood all around, some we’d brought ourselves. You were driving home the point of being split from God using a sledge hammer with a log splitting wedge and pounding it out, very dramatic. With the final split a hive of carpenter bees was released into the cabin and all heck broke loose – kids screaming and running every which way and four adults opening every window and door while making a valiant attempt at ushering the poor confused bees out. Those things don’t bite or sting but they are terrifying. I think if any of the kids read this letter to you will see the whole thing all over again.

I want to thank you for all of that, you mean the world to me for it.

Let’s go back to before our ministry together to when Cindy and I rejoined the church with our little family. You and Peggy were assigned to us as we came out of the new members’ class. The system then was that each new member had an established member, or couple in the case of married couples, joining the church and you guys drew our names. You’d been warned to treat us with kid gloves because of the disillusionment we had from our old church that led to us being without a church home for somewhere around ten years. You both were so kind. A bit hesitant but so very kind. Once we shared the story with you and laughed off the tentativeness we slid right in to church life. Thank you, both of you.

You are whole now and with eyes wide open in awe of the place you are at and in Jesus’ presence. I’m grateful for that. Just the same, I’m sorry I didn’t jump on the bike and come out.

In His grip, your friend,

jerry

Lonely Vigil

 

For the most part I was alone for the day. I awoke around 3a.m. and took over for Denise as she’d had a long shift. Textbook vigil. Dad was always a fighter – on the wrestling mats of Gardena High School, in and around the gridirons of football, in the boxing ring on the USS Point Cruz. His biggest fight, he lost. Smoking is a mother-effer to kick and he couldn’t and so we were on a vigil for the final count. Emphysema was the knockout punch that smoking threw at him and he couldn’t duck it though he fended it off as long as he could because he fought death up to his final few breaths.

With the exception of a bathroom break and a few moments to force myself to eat and stand outside to pray and be met by God’s Spirit, I stayed with him from the time I awoke until I helped carry him to the transport van and watched it roll down the driveway. We tried as best we could to keep him from being restless, as good as the uneducated can with drugs prescribed by people with M.D. after their names. I pictured the final fight scene in Rocky where he took a beating from Apollo Creed only my dad couldn’t block a punch nor throw one back and there was no referee to stop the fight, nobody but me in his corner to the throw in the towel. And I did.

Bob came by at some point in time and sat with us for a half an hour or forty minutes and we talked as he kept me company. He’d lost his own mom and had his own vigil not all that long ago. Denise stopped by from time to check on me and I told her I was okay and that I had it 'under control'. The struggle for a man in respiratory distress is violence contained in one rented hospital bed. I’d lied. That’s what big brothers do. But I wasn’t okay and I knew it but by the end of the vigil I did have it under control. God’s Grace is sufficient.

Mom came over for the last couple of hours and was there with me at the end, the two of us holding dad’s hand. She had her own massive fight going on while we helped her struggle to regain her strength and endurance. Throughout the day I played various renditions of Amazing Grace for him, mom liked that. The end finally came with the three clearest and easiest breaths I’d seen him take in years. It was a quiet end to a lonely vigil.

Now I’ve just told you about people coming by and sitting with me so how could this be lonely? It was lonely by choice. I could take in their comfort only so deeply as to get me to the next moment. If I had allowed myself to connect as much as my soul screamed for I would have lost it and not been up to the task for dad, or have been there for Denise or Bob or Mom or Stacey...

It has been 537 days since this happened, why bring it up now? Because I sit removed by a couple of short miles from friends and family on their own vigil and because I love them so much that I am on vigil as well, only somewhat removed.

These are the cruelest of vigils, the meanest of fights, when we have given ourselves over to inevitability. How I hate these things. I badly want to spare them this waiting, sit in their place for them. However, I am not allowed and must suffer my own portion as best I can and pray they have peace on the front lines of their particular fight. I grieve already for my friend, his family, and his friends.

This probably sounds like a lot of unbelief and lack of faith and that is correct. It is. And so the only thing I can really say is Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus.

In His grip,

jerry

Where Did That Come From?

 

Where Did That Come From?

God is The Creator and he created man in his own image. Therefore, man is creative. This is the line of thinking that spurred me to become a writer. When I was young, I used to think my creativity was expressed on the basketball court. Perhaps it was true, but to be honest, it was a low target (and likely a copout) so when I couldn’t play, what then? I searched and now I write. Here I go…

While condensing my parent’s lives from a house and woodcrafter’s shop on ten acres with storage in every nook and cranny to a target of a family history and distributed memories, I have over the past 18 months drifted in and out of grief and written of it from time to time. Today I was at the storage facility where we keep boxes of stuff (tools, papers, photos, memories), high-end golf equipment, a piece of furniture, and an old workbench. My target for the day was to dismantle the workbench.

My objective was troubling to me and I went about the work with a haze of melancholy draped over my shoulders. It was easy for me to understand. The bench was older than me. My grandfather built it for his workshop in Gardena. My dad brought it to La Crescenta and put it in his little workshop that he had excavated underneath our deck in the backyard in La Crescenta and he then moved it to Merlin, Oregon and created amazing works of intarsia on it.

I moved it to the storage facility with the thought we would move it to Ashley and Matt’s new place in Santa Barbara once they were organized in their garage and they would create on it. However, the bench needed a lot of work to be stable and it was on its last legs. I discussed this at length with Ashley and we decided to move it to an alternate place which would have been in our backyard as a potting bench. It still needed a lot of work and we don’t pot much so we passed and there was no one in the family who could use it.

When I put screwdriver, claw hammer, and prybar to the bench I was saddened. I could not figure out how to get another generation out of this thing. I removed the three-sixteenth-inch steel top and decided to put it on the worktable I’d built in my own garage. As I stacked the 2x12s and 2x4s on my dolly I sunk a little deeper into glummyland but when I got down to the 1x stuff, a tongue-and-grove backing and some support strips, I remembered the Christmas trees I’d made of the old roofing materials from our front porch project and now I think there will be a Christmas tree or two to pass along. Then I remembered the bird houses and other decorative things I made from the old cedar fencing from our replacement project and I think there will be birds finding new nesting places.

The wood from a two-generation old workbench will find new life with three more generations; mine, my kids, and their kids.

Thinking about how creativity sprung from a feeling of melancholy lead me to wondering what it was that inspired God to create. Was He melancholy and then turned his creativity to making everything we see and feel? Was She lonely? These are not questions I will try to answer – they are way beyond my paygrade. It likely has something to do with the fact that God is love and needs entities to express that love toward.

While pondering this and wondering where sparks of creativity come from and what motivates someone to create, I came across one of my favorite Bible verses:

Psalm 121: 1 – “I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

No mater the source or who your muse is, once the spark is set to the idea, put your heart and hands to the task and see what good comes from it.

In His grip,

jerry

 

Author’s note: Melancholy may not be the proper word for me to use in describing my feelings of the day as an online definition reads, “a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause”. I know the cause but I like the term and my friend Webster’s definitions give me some latitude so I’m keeping melancholy. After all, it’s my story.

A Love So Sweetened

 

A year ago tomorrow, my love was sweetened through the cost of bitter tears and tears of relief and sadness, and some of love and thankfulness.

I had the onus of sitting with my dad through his last hours, how many it does not matter. My mother joined me for the last couple of hours or so, my brother-in-law spent time with me and my sister as well. I say ‘onus’ and indeed, the task was heavy. But onus is not quite the right word, too negative. It was not a pleasure, to be sure, but it was a place and time of honor, of the deepest intimacy that I could experience with my dad, the moment in time when he reached a final peace after what seemed an age of suffering.

We sat together with him holding his hand and as he breathed his last three breaths and it was eye-opening. He breathed free and easy for the first time in years and he went with a look of astonished wonderment on his face knowing that he would be breathing easy forever after.

All this is fine but what did it do for me right after or what does it do for me now? It allowed me to let go and love more sweetly. Love for my dad, for my mom, and for anybody I am brave enough love – my kids, their kids, and a wide range of family and friends and acquaintances. If I let myself do it.

I wish I’d known this as a young man when I lost friends far too early, family so near, and as an older man feeling the same as the losses grew. It is hard to forget them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not been so encumbered by losing friends and family as others, many others, maybe even most others.

Over the years I have told others that they have big hearts. Hearts big enough to hold the memories of a lost loved one and to continue loving others and even ‘another’. It is no disrespect the departed to love more fiercely, more sweetly once they have gone, it is an accolade to memories of them. As my friends David, Stephen, Graham, and Neil like to say, ‘love the one you’re with.’

My cousin is showing me this right now as they sit with her husband along with his mother, her mother, their kids, and grandkids, as many as can be there. They are in a place to love more. More sweetly. And they are doing so and inspiring me and warming me up. Thank you, cousin.

Hug your loves more tightly, speak to them more tenderly, laugh with them more often, be sweeter to them always.

And yes, I believe my love for Jesus has been so sweetened.

In His grip,

jerry

Waves of Grief

 

Personal observations on the process and state of grief upon the loss of a parent or spouse, or maybe worse yet, a child:

Grief is like standing on the beach just in the surf-line where most of the waves lap up and tickle our toes and encompass your foot. As the wave recedes we can feel the sand erode from under our feet and sense that if we stood there long enough, the beach would altogether cover us up.

Now and again a wave comes in as an ankle slapper and we get surprised but not too worried at the sensations. Then an outsider comes and we are standing up to our thighs in the ocean and we feel like we’ll be pulled out to sea. And so we sob quietly but manage to recover on our own though the emptiness leaves us hungering for another day with our loved one.

Then there is the rogue wave. The ones we hear about that come unexpected and wash people out to sea because they weren’t being vigilant while going about their day on the beach or sitting on the jetty letting their minds wonder. The wave takes us out, off the beach and into a surf so roiled as we feel we may drown. We need help, a lifeguard to show up in his rescue dory or maybe in a Baywatch boat. We need them to pull us in and take us to safety.

Let the toe ticklers do their work. Let the ankle slappers have their way. Be wary of the outsiders and stand firm. Let the lifeguards to their job and bring us in when the rogue wave crashes over us and tosses us about. If you don’t see them, call out and someone will come for you.

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Author’s Notes:

During the past six months my family has endured the loss of both my parents, first my dad early in September 2020 and then my mom ten weeks later in November. Neither was the result of covid-19 and the path we followed starting this last July was shocking and unexpected, almost violent. No, certainly violent to our souls.

While traveling the path of grief I have on occasion written a piece about each of my parent and put up various Facebook posts on the sensations of grief and loss. I took the first motorcycle ride with friends since this all began for me and we ended up at Duke’s Malibu for lunch out in their patio dining area. The above piece came to me while enjoying discussions ranging from home sales riding and what the future has in store for us as we learn to contend with the pandemic. We did not speak about my loss and grief but the waves coming up on the rocks below us and the vast Pacific Ocean stretching out in front of us spoke clearly to me.

Putting up the above observations as a Facebook post generated good discussion points and a great deal of sympathetic replies. One such reply came from my friend Lisa Brickner, a practicing psychologist. She suggested that with so many people in isolation and experiencing the ravages of loneliness that I should submit the writing to newspapers, something I’ve never done. Once I put this post up on Calvary’s Thread I will heed the advice of the professional and submit it somehow to our various local papers and perhaps to the Grants Pass Daily Courier where I will shortly be sending the obituary for my parents.

As a Christian, I have the additional benefit of The Great Lifeguard, Jesus Christ, and his followers.

I am no professional, simply a man in grief feeling his way along the surf line.

Forever In His Grip

 

Forever in His Grip

He evolved. During a lifetime of being a leader and possessing intelligence, of being athletic and artistic - dad applied those things to a changing landscape of passions throughout his life. Russell Jay White, aka RJ to my mom and friends, aka Russell to his mom, aka Rusty to his aunts and uncles, and Russ to just about everybody else. Dad and Batman to me.

Dad was class president as a senior and while I don’t know his GPA, I know he was among the top of his class. He led. He was in the DeMolay and that required commitment and leadership. Following high school he went into the Navy and while he was never an officer, he was looked up to by his peers and he led them. He went to work at Pacific Bell Telephone and Telegraph and led his way up from an entry level installer position to a be second level manager and his people loved him. He figured things out and designed systems and procedures that improved every team’s performance.

I am not sure what sports dad participated in as a little boy as it seems we never talked about that. As a high school athlete he was an all-league football player, went to the state gymnastics meet in floor exercise, and was an all-state competitor in wrestling. While playing for and being captain of the football team at El Camino College, Paul Hornung pointed to him and, using some profanity, said to keep that guy out of my face. While Hornung didn’t remember it specifically, he smiled at my telling of the story and said that sounded like something he’d have said. While in the Navy, dad boxed and was the ship’s champion. Not a bad accomplishment on an air craft carrier with 1200 men on it. I was a different athlete and once he figured that out he helped me go my way into baseball, basketball, and track.

He and mom got into racquetball in their mid-forties and I rarely beat him. He won a few club tournaments. Then it was golf, something that took he and mom on wonderful journeys and tourneys. I never beat him.

He evolved.

He loved music. He played clarinet in the school band, must have fooled around with the French Horn because we have one in a closet at the big house. He played keyboard, harmonica, and the kazoo. He sang in the choir and had a lovely voice that ranged from basso to baritone. I got none of this from him and only played the drums one year as a sixth-grader. He finished his singing activities by being part of the praise choir at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Grants Pass, Oregon.

He loved building and home projects and creating cool spaces and watched every nail being driven into the house he and mom built in Merlin, Oregon. Later in life he discovered Intarsia, the art of making wood mosaics using the natural colors and grains of various types of wood. He loved making them for family and friends and he told me he thought lovingly about each person as he created the piece. A bit of his soul rests in every piece he made. He had Stacey and Denise and every grandchild pick a piece from the pattern catalogs he had and then he went out to his shop, found the various woods, cut them, sanded them, and pieced them together, sealing in the textures of his love with coats of varnish. He didn’t have me pick mine as he had one he wanted to do for me and it was spot on – the Red-tailed Hawk, my favorite bird. It is one of the most ubiquitous birds and is found in every state of the union but Hawaii. I call it the “Everyman Bird”.

I was relocating mine today so I could put the piece that I brought back from their house as my keepsake and my red-tail now sits where I can see it out of the corner of my eye as I write. While moving it I looked on the back to his inscription, “For ‘Stick’. Together in His grip. Dad 10-24-05”. ‘Stick’ is the nickname he gave me and the one I hold dearest to me of the oh-so-many nicknames I have. I sign off many of my letters and emails ‘In His grip’. It is a phrase I want desperately to always be true.

In His grip,

jerry

Regarding Grief

Grief comes upon us in many guises and we often wonder what it was about the little nuance that caused us to weep with a sadness best left undefined. It can ride in on the wings of a random hummingbird to touch our cheek as a kiss blown from across the room or it might crash over us as a Banzai Pipeline wave, one we’d have much rather ridden the long board on or even watched from afar.

It would be best if we could embrace and accept it as our own but it just isn’t always ours to enwrap. Our empathy for another, one stung by the sharp barbs of loss, locks us into their hearts and we feel as they do but we can only wrap them in our arms and hold tight while they are wracked by nameless pain. It is theirs to claim, they are ours to love through it.

When it is our own though, do we push it away, run from it into some escape hatch, or deny it all together? Make it our own I say, let it rush through us to cleanse and bring new joy at some forgotten memory of our lost one. Hold the best of them to ourselves to inform and shape a future without them at our side. After a while the rivers of feeling will run clean and pure like the rivulet from the base of Bridalveil Fall.

Writer’s note: the Ahwahneechee Native Peoples called the fall Pohono which means “Spirit of the Puffing Wind”. I ran across this today while looking into the fall and after I’d already used the simile, ‘as a kiss blown from across the room’. The Ahwahneechee called the falls Pohono because the fall is often blown sideways and during a lite flow of the creek may not reach the ground directly below the origins of the fall.

I note it because I think grief can often be like this - blown here and there by winds of time and emotion only to find rest in places we can’t predict.

Peace friends.

To Laugh or To Cry?

(courtesy of my storyblocks.com account)

Romans 12:15 “¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

Phil had me read a short, powerful scripture the other morning during our Zoom Men’s Meeting. The impact on me was immediate and many-faceted and continues to expand for me as I write this post. Let me lay the foundation that I would have hoped would have been known to me a bit more than twenty years ago but, as it turns out, was laid down in the beginning, as in ‘In the beginning was the Word…’

It was an earlyish Mission Arizona (MAZ) and when the senior high students were doing a project on one part of the reservation (Gila River Indian Community) and I was off with Julia, James, and the junior high students painting the interior of the Sacaton Presbyterian Church. Earlier in the week Julia and I were talking about things and a subject came up where she wanted to know what was in store for her and a tad frustrated at the progress in the area under discussion. In my hubris, I told her I would pray about it and come back to her with something. Nothing seemed forthcoming as the week rolled on.

Thursday is generally the last day of major work during MAZ with Friday the day we clean up and put the final wrappings on our projects so that we can enjoy a fun evening before trekking home on Saturday. Our painting wore on deep into the night while our paint supplies ran short. So we instructed the students that only an adult was to pour paint from the 5-gallon bucket into the individual cans and roller pans to make sure we didn’t waste any.

It was somewhere around one a.m. Friday morning when I went outside to pour paint for someone and found a good quart had been spilled on the sidewalk thus wasting the paint and making a mess that needed to be cleaned up. I probably said some inappropriate things as I went down on my knees to scrub the paint up as best I could. I know I mumbled things like, ‘those thrashers!’. I love those kids but junior boys and girls are thrashers. Everybody stayed clear of me while I worked out the week’s frustrations on the sidewalk.

A coyote jogged through the parking lot, stopped, and stared at me while cocking his head to the side to help him figure out what he was seeing. I sat up from my scrubbing and had to laugh with him and that is when I heard as clearly as I hear His voice, “It is not for you to know or determine. It is for you to laugh with her when she laughs and the cry with her when she cries.”

Reading that scripture on this Wednesday morning for me was like jumping off the rocks into a cold alpine lake. It was shocking and it awakened me to more of God's. When I was spoken to it was directly out of scripture and for twenty-three, twenty-four years, I had never realized it.

The implication is plain to me – if I want to hear God speak to me, I need to read the Bible. While I’m reading it, He will speak to me. While I’m praying or being silent, the Lord will speak to me from the Word. Homer Simpson said it very well for me, “D’oh!”

A more timely aspect of this passage from Romans is how much need the world has for us to pick it up this scripture and live it. We need to grab hold of this and in Christian empathy and concern weep with those who are in mourning for the loss of family and friends and their way of life. And we need to laugh and celebrate with those who overcome and persevere and find accomplishments in spite of a world gone sideways.

We must resist those who live in the ‘me-first’ moment. You know, the attitude that led to the ‘America First’ movement and the continued and ever deepening of America’s isolation from a world shrinking in on itself in misery and international effects? That is not of God and never will be. We are to be in the world. Not of it, no. But in it and among those who weep and laugh, celebrate and mourn. If we are to be Christ’s ambassadors in the world, we need to become really good at heeding this short verse.

Find someone and mourn or laugh with them as required.

In His grip

jerry

(images courtesy of my storyblocks.com account)