One of my duties as a parish priest over the years has been to write a “Pastor’s Pen” for our church newsletter. I began this morning to write to Mary, our diligent treasurer and my unpaid assistant, that I would be unable to contribute an article this month. As I began to write my apology to her and updating my life, I found I had inadvertently written a “Pastor’s Pen.”
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Dear Mary, sorry I missed your call. I am continuing the slow, unsteady path called “recovery.” Even though Sabine and I had diligently prepared for this tragic event and how I might survive life without her, it was and is still a major blow. Expected? Yes. Prepared for? Diligently! God with me? Yes, of course! Friends and parish family connected? Powerfully! Their prayers and love do hold me up.
Easy? Not at all! But I do think easier than if we had not prepared, talked, and wept together about this inevitability over the cancer years!
The visits by a most helpful son-in-law and loving, comforting daughters was a Godsend. So much in which to arrange, decide, cast off and take on. Sabine and I did much to prepare: the two properties legally split. a new wall for the barn this summer, trees trimmed and some removed... and so on. BTW, our adjacent hill house that once belonged to Sabine’s parents and its 25 acres went quickly on the market. My agent and I had 12 offers. We decided on a young couple from Madison who have a new baby, 2 dogs, 5 chickens, and a desire to live simply and rurally. I feel they will be great neighbors. Selling a property next door to your residence adds another factor greater — compatibility over price.
A great fear I had was managing our finances. I probably wrote only ten checks over the past decade. Sabine was the brains and money-manager. She paid the bills out of an intricate paper system she learned from the financial expert Dave Ramsey (and which she shared with our children). I was terrified about the money situation. Thankfully (and unlike me) I asked for help from our local bankers. I have to say that hese young women saved me. I have now have everything online and paperless. It was a great load off my shoulders and led to the decision to sell the hill house in order to have the resources to enable me to live out my remaining days here at New Journey Farm.
The early plans I made, with Sabine’s endearing support. involved me running away and not remaining here in this house. First we looked at St. John’s on the Lake (that was my plan for a few years), then the Veteran’s Home in King, and now for the past six years, I would live on our boat on the Mississippi at Dubuqe. All that washed away in the days after her death. Amazingly, I found great comfort in this old farmhouse among our things and her tangible presence. I sleep in the bed we shared and on which she died in my arms. I walk the trails we walked together for all those years. I find tremendous comfort just being here, This was so unexpected.
But still... how does one prepare for the final relational split that death does? The rendering of what was once, day and night for four decades, US? What was once us is now just me? I strongly sense my physical and spiritual task is to begin to answer a most important question, who is David without Sabine?
I am just not ready to get back on the “horse” yet (parish leadership); to try to do what we once did together. I am praying and pondering this. I need to visit the rest of my biological “gang” who reside in Florida. I have told them to stay put and not visit me at this time. So, in turn, I plan to venture forth— pickup truck, tent, and dog in mid-March to sunny Florida.
In August (with help from my second Covid shot and a receding pandemic) I will be flying to Beijing, traveling north to grab the trans Siberian railroad across Russia to St. Petersburg. With Sabine’s encouragement, I have been re-studying my college major, Russian language, for the past three years as a hobby. Now for the test! This will be my third visit to Russia over the years. My first visit was in 1969 when historic St. Petersburg was Leningrad.
Making plans ahead for the coming year, living more simply and with few encumbrances, seems to be the path Mocha and I will try to negotiate. Sabine and I named our home in the rolling hills west of Madison New Journey Farm when we first purchased it 40 years ago. And now, I feel Sabine expects me to continue the journey, another new journey, we first began. Living my faith and sharing what I am learning. And be willing to ask for help and let God “hold me in the palm of his hand.”
Well. I didn’t think I was going to be able to write a Pastor’s Pen this month, but it seems that I inadvertently did. Please accept my love for all you, my dear friends. And do feel free to share this “epistle to grieving pilgrims”who might find comfort from it because it is exactly what they, too, might be feeling.
Your brother in Christ.
Father David
Beautiful!
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