Requiem for the Focus Leadership Institute

I was over it.

I've been gone from there for a year and a half. And I was fine. Until I saw the comments on the FLI Facebook page under the announcement that the program is closing today. So now I'm grieving again.

Twenty years. More than 3000 students. Lives transformed. I was one of them.

Summer 2013 Graduation

What a jarring transition. Eighteen hours after returning from camp, I found myself sitting at graduation for my 33rd and final Institute class. I'm not gonna lie: I cried all day. 

I didn't really cry for this class. There's always a measure of joy in sending out a new class of students to go where God sends them and do what he asks them to do. There was a special joy in sending out this class because of the way they shared their lives with us and they way they stewarded their (collectively) very difficult stories. 

Gonna Miss this Place

Last Friday, I found out that my job at the Focus Leadership Institute will be ending on August 2. By the time I cross that finish line, I'll have invested 11 years and one day there. Eleven years. That's a big chunk of my 36-year-old self.

I'm thankful that I got some hints that this was coming. Because of that, I got to process a lot of the nasty emotions about a month or six weeks ago. When the news actually came, it wasn't as messy as I expected it to be.

Just to Keep Things Straight...

Thursday, June 6: Josh and my brother Steve leave Ohio in a Penske truck to move Steve's stuff to Colorado. They stop in Greenville, Illinois, to see Grandma Keffer, who is in the hospital with pneumonia.

Friday, June 7: Mom drives the kids and me to the airport at 6 a.m. Dad Keffer picks us up in Denver at 10 a.m., brings us home and I go straight to work.

Whose Children are These?

Ever answer the phone and the person on the other end starts the conversation with, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but..."? Yeah, that always sucks.

On December 21, our good friend Ryan called to say that a young dad from our church, Dave, had died that morning as he was jogging to work. Four days before Christmas. He was 38. He left behind his wife, Holly, and three kids, Spencer, Leah and Maci.

They they had just finished adopting Maci from Ethiopia last March. If you know anything about how Ethiopian adoptions have gone recently, you know that wasn't an easy process. But they had weathered it. Maci is theirs. Exactly one week before Dave died, I asked Holly how things were going. Had Maci adjusted to being here, to being part of their family? Yes, Holly said, things have finally settled down.

And now this.

It's so tempting to ask God why? right now. (Remember all of the hubbub about the Mayan calendar and the world ending on December 21, 2012? I just keep thinking, "For Holly and her kids, the world really did end.") But God has given me another question instead: Whose children are these?

The same day Dave died, my parents attended a funeral for the mother of one of my high school classmates. I was sad about that, but I didn't cry when my mom told me. And she didn't cry when I told her about Dave. But we both shed tears for the situation closest to us. Josh and I both felt like Dave's death really consumed our lives that day, and sobered us for many days after.

So that made me think about how God "gives" us the griefs of those close to us. If, every time someone posted a tragic story on Facebook, I received and felt that grief the way I did with the news about Dave, I literally wouldn't be able to function. God doesn't allow us to carry every grief. But he asks us to carry the griefs of those he put next to us, and he especially asks us to care for widows and orphans. In other words, these are now our children ... the children of the body of Christ immediately surrounding this family.

I have been astounded at how our church family has responded. Two days after Dave died, about thirty guys around our age got together to talk about how to help cover all of the things that Dave did at home. Obviously, they can't be husband to Holly, and they can't be dad to Spencer, Leah and Maci, but they can do a lot to help keep the bottom from dropping out.

We're thinking about how our family fits into that...

Holly had started a blog to chronicle their adoption story, and now she's using it to pour out her heart about their grief. Follow their story.

For This We Need Jesus

My freshman year at Taylor, Jill Briscoe was the speaker for spiritual emphasis week. She's a graceful, silver-haired Brit who says British things like One Corinthians and ah-gape with the emphasis on the first syllable. I only remember two things she said that week, but one of them has sunk so deeply into my life that it's the first thing that comes out when tragedy and pain hit. Like they did today.

"For this we need Jesus. 

But for this we have Jesus."

The truth didn't register when Jill first spoke it. But then she kept repeating it. To be honest, I thought it was a dumb thing to repeat. Isn't it obvious? Isn't it the most obvious thing in Christianity? I didn't feel the weight of it like she did. Looking back now, I think I know why.

Gone

My Grandma, Helen Michael Kocher Harris, passed away this morning at 10:05 Ohio time. She was 2 days past her 88th birthday. I did get to talk to her on the phone last night, though she couldn't talk back, and I am not sure that she could hear me. (Thanks to my brother Mike for calling and letting me do that.) My mom and my brother Steve had stayed with her all night last night. Her last hours were very peaceful.

As all of this was going on this morning, I was driving to church because I was singing in two services this morning. That was hard. So thankful for my friends Matt and Rachel who prayed with me. I discovered later that we were praying probably at the very moment she died. Since we have been learning about the Holy Spirit lately, Matt prayed very appropriately that the Spirit would draw her to Himself as she passed.

I will miss her very much.

Grieving

I have mentioned in a couple of posts that Grandma Harris has been ill. I refrained from giving details because she didn't want anyone to know what was wrong. At this point, I think the time for that concern has passed.

Just over four weeks ago she went into the hospital due to pain from some age-related abdominal issues. While they were conducting an ultrasound for that, they discovered abnormal spots, so they did a CT scan. Diagnosis: stage four liver cancer. As I have since learned, the liver is almost never a primary site for cancer. It's usually a secondary site where the cancer spreads. Which basically means that this cancer has been doing its work for some time now.

Understandably, she opted not to undergo radiation or chemo at her age (today is her 88th birthday). Neither did she want any further testing to find out more specifics about the cancer. At first, the plan was to go into rehab, get strong enough for laproscopic surgery, have abdominal issues repaired and enjoy as good a quality of life as she could for whatever time she had left. She was transferred to a rehab facility, but she never got any stronger.

When we saw her last week, she had been in the rehab place for maybe 10 days, and she was pretty weak. I think the thing that surprised me the most was that she didn't have enough energy to have a real conversation, and that has never happened with her before. She has always been so sharp, mentally, and we have had good, deep conversation until very recently. I think that's what I was expecting to do when I saw her, and it was hard when she wasn't strong enough to talk in that way.

In the past week, she has failed quickly. Today, the doctors are saying that she has only a few days left. The hospice nurses have started providing care for her right there in the rehab place. It is good to know that someone is there with her around the clock.

So tonight I am grieving. It is hard being so far away while this is happening. Since I really wouldn't be able to communicate with her even if I were there, I am probably not going to try to get home before she dies. If she has some time when she can listen, I am going to try to call and talk to her this weekend, even if she can't talk back.

Last weekend when I said goodbye, I was hoping it wouldn't be for the last time, but I knew that it might. So I am glad I got to tell her that I love her ten thousand whales. That's what she always told me. I'm not even sure anymore how that started. But it's how we've ended dozens—maybe hundreds—of phone calls over the years. I'm glad I got to say it one more time.

Memories

She has been an awfully good Grandma. We spent so much time at her house when we were little. She would always come and sleep in the guest room with us when we spent the night. I remember the blue tupperware box in her pantry that she kept stocked with goodies. I remember shrimp cocktail at Christmas and loading the cocktail sauce with horseradish until it reamed out your sinuses. Those were her words: "ream out your sinuses."

I have fond memories of walking with her to the Black Lane school playground, or to 7-11, where she would let us buy treats. I have very specific memories of the sound made by the metal-framed, yellow vinyl stroller as she pushed one of the little boys and I walked beside.

I loved dying Easter eggs with her each year. They weren't just any Easter eggs. They were elaborately decorated with clear wax, then dipped in their colors. She spent many hours perfecting the dot and stoke technique for the wax and I spent many hours trying to imitate it. That's something I can take from her and pass on to my family.

Because of her, I know about 10 phrases and bits and snatches of one nursery rhyme in Russian. Because of her, I (almost) always remember to put dates on photographs and keepsakes, because she would never let me hear the end of it if I didn't. Because of her, I love Jeopardy.

When I was in college, her house was right on the way to and from Taylor, so I would often stop off and see her on my way there and back. She always had a glass of iced tea for me. Her iced tea is like nobody else's.

My Prayer

My Grandma has always pushed herself really hard. Maybe it was because she was never quite good enough for her own mother when she was growing up. Now as she approaches the finish line of life, I have prayed and prayed that she will be able to cease striving and receive from the Lord his healing, his peace, his forgiveness, his rest. I think she knows God. She talks to him every day. But today I hope she will come to know him in his fullness, not seeing him as a displeased parent, but seeing him with arms wide open, ready to receive her.

Redemption is real. Times like these make me hunger for it more than usual. I long for the time when our Father makes all things new. And whole. My grandma has a chance to experience that sooner rather than later. May it be so.