The Timberline Letter

In my childhood home, it was common to hear my dad laugh until he cried. He inherited that laugh from my grandma. I remember my friend’s face lighting up as my dad’s laughter shook the house. “I love your daddy’s laugh,” she told me. I treasured this effect his joy had on others. I was proud of him, not only for the things he had accomplished, but also for the humor he carried with him. I still am proud of him, for the same reason.

Please understand, we didn’t laugh all the time. I remember the crises, fears, bankruptcy, and prodigal children. But those episodes played out against a backdrop that never took life too seriously. I recall more laughter than sorrow around our dinner table, even when loss and pain pulled up a chair to join us.

After becoming an adult, the pressures of marriage, child-rearing, military life, and navigating foster care often became so overpowering that it was hard to breathe. But often in the midst of those dark places, luminous memories of my parents laughing at the dinner table would break through.

In the words of Chuck Swindoll, “Laughter is the most beautiful and beneficial therapy God ever granted humanity.”

At some point, I realized we had to seek joy and laughter. We needed people and stories around us that recalled our legacy of laughter. Like my grandma sewing grandpa’s overalls shut at the feet so he’d have to jerk them up violently as he left for his work on the railroad.

Our last duty station in South Carolina marked the end of a somewhat disillusioned era. David’s lofty dreams of becoming Chief of Staff of the Air Force had been deflated, and our focus had shifted from our glory to an open-handed, “What’s next, Lord?” That question took us down roads we never expected. They also granted us a higher view of life. We learned to let go of a lot of things.

When the annual “jet photos” day came around, David and I donned leather jackets in 90-degree weather, and struck a “Top Gun” pose in front of an F-16. A friend shot the photo. Her husband photoshopped the background—complete with an orange sunset, a jet slicing the sky above, and the words “Top Three” showboating themselves across the bottom of the poster. “Top Three” is the name of the universally despised job given to pilots—“flying a desk.” No engines thrumming except those of your friends as they dogfight in the skies above you. The modified title was the crowning touch to our Oscar-worthy snapshot, given the fact that David had frequently flown that desk. As had all the other pilots.

I marched into David’s office a few days later and victoriously hammered the masterpiece onto the wall. Most of the pilots gathered around and laughed accordingly. Those that didn’t laugh? Maybe they were planning to be the next Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

I’ve heard it said that “expectation is just pre-meditated resentment.” While that may be true, we are also given repeated opportunities to let go of those expectations, not out of resentment or failure, but out of a maturity that says, “Ah. I see. I can’t steer this thing. Clenched fists accomplish nothing. Maybe I should try opening my hands.”

It is imperative to “laugh at the days to come.”[1] The “foreseeable future” is, after-all, an illusion. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. If not, just go photoshop your disappointment. And let the healing laughter begin.

[1] Proverbs 31:25, NIV

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In the summer of 1992, while driving a dirt road near his Pratt, Kansas home, my dad saw a tractor—driverless—rolling across a field, pulling a land leveler.

Dad felt a chill. He owned that equipment. His brother Harold had borrowed it and would have been driving it down that very road about that time. Dad soon found Harold lying beside the road. He was fully conscious, but Dad could see he was facing the worst day of his life.

Harold’s death brought a hard freeze to our family landscape. But it blew a deep and ragged hole right through Dad’s heart. He never recovered.

From that day it seemed Dad’s strong mind began to melt.

Dad and Mom visited our home in Virginia soon after that. In planning for their visit, I tried to find something that would engage Dad again, some spark that would animate his wonderful and vivid personality.

Two weeks before they arrived, I learned that Arleigh Burke, one of the last living admirals from World War 2, lived in nearby Fairfax. So, I found a phone number for his home.

When Roberta “Bobbie” Burke answered the phone, I introduced myself and told her about Dad, and that he would be here in a few days. Then I asked if “the admiral would be open to a visit from another sailor.”

“Oh, yes,” she replied gleefully, “He would so love that! Please come.” She gave me their address, and we agreed on a date and time.

When my parents arrived, I told Dad we had an appointment with Admiral Arleigh Burke the next day. Dad’s uncertain smile revealed his anxiety; he’d never met an admiral. Even after 48 years of civilian life, he still thought like an enlisted man.

The next morning, Dad asked too many questions about protocol and social courtesies as we drove from our home in Reston over to Fairfax. Then he grew stone silent as we entered the high-rise luxury condo. Finally, we stood at the Burke door. When I knocked, an elderly man, gripping a walker, jerked the door open and smiled.

“Jack,” he barked, and grabbed Dad’s hand. Dad relaxed in the invitation to a safe place.

We spent 90 minutes in the Burke living room. Bobbie gracefully vanished from the male gathering, as I’m sure she’d often done in 72 years of marriage to a Navy man.

As the fly on the wall, I watched in astonishment as Arleigh Burke, a former Chief of Naval Operations, a major player in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, an admiral who had a class of destroyers named after him, sat with an enlisted man, a Kansas railroader, a Sunday School teacher. But their eyes glistened at the same heartsounds of battle, victory, and loss. And they burst into riotous laughter at the same nuances of Navy culture.

I’ll never forget Dad’s face as Admiral Burke described watching Dad’s ship, the USS Princeton, through binoculars as she exploded and sank.

The 20th century had taken those two men to vastly different places, but they also shared enormous common ground. I saw them touch their bonds. Class distinctions blew away like dust; they were both just sailors.

As we rose to leave, I saw sadness in Bobbie’s eyes. Admiral Burke, using his walker, escorted us to the elevator; he clearly wanted to extend the visit as long as possible. As we stepped onto the elevator, he softly said, “Come back anytime, Jack.” They both knew they’d never meet again.

Arleigh Burke died six months later. Two thousand people attended his funeral; President Clinton delivered the eulogy. Dad lived more than 10 years from that day. Many came to his funeral.

For me, that day of the old sailors has become a clear and enduring reminder that our value has little to do with the externals—possessions we acquire, the awards we win, or the accidents that cripple us.

We’re all His children. He leads us in an everlasting way, even when that way passes through the cemetery on the way to higher ground.

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When I was nine years old, I wanted a bicycle more than anything. If you had a bike, the world was yours. Anything was possible. But bikes were expensive, and you could outgrow one so quickly.

In 1961, my parents bought me a J.C. Higgins 26” Flightliner Bicycle for Christmas. Sears’ top of the line bike was red with whitewall tires, dual headlights, rear luggage rack, and chrome fenders. It was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen.

The problem was that even with the seat set in its lowest position, I still could not reach the peddles. Apparently, I would just have to grow into it (as I did with jeans, shirts, and baseball caps). Therefore, my sister Judy, eight years older than me, told me she would ‘give me a pump’ (when one person pedals and steers while the passenger sits on the handlebars). She would take me wherever I wanted to go.

Problem solved.

So, on Christmas morning, she and I pushed the Flightliner to the top of the 11th Street Hill. From there, with me on the handlebars and Judy peddling, we began our descent. Life was beautiful. Face to the wind, screaming my delight, and the sun shining so brightly.

However, as we came down the hill, it became quickly apparent Judy did not know how coaster brakes worked. We picked up speed much too quickly.

Then, as we rocketed down the hill, the bike began to vibrate uncontrollably. That’s when Judy, who had a strong sense of self-preservation, dove off the bike into a neighbor’s front lawn. I continued on, precariously perched on the handlebars and moving faster and faster. With no one driving, suddenly, the bike veered to the right, throwing me headfirst into a thorny rose garden.

I had no broken bones, but I did have abrasions, cuts, and scrapes beyond belief. I looked like I’d been attacked by a mountain lion. Back at my grandmother’s house, shrieks of horror greeted me as they saw the blood and my torn clothes.

I learned two valuable lessons that day.

First, never (and I mean never) let Judy drive. Second, we gain all kinds of skills, insights, romantic relationships, marriage, family, cars, and other treasures as we pass through life.

And we are simply not capable of managing them.

That’s not a bug; it’s a feature. God delivers relationships, visions, and things that are too big for us, even dangerous for that stage of our growth. Our shoes don’t reach the bike pedals. Our levels of maturity do not prepare us to marry at 14. And our big ideas require wisdom, leadership, and funding.

What’s the secret? We must grow into them, and you can’t delegate the “growing into” process to a teacher, sibling, contractor, or cop. Those gifts and talents must be mastered by you!

The fine old biblical phrase—“The fullness of time”—is part of the magic. It takes time and patience to build majestic structures, thoughts, songs, and families.

So, if the bike is too big or if the novel in your heart won’t flow, be patient. Great purposes are at work. Give them room and time.

Timing can be everything.

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My neurosurgeon declared my back a disaster zone. “You’ve got major problems in every part of your back, all the way down.” My MRI agreed; weird twists, turns and dead ends. Doc said it best, “Your back looks like a pack mule’s path down into the mine.”

As the Los Angeles firestorm raged a few miles from my hospital room, needles had invaded veins in both my hands in preparation for my back surgery. Pain clawed my brain. The world around me—my body, other hospital patients, caregivers, and all those fighting flames—seemed to struggle against a rapidly darkening place.

A newly arrived nursing assistant had just started her shift. She was a woman with a big presence and even bigger false eyelashes. Needing relief, I asked her to tell me something interesting about herself.

“Honey,” she bellowed, “I just love people! I love helping people! I can’t help it! I just love people!”

My “dark place” violently imploded. She was just the cure I needed. God had worked overtime to intersect our lives at this moment.

But when the hospital shift changed, a different, more subdued and thoughtful nurse took charge of me. I soon discovered the reason for her demeanor. Because I asked, she showed me her family portrait—a handsome couple with their 3-year-old son. Last month, her husband’s father passed away from an inherited disorder causing glandular tumors.

Then, just last week, she discovered her son had inherited the same incurable condition. He faces lifelong vigilance and surgeries. As she told me her story, her face was resolute, unblinking, stoic.

As we talked, I began to think. How many people hold the cures for what ails others, if they would only reach out to them? And how many needy people have I passed by, never offering the help they needed and I could give?

I turned to look at my roommate. Helpless and diapered, nurses had to occasionally assist him in his bedridden state. But that triggered fierce coughing, which induced long bouts of vomiting.

Of course, I could hear through the privacy curtain when his daughter came to visit. He was confused, unable to connect the dots in their conversation. “What are your wishes?” she asked repeatedly and emphatically, like he was a child.

That was easy. He wanted to go back home.

“But that’s not a choice, Dad. I meant, which hospice facility do you prefer?”

He did not answer.

The next day, his wife visited him. She gushed with emotion. “Honey, I just love you so much!”

After a long silence, he sighed and muttered, “Oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?” she replied, confused.

“I don’t know. This might be the end.” Although he was speaking of his own life, his voice contained no hint of desperation, no anxiety, not a touch of fear. His pain seemed to push his heart into a new orbit. Perhaps he saw more clearly than anyone else around him.

Because of his suffering and commotion, the nurses offered to move me to a quieter room. I declined. Though we could no longer converse very much, we understood one another.

But, as I was wheeled out of the hospital to go home, I paused at the foot of his bed. I stared into his face and gave both his big toes a squeeze; he nodded and smiled back at me.

I know, and you know, that when our physical bodies reach the boundaries of their human capacity, hope can become stretched thin. But in that weakened place, those squeezes, nods, and smiles reach our deepest place. They carry the expressions of love, the best gift that God offers us. And they are the best we can offer to others.

OK—Big Eyelashes, Brave Nurse, Distressed Roommate, the Firefighters –- you all carried the same message:

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As young Christian leaders, Bruce and Lenore Mitchell took God, life, their marriage, and faith seriously. But then something strange happened. Bruce began to feel they should give their possessions away. Furniture. Appliances. Even wedding gifts. Everything.

After a few days, he cautiously shared his feelings with Lenore, only to discover she felt the same thing. She had been struggling with how to tell him! Confident that God was directing them, they began giving things away.

Within a few days, everything was gone. Bruce recalls, “Even the original painting my grandmother had painted—a family heirloom—was given away.” Although somewhat perplexed as they slept on the floor amidst nothing, they felt peace and assurance that they had done the right thing.

A few weeks later, as they drove home one afternoon, they saw smoke rising from the landscape. As they got closer to their neighborhood, they could see the smoke was billowing up from their property. They watched their house burn to the ground.

Soon thereafter, one evening after the Mitchells had settled into temporary housing, car lights appeared in their driveway. Then, a couple walked to their front door carrying the gift which the Mitchells had given them a few weeks earlier.

During the following days, a stream of cars came to their home, returning the items they had given away.

Forty years later, Bruce told me, “We learned you can only keep what you give away. Today, we once again treasure my grandmother’s painting. But it only hangs in our home now because we gave it away.”

Have you noticed we all spend much of life’s energy acquiring and storing? But Jesus pointed to a higher way. “... If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it..”[1]

[1] Luke 17:33 taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW LIVING TRANSLATION, Copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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In 2011, my husband and I had just moved to Japan when the Tohoku earthquake—a 9.1 on the Richter scale—violently jolted the continent. Though we were four hours north of the epicenter, I thought a semi had slammed into our townhome. Doors slammed shut and open during the 6-minute terror. Had our shipment of household goods not been delayed, the earthquake would have thrown our dishes from the cabinets, toppled the TV, and sent picture frames crashing to the floor. Thankfully, our house was nearly empty.

Afterwards, standing on my front steps and calling to neighbors up and down our street, we heard the off-base loudspeaker sound a siren as a Japanese announcement echoed through the air. I could only understand one word. “Tsunami.”

Even now, when I remember that time, I’m struck with a choking sob. But at the time, I was oblivious. I did not know what disaster was to come—I didn’t know 20,000 people were going to lose their lives from the tsunami that tore across small fishing villages and large cities alike. All I knew at the time was that 1) we lived at the highest point on base (two miles from the ocean), 2) the electricity was out, and 3) I had a kitchen to paint before I lost the gift of daylight. Oh, and I was due to deliver our first baby in two days. I went back inside and picked up a paint roller.

In the weeks that followed, the gravity of the destruction began to sink in. Then the Base Commander launched “Operation Tomodachi,” meaning “Operation Friendship,” and dozens of Americans would load onto buses in the mornings, ride out to the coastline, and spend the day picking up rubble and bringing relief to the victims. Feeling useless with my newborn Emma in my arms, I watched as the women I admired so much left each day to pour out their time and strength rebuilding the villages. All I could do was go off base and spend money, my baby swaddled in a wrap around me. It felt small, but I hoped a few yen and a customer would bring hope to the hurting.

What I expected was the traditional Japanese nod of gratitude as I dropped a few coins into their hands. What I did not expect was the sheer joy the people demonstrated at the sight of Emma. There is one image burned in my memory—an old man approached when he saw her. Then tears flowed as he reached out his hands, asking to hold her. As he held her, his wrinkled face broke into a beautiful smile. Tentatively, I pointed to her and said, “Tsunami.” He nodded as emotion flooded his face and voice again.

Then he declared over her, “Japanese!”

And I saw that moment as my way of picking up the rubble. For him and many other locals, the wonder of witnessing new life seemed to renew a pathway to hope. It was not about my small efforts, but about the divine gift of multiplication. The small seed turns into a tree, the smile offered from a stranger brightens a bleak day. The “I love you” written in crayon makes a mom feel seen beneath the piles of laundry and dishes. The infant brings hope to bereaved people.

As Mary Ropes beautifully illustrates in “Mary Jones and Her Bible,”

“Let no one say that what he can give is but as a drop in the bucket, and therefore of no value. It is by the tiny rills that like a thread of silver wind down the hillside, by the silent night dews, by the softly falling rains, by the quiet springs that swell among the peaty uplands-it is by these, that the river is formed…Not a drop is lost. Nothing is valueless. All goes to make up an inestimably precious whole.”

Ropes, Mary. “Her Works Do Follow Her.” Mary Jones and Her Bible. Generations, 2021, pp. 87-88

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A dear friend’s wife struggled with multiple sclerosis for over forty years. Then, during emergency surgery, she suffered a heart attack. When that same surgery revealed extensive cancer, they knew the end was near.

To read my friend’s email about that grueling trial is to stand at the edge of a deep, wide, and humbling canyon. Yet, he summed it up so simply:

“Life has to be lived in all the ways it might come to us.”

Those simple words could only roll out of humility, brokenness, and grace. They describe the attitude that has marked most people’s lives throughout history. That posture is not passive or evasive; it describes a life that leans into the wind.

From my childhood, I’ve watched farmers, ranchers, and others who worked within harsh environments cope with weather, disease, and market turbulence.

And accidents.

By the time many farmers recline in satin caskets, the passing mourners well understand the scars, missing fingers, and empty sleeves.

Not coincidentally, I also grew up in a sense of God. I’ve seen the religious matrix of farming communities mold people into a vertical posture. Dawn to dusk, they studied that vast canopy of sky, knowing it could bring every form and extreme of sun, moisture, temperature, and wind. Most bowed to whatever it brought. Maybe that’s why so many farm faces reveal such rugged splendor.

Recent decades have increased the possibilities for a self-designed life. “I’ll take a little of that... maybe just a pinch more. No, none of that.” Control, convenience, and comfort have become our culture’s new virtues.

Now, as we cross the threshold of a new year, including a new political season, we—as people always do—face the brisk winds of change.

For example, think about life in its pristine beginning. Pregnancy pulls a raw and tumultuous life into being; a tiny hurricane careens around the womb, wrecking all shreds of comfort, convenience, and control. The baby also brings pain, nausea, and—for the next quarter century—great expense. Babies change the course and terrain of life.

However, it seems that embracing life in all the ways it might come often weaves us into a larger tapestry, a more magnificent story, one we could not have created or discovered. Yet we so often feel the need for our own fingerprints across our own life. Maybe it’s our fear of mortality. We associate death with the loss of our being, not with the birth of newness. As Richard Bach wrote,

The caterpillar believes it is dying because it's being sealed in a tomb. The Master knows that the caterpillar is not dying ... things are never over, that change is carrying us, (so often kicking and screaming), to higher states of being ... What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.

When you meet life in all the ways it may come to you, remember the prayer of former UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold:

“For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.”

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In 2015, I was cast as Annelle (the Daryl Hannah role) in “Steel Magnolias” at a small Phoenix theater. The theater was located in the corner of a strip mall, but it felt like I was on Broadway. He, my Great Uncle Wiley, was in the audience!

Wiley was a giant of a man. A hunter, fisherman, golfer, business leader, and world-class uncle. As a little girl, growing up near them in Colorado, I was far more familiar with Aunt Alberta, his wife. My mom and I regularly went to their house to help her with housework. Afterwards, we sat at her kitchen table, enjoying gingersnaps and coffee.

My dad and my brothers, on the other hand, frequently went camping and fishing with Uncle Wiley. For days. They would leave with a camper full of lures, Vienna sausages, and English muffins, and return with tales of all they had caught and shot. I was proud to know Uncle Wiley, but it was always from the distant view of a wide-eyed girl with cookie crumbs on her plate. I loved him, but did not believe I could be of much interest to him. I was, after all, a girl.

In 2013, my husband, David, an Air Force pilot, got assigned to a base—and our next home—near Phoenix. We would live 90 minutes from Wiley’s retirement house. He was 94 at the time. Knowing we had only three years before the Air Force sent us elsewhere, we made it a point to spend time with the now widowed Wiley.

After several visits, I worked up the courage to invite Wiley to one of my plays. His “yes” became one of the most humbling experiences in my acting career. This esteemed and quite elderly hero entered my world for two hours, watched a staged “chick flick,” and stood outside smiling with me for a picture afterwards.

I asked him, “Could you hear me?”

“YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE I COULD HEAR!” he bellowed in his signature hard-of-hearing voice.

I felt so seen in that moment! His presence made a statement that no round-of-applause could ever compete with. He chose to come to me, in my world of stage lights and curtains.

Part of Your World

Years later, when David and I began fostering a little boy, it quickly became clear that our job was to enter his world. The deep dive into the realm of unfamiliar trauma drove me to hours of research (and prayer). As I dug deep, a phrase jumped at me. It became a plumbline throughout the journey.

“I can’t stop the rollercoaster, but I can ride it with you.”

Someone (whom I cannot remember) expressed that promise to each child she took into her home. And I have learned that a foster parent’s job is to enter that child’s hurricane of chaos and hold his or her hand in the midst of it.

Something mysterious and majestic happens when we choose to dive into someone else’s world. That plunge of, say, marriage, parenthood, true friendship, or other relational investments invites us to become subject to the same assaults and joys our partner faces. It is not Aladdin holding his hand out over a ledge saying, “Do you trust me?” It is a sacrificial presence that enters someone else’s world and says, “Your people will be my people.”

We all long for connection, to know and be known.

Is that why the Christmas story has captivated multitudes for thousands of years? What? God Almighty makes himself vulnerable by stepping into our world? Would he really subject himself to all that “being human” involves?

If an earthly uncle sitting in a folding chair in “my world” gives me butterflies, how do I even consider the God who surrendered all comfort and splendor to be folded into my life?

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Christmas of 1954 came ten years after my dad’s ship, the USS Princeton, was destroyed in the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf. That hurled Dad into a long struggle with a psychological python. It also pulled him into wrestling with God; he prayed long and loud in our little house. Dad and his God scared me.

That’s why my brothers and I grew up in the shadow of The Princeton.

Also In 1954, Dad and Mom bought a home on nine acres at the edge of town. The morning after the closing, Dad hated the place. So, his prayers got longer, louder, and scarier. Somehow, Vernon and I—Carl was born later—slowly realized our parents had spent all they had on that place. They only had $9.00 to spend for Christmas. So, they agreed to only buy gifts for their sons.

But on Christmas morning, a pickup from a big lumber yard in town pulled into our driveway. The driver ran up onto the porch and knocked. When Dad opened the door, the man handed him a small box.

“Merry Christmas, Jack. We appreciate your business.”

Dad thanked the man and opened the box to find a beautiful pocketknife. Although the gift was a mere business transaction, Dad dropped into a chair and sobbed. That was the first time I ever saw him cry. Then he looked up at Mom and said, “You’re the only one who didn’t get a Christmas present.”

He couldn’t take it. What Mom, Vernon, and I saw that day was probably the collective force of stress. A rough financial period (which didn’t last very long), deep regrets about a major purchase, unrelenting turmoil over shipmates killed in the Pacific, and a too-long-too-silent God finally blew him apart.

However, in the emotional scene in the dining room, I saw the depth of Dad’s love for his family. For me. My parents were always in love with each other, but before that day, I didn’t know Dad’s love for me. Then, in a raw, spontaneous moment, on Christmas, my dad’s love flooded that little farmhouse.

Like a bead of water holding the image of a mountain, what happened that day caught the character and purpose of Christmas. God’s Love is a dominion of light; it invades the darkness. In the timeless Christmas story, the Light won. It still wins. Every day. Even Dad’s dark night of the soul was no match for the love that walked into our home on Christmas 1954.

That Light swallowed the dark shadow of the Princeton.

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As I turned into the military cemetery, I was happy to know that Wes Dahlberg, my dad, and my mother, Dee, would finally rest together.

Their cremated remains sat side-by-side in my car’s back seat. Dad’s brass and mother- of-pearl cremation urn gleamed like a new sculpture. My mother’s identical urn showed nine years of tarnish as it awaited my father’s remains. All was now ready for their burials.

Inside the glass welcoming room, the muted military décor celebrated the service of those buried here. The receptionist sported an irreverent shock of fluorescent pink hair, a comedic contrast against drab military hues and the respectful displays of flags and military insignia.

He ushered me into the next room to complete the burial forms. “Is there anything I can do for you? Water? Soda? A candy bar? Goodness, I’m sorry for the long delay! You’ve been so understanding! You’ve made my day!”

Suddenly, I heard two familiar, though dead, voices. Like the cemetery voices in Thornton Wilder’s play (and movie), Our Town.

First, I heard my dad say: “Wow! Look at that hair! A beautiful shade, but perhaps it needs a bit more purple!” Dad loved extravagance and color.

Then, Mother’s voice: “Oh! How wonderful! We’ve made his day! And he is so patient and so kind to us! Let’s thank the Lord for him. Who wants to pray?” Dee Dahlberg always saw the best in everyone.

Before any of us could entreat the Lord’s blessing, Kyle, the attendant, walked in from his tidy office, dressed in suit and tie, administrative duties in hand. Kyle’s Louisiana accent graced his instructions.

As we chatted about his Louisiana roots after the service, Kyle admitted they could not even consider buying a home in California. Maybe he should have stayed in the South, he pondered aloud. We could see it had been a tough slog.

“Poor man!” exclaimed Mother. “With a family to raise! Let’s give him a little offering!”

“Louisiana,” Dad chimed in. “What a place! The architecture is just … odd. Half French, half Southern Colonial, and half … who knows what! I’m glad we’re being buried in California!”

Finally, at the burial site, the gravedigger met us. Ricky, a grinning, enthusiastic, and energetic man, seemed unbowed by his somber responsibilities.

“I love my job!” Ricky said. Even after digging war veterans’ graves for most of his life, he still loved it. “These are war veterans, and I’m the last person who gets to honor our heroes.”

Upon discovering Dad was 106 years old, he stood erect. His face morphed from joyous to resolute.

“A hundred and six years old? I never buried nobody that old! No, sir! Wow, what a life! What an honor!”

He gently placed Mom and Dad’s urns into plastic bags, and then into the holes we watched him dig. Then he invited me to take a photograph.

“The headstones will be dug into the soil exactly 26 inches deep,” Ricky explained. They’ll arrive a couple of months.”

“Hey,” Dad piped up, “What’s going to be inscribed on my headstone?” Ever the lifelong artist, we had expected his curiosity and wanted to please him.

I answered, “He Discovered God’s Beauty in All Things.’”

“I love that,” he choked. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“What about mine?” Mother asked.

“Yours will say, ‘Loved God, Loved Others, Finished the Race.’”

“I did, you know! I really did love everyone. I sure tried to!”

“I know, Mom,” I assured her. “You did a great job.”

“One more thing,” she added. “Before you leave, could you place some Gospel tracts around the headstones of our new neighbors? We want them to know we’re all in this together.”

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