Giving thanks

Thank you, Lord, for this day. Thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for life on earth under the covering of your goodness and for life in Heaven with you that is beyond our imagination.

Thank you, Lord, that even though human sin caused us to live in a fallen world, you did not abandon us. Thank you that you entered into our brokenness and made a way for us to be restored to you. Thank you for restoring Susan to you in life when she believed in your Son and again in death when she passed into heaven.

Thank you for working through Susan's cancer so we could know you in a way that we could not have known you otherwise. Thank you for comforting us and allowing us to share that comfort with others. Thank you for giving us faith so others may believe and for giving us strength so they may be strong. Thank you for Jesus who came to conquer death for us and who said, “Because I live, you also will live.” Thank you upholding that promise along with every other one you made.

Thank you for Susan. Thank you for her simple and solid faith, for her gentle spirit, and for the way she trusted you constantly. That was a gift. Thank you that she was the sweetest person I know.

Thank you for allowing us to grow in faith together, first as she led me and then as I led her, until over 30 years went by on the path of growing in Christ with each other. Thank you for the people who shared life with us and helped us grow that way by their example, their encouragement and their prayers.

Thank you for our church where generations of family were baptized and married, where we worshiped and served you, and where we married and raised our own children. Thank you for the balcony where I first heard Susan sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” with the congregation on a Sunday evening, for the desire I felt to know you who are so faithful, and for the doorway into your kingdom you opened for me. Thank you for wooden pews where Susan first dared to raise her hands in worship, for chairs she rearranged for drama rehearsals and for carpet where she surrendered to you on her knees in prayer.

Thank you for the home Susan decorated with some lovely things but really beautified with her presence. Thank you that I got to be with my best friend every day and for how happy that made me. Thank you for how she created a place of love and refuge for our family and for the way her life matched the sign she put over our fireplace that encourages everyone to live well, love much, and laugh often.

Thank you for showing me that Susan's two favorite love languages were time spent together and acts of service, and that even though I selfishly neglected them for too long, you provided the conditions for me to speak love into my wife by focusing on her for hours, weeks and years while serving her in just about every way a person can. Thank you for how that brought healing to our souls. Thank you for a good marriage that became a great marriage and for more intimacy and fulfillment together than we thought possible. Thank you that I had the privilege to return her to you in better condition than when you gave her to me.

Thank you for how you prepared us for Susan’s brain tumor journey in giving us a sense that first, we would be okay no matter what, and second, that you had a purpose for us in it. Thank you for such hope and confidence in you. Thank you for helping us move past asking “Why?” since that leads to frustration and bitterness, and for leading us to ask “What are you doing?” and “Who do you want us to be?” and “How shall we respond?” since that leads to faith and discovery.

Thank you that when a spirit of fear came upon me one night like a massive, black wall near our bed, you reminded me that your perfect love casts out fear and you helped me push it away. Thank you for your Spirit, a wondrous helper.

Thank you for first-class medical care. Thank you for a neurosurgeon in Long Beach who offered his best help if we wanted it but his encouragement to visit UCLA for another opinion. Thank you for a neuro-oncologist at UCLA who looked at Susan’s scans and said “We can do that,” who was a faithful guide through the brain tumor wilderness and who also became a caring friend. Thank you that she met high standards, spared no resources, and would usually return my calls within about 3 minutes.

Thank you for the oncology nurse who would greet us in the clinic waiting area for chemotherapy, have a recliner or a bed waiting, and serve us like we were the only people in the place. Thank you for so many caring professionals who treated us that way.

Thank you that Susan had the perfect disposition to be a long-term brain tumor patient. Thank you that she fought to live without fighting you or me or family or the unfairness of cancer. Thank you for her incredible strength, her desire to do well in all things, and for her courage to stand fast when it was hard to do so. Thank you for loving hospice staff and for a nurse who, even when Susan couldn’t speak, said he knew she was a grateful person because she had a grateful face.

Thank you for our amazing church family. Thank you for a team of some 30 caregivers who donated at least 7,500 hours over six years so Susan had care and companionship each weekday. And they thanked us! Thank you for a couple who cared so much to offer us weekly housecleaning for us for six months and ended up providing it for nearly three years.

Thank you for over ten thousand dollars given to us over the years by way of greeting cards, cash pressed into handshakes and anonymous envelopes. Thank you for one dentist and staff where Susan worked who instead of a gift exchange at Christmas, gave us the money they would have spent on each other. Thank you for another dentist where Susan worked who provided years of free dentistry for our family during her illness. Thank you for a compassionate barber who refused payment from me more times than I can count and for friends who paid for my haircuts before they left the shop. Thank you for meeting our needs and giving us encouragement.

Thank you, Lord, for this long catalog of gratitude and for many more reasons to give thanks. Thank you for bringing Susan into the glory of your presence after helping her run and finish the race you set before her. Thank you for giving us comfort, hope and peace to counter the sadness of being separated from her. Thank you for reminding us that even if you give us 90 years, it’s only a breath. Thank you for teaching us to number our days and live with our eyes fixed on you. Thank you for helping me say, “Any way you bless me, I’ll be satisified.”

Susan's memorial service: Lexie

Our 23-year-old daughter Lexie sang “Not For A Moment” by Meredith Andrews at her mom’s memorial service. It’s an amazing song – and she sang it amazingly. I love my Lexie girl!

Not For A Moment (After All)

You were reaching through the storm
Walking on the water
Even when I could not see
In the middle of it all
When I thought You were a thousand miles away
Not for a moment did You forsake me
Not for a moment did You forsake me

[Chorus]
After all You are constant
After all You are only good
After all You are sovereign
Not for a moment will You forsake me
Not for a moment will You forsake me

You were singing in the dark
Whispering Your promise
Even when I could not hear
I was held in Your arms
Carried for a thousand miles to show
Not for a moment did You forsake me

[Chorus]

And every step every breath you are there
Every tear every cry every prayer
In my hurt at my worst
When my world falls down
Not for a moment will You forsake me
Even in the dark
Even when it's hard
You will never leave me
After all

[Chorus]
Not for a moment will You forsake me

Three weeks later

Nearly three weeks since Susan went to heaven, there’s a strange sense of time passing differently than before. So many things are different for our daughter, sons and me now – the focus of our activities, the function of our memories, the extension of our plans. Hours and days thread along unusually, laced with missing her.

When we were thrust into Susan’s life-and-death brain tumor journey six years ago, she and her care became the exclusive object of our attention. Lots of other things didn’t matter. Decisions about what to do today or next week or in months all played off how she was now or how she might be doing then. We learned to expect the unexpected and got along by praying all the time, hoping for the best, and being ready for anything.

Memories are weird. My consciousness of Susan a month ago was her still in bed like she had been for most of five months, her weakened body now paraplegic according to her nurse’s notes, and needing to be offered food or water if she wanted it. Peace prevailed for her; but it was a hard situation. We’re relieved that’s done. But my consciousness of Susan since she died is wider, freshly informed by photos chronicling her life and ours together. It’s youth, energy, vibrancy, maturity, joy, possibilities, life. I grieve in those memories. There’s not much relief there, just a lot of sadness for me.

While my sense of the future during Susan’s illness was bound with uncertainty about the outcome of her brain cancer, that’s been resolved. It’s done. Susan and I came to accept our circumstances in June of 2007, so I must do the same today. I’m working on that. It will take as long as it takes, so I’m making no demands of acceptance. I’m there mentally I think, so my emotions will trail along in their time.

Balance is important to me. I will not deny my grief, but if I focus just on me, pain and loss, I’ll become a thumb-sucking navel-gazer, to quote a favorite preacher. To counter self-pity, I've found it helpful to look up with gratitude to the Living God who sustained all of us so marvelously during our trial and with whom Susan now dwells in glory. Grief, relief, gratitude – I consider them all valuable. I’m amazed to think how both Susan’s confidence in God and her faith that Heaven would be more wonderful than we could imagine have been fulfilled for her. She’s with Him. There. Now – or whatever “now” means in Heaven. It’s thrilling, really.

I’ve been checking in with Lexie, Austin and Adam to know how they're doing. They’re okay, like me. It’s early. No one’s falling off the rails. Grief, relief, gratitude. Following such a profound conclusion three weeks ago, the future seems more open; time is perhaps a bit lighter, which is good.

To whatever degree you have followed our journey on this blog and elsewhere, you have measures of grief, too. I’ve become more aware of that lately from cards, notes, comments, and expressions of sympathy. We’re so thankful for your care, prayer and support for us, and all the ways you’ve expressed it. It means the world and had made a huge difference.

My high school classmate Connie Brown-Bennett was moved to write the following verses after Susan died and gave me permission to share. I may post other tributes in the coming days in the same way. This is so lovely and amazing:

Mike, I wasn't able to attend the funeral yesterday, but you and your family were in my thoughts and prayers. So much that late last night I wrote a poem/song inspired by Susan and you.

A woman of faith, a mother, friend, and wife. The love she had for others shone in her eyes. This world brought pain and suffering which she gracefully bore. Still trying to lift others, she fought hard but lost the war.

Well done thou good and faithful servant. Well done oh sweet and precious one. Your life has been an inspiration. You are blessed. You are loved.

A man of the Father, a husband, and a dad. With honor and courage held all that he had, bound together through their trials by the power of prayer, and his love never ending, in her need, he was there.

Well done though good and faithful servant. Well done, oh true and goodly son. Your life has been and inspiration. You are blessed. You are loved.