Michelle texted me a Father's Day greeting this morning, "Kris gets to share Father's Day with Lon today. How wonderful that must be!" I smiled and texted back a little later. But meanwhile, I tried to picture what that might mean, Kris and Lon together in heaven. What that might look like.
Just a few minutes earlier I'd run a computer search on "Lon," looking for a photo to post on Facebook. I got distracted from the photo project, but not before noting that much of what turned up in the search for files with "Lon" in the name were notes I had made about his behavior in the early days of his dementia, when something was going on but nobody seemed to know what. I was trying to document what that something was, so there are a lot of these little files. Perhaps I'll do something with them someday. But today, I thought, I'll open just one, just one and that's it.
So I did, and it was a paragraph about a tricky situation, a parent-teen softball game at church. Kris was planning to go, but he did not want Lon there, for fear of a scene. Lon, however, had read about it in the church bulletin and was making plans--because, hey, he loved softball, he was a great softball player. He was walking around with Kurt's glove and Eliza tried to take it from him. He threatened her with a fist, she had a meltdown, and then he turned into a kind parent explaining condescendingly to her that she should do what big people tell her. She was ten or eleven, and she knew that she was right and he was wrong, but she had not yet learned sometimes we had to let Dad be. And poor Kris, trying to figure out how to manage all this, appealing to me for help. He did not want Lon to be around his friends and their parents, with his craziness and misreadings exposed to others. He was afraid Lon would get angry, would look stupid, that everyone would end up deeply embarrassed.
I remember the day, but I don't remember what finally happened. Whether we outsmarted Lon and kept him from the game (which sounds mean and cowardly, but trust me, you do what you gotta do when you can't reason with people). Or if he actually went and the worst didn't happen--I'm thinking maybe he just watched the game, choosing to sit on the sidelines, aware and afraid that it was all too complicated, too bewildering. Better he should fake it on the sidelines.
So when it came time to imagine Kris and Lon together on the other side--wow. I could picture a six-year-old Kris "wrestling" with Lon on the bed. Or the 12-year-old baseball player whom Lon was so proud of. And then a lot of hard times, a lot of stuff to be angry about, to grieve, and a lot of responsibility that should have been a father's that was shouldered by the oldest son.
Eliza is celebrating Father's Day by watching the Barney tapes that Dad brought home for her when they arrived as preview tapes at the paper in the days when he was a TV critic. Barney and The Brady Bunch are concrete things her dad gave her. Kurt is moving into a new place today, where he will live as he studies to become a physician.
Me? I fled the Barney tapes and tried reading in the back yard. But it's too hot. Came back in and I'm playing music in the living room, louder than "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain" that's playing in Eliza's room. I'm listening to Van Morrison--Lon's favorite artist, but a 2018 album.
Past, present, future for Eliza, me and Kurt. And Lon and Kris living in God's new creation, loved and reconciled and healed.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Tuesday, June 05, 2018
Mr. Rasmussen
I went upstairs thinking I'd find my high school yearbook from senior year on the shelf on the landing by the attic. It's not there. One of the annual shiftings and migrations of the household book collection must have moved it to a box in the attic. I'm sure it's there — but too many layers down to look for in the fading daylight.
I wanted the yearbook so that I could read the dedication page again--the one where we dedicated the book to Mr. Rasmussen—Wayne Rasmussen, who died on Sunday after a long career as teacher, coach, pastor and general all-around inspirational figure.
The photo on that page (which I remember well, because as editor I exerted a strong voice in its selection) is a photo of him in the front of his classroom, a man in action, knees bent, arms extended--more like the alert, defensive stance of a basketball player than the posture of a world history lecturer. But that was the thing — you never knew when the ball — er, the question — was coming to you. Whether it was the date for William the Conqueror's conquest of England (1066) or the Glorious Revolution (1688) or the democratic uprisings in Europe (1848), he made sure that you left his class knowing these important events, and not just the dates, but what they meant for western Christendom. Maybe even what you thought about them. And certainly something about how power works in the world — a lesson reinforced by several class periods spent building armies and attacking across frontiers in games of Risk. (Please know, that while these dates are indeed engraved upon my memory, I did Google them all just now, just to be sure, so as not to disrespect Mr. Rasmussen's memory.)
Mr. Rasmussen taught world history, Latin and religion at Walther High School in Melrose Park during the years I was there (1968-72) and several years before and after. People took Latin just to have him as a teacher (though not me--destined as a musician to study German). I think I also had him for comparative religion, a subject that would also have been steeped in world history. I had a sense that he was thoroughly, probably conservatively, grounded in Lutheran theology, but what I remember most was being asked to think. Something stronger than just being asked--jolted, startled, awakened. The kind of thinking that makes growing up exciting.
He signed my yearbook —- on that dedication page, sending me off from high school breathless with an affirmation of my abilities and of God's goodness and power in my life — in Gwen's very specific life. And I am but one of many who he encouraged and fired up. Their names have been showing up in Facebook comments all day.
The Facebook page for the church Rasmussen served reports:
I wanted the yearbook so that I could read the dedication page again--the one where we dedicated the book to Mr. Rasmussen—Wayne Rasmussen, who died on Sunday after a long career as teacher, coach, pastor and general all-around inspirational figure.
The photo on that page (which I remember well, because as editor I exerted a strong voice in its selection) is a photo of him in the front of his classroom, a man in action, knees bent, arms extended--more like the alert, defensive stance of a basketball player than the posture of a world history lecturer. But that was the thing — you never knew when the ball — er, the question — was coming to you. Whether it was the date for William the Conqueror's conquest of England (1066) or the Glorious Revolution (1688) or the democratic uprisings in Europe (1848), he made sure that you left his class knowing these important events, and not just the dates, but what they meant for western Christendom. Maybe even what you thought about them. And certainly something about how power works in the world — a lesson reinforced by several class periods spent building armies and attacking across frontiers in games of Risk. (Please know, that while these dates are indeed engraved upon my memory, I did Google them all just now, just to be sure, so as not to disrespect Mr. Rasmussen's memory.)
Mr. Rasmussen taught world history, Latin and religion at Walther High School in Melrose Park during the years I was there (1968-72) and several years before and after. People took Latin just to have him as a teacher (though not me--destined as a musician to study German). I think I also had him for comparative religion, a subject that would also have been steeped in world history. I had a sense that he was thoroughly, probably conservatively, grounded in Lutheran theology, but what I remember most was being asked to think. Something stronger than just being asked--jolted, startled, awakened. The kind of thinking that makes growing up exciting.
He signed my yearbook —- on that dedication page, sending me off from high school breathless with an affirmation of my abilities and of God's goodness and power in my life — in Gwen's very specific life. And I am but one of many who he encouraged and fired up. Their names have been showing up in Facebook comments all day.
The Facebook page for the church Rasmussen served reports:
Grace. Of course. That explains everything.Pastor Rasmussen selected Ephesians 2:9 - 10 as the verses he wished to be used for his funeral: "For by grace you have been saved not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (ESV)
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