A Letter

For those of you who read my last post, I simply cannot get my computer to let me put up a PDF file that works, so I have decided to just put my whole letter to my dad in this one. It's long, but I'm glad to share. Read it if you want...



Dad,

For months I have struggled to come up with what I could ever possibly write to you. My actions typically show my heart more than my words, which is something I believe I learned from you. Nonetheless, I have tried to put down on paper some of the stories and thoughts that will hopefully show what you mean to me.

For most of my life, you have been like a mythic hero. You were like the men from old tales, half man and half god. Like Hercules invading Troy or even Paul Bunyon chopping down trees with one swing of his axe. To this day, you are still that man to me.

I remember the first time I ever went up Norse Peak. You woke us up early and I sat in sleepy silence as you drove us up to the mountains. When I emerged from the car, my eyes still blurry with the last night’s dreams, I recall looking up Norse Peak and wondering if maybe I had made a mistake. After all, we may have some Norwegian in us, but this Norse thing sounded like the real deal. Not to mention that anything with the word “peak” in its title is probably not messing around. I mean, the name alone has some very intimidating qualities. The unwarned hiker with a loose imagination could easily find himself trudging up the long switchbacks with nothing in his head but fearful curiosity, wondering whether or not bloodthirsty Vikings are waiting at the top.

It was a fitting place for you to take us, I suppose. That hike turned out to be as mythic as you have always been for me. As we ascended the mountain, I was continually given new views of the places you had raised us in. Crystal Mountain, the cabin area, Mount Rainier, they were all there as usual, only different. I was looking from a different direction, but it was more than that; it was the first time in my life I was able to start seeing things from your angle. Those old stories you had told me growing up were becoming my own. I was entering into the mythic land and tales in which I could never tell where fact ended and fiction began.

The mythology my mind had created around you only grew when we came over the crest and onto Norse Peak. You had taken us into a hidden Eden, where deer, elk and mountain goats run through the forests and camp robbers will eat from your hands! I half expected you to begin jumping from peak to peak or chase an elk down on foot. After all, I had no notion of your limits. You had carried more on your back than the rest of us, but it didn’t seem to faze you. You had taken us into a foreign wilderness, yet you could continually point out all the sights; Government Meadow, where the Tin Shack was, the Crow’s Nest, the old man on the hill, Martinson Gap. I had trespassed onto Mount Olympus, but the gods would not send their lightening bolts down when one of their own was my guide. So we pressed on.

That night we stayed at the Crow’s Nest. Who would have imagined our family having a hidden cabin in the middle of a wilderness area? You showed us the enormous claw marks from when a bear had gotten inside one winter. You told us stories of friends shooting mice from their bunks. And that night we walked down to the outskirts of the meadow and watched an enormous bull elk graze. How is it that you could always find elk? I began to wonder if the animals knew you by name. I half-expected you to sneak out and have a talk with them later in the evening.

Maybe you did.

The imaginary world I created around you began early. Your cement business, with all of its big rigs and big talking employees, sealed the deal for me at a young age. Don’t think for one second I will ever forget the days you would pay me to come “work for you for the day.” As I recall, this “work” consisted in me sitting around outside, breaking apart rocks with a hammer to see if there were fossils inside. I loved it. But I loved riding in the trucks even more.

As a child, especially a young child, anything that sets you apart and draws attention to you feels good. Take, for instance, the occurrence when I was in preschool and you dropped me off in your cement truck. I remember to this day all of those little hands and faces pushed up against the glass, looking at us. I was glad for the attention, as most kids would be. But I was even more thrilled with the knowledge that other kids were able to see my dad. They were getting a small glimpse of something that I was able to experience every day; a dad who could continually make you stop and press your dirty little face and hands to the window and say “Wow”. That’s what heroes cause us to do. When they show up, everyone stops to take notice.


Loving the Lord your God…

The worst moment of my life took place on a dark, rainy night in Marysville. I called Mom right after she found out you had cancer. That word. I never imagined we would say it in our household. It was never even on the radar. It’s for smokers and drinkers, or people who breathe in bad chemicals at work. It’s for people, not demi-gods and heroes. You don’t read of one of Zeus’ children needing to drive down to the nearest city for radiation treatments. It doesn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen.

But it did.

Everything we had taken for granted was now going to be put to the test. Even more frightening was the realization that you were going to be pushed like never before, and we were going to see who you really were. The strongest man I have ever known was about to be challenged in ways that Norse Peak could not begin to measure up to.

Ten days later, it was Easter. You were supposed to come up to Bellingham, but were just too tired, so we came down. They had given you your first dose of chemo, a wonderful drug that would simultaneously kill you and the cancer, but hopefully the cancer would go quicker. What a terrible day. It was Resurrection Day, but death’s sting was everywhere. When you weren’t upstairs in bed, you sat outside with your head in your hands, too tired to even lift your head and talk.

How could Easter ever be the same again?

Not long before the original Easter occurred, Jesus was asked a question often asked of religious leaders of his time; “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment.” The text makes it seem as if Jesus doesn’t hesitate before answering, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul.” I have to be honest here; I never really got this passage. I mean, does he really need to stretch this out, or could he have cut a couple of these different ways of loving?

Slowly, coming out of your bad Easter, you began to show me the truth of this passage, and why Jesus needed to include four different ways of loving God.

They gave you chemotherapy for a short amount of time, just to make sure it would work. Then they cut. And they cut big. A long, deep slice down your chest. Along with a massive tumor and a chunk of lung, they took some of your heart. How could you continue to love the Lord your God with all your heart when you no longer had all your heart? Not to sound greedy, but how could you love me with all your heart when it was not all there anymore? Yes, I know love does not literally come from the organ we call the heart, yet it’s hard not to believe that our metaphorical heart will be changed when a surgeon is cutting up our literal heart like a Thanksgiving turkey.

When you went in for your first appointment after being found cancer-free, for some reason I wasn’t worried. And everything turned out fine. But that second time, nothing felt right. I didn’t sleep right for days. I worried too much, and didn’t pray enough. Sure enough, the cancer was back. And it was, among other places, in your brain. Soon, they were shaving your head, cutting into your scalp and skull. Brain surgery; on a different day, under a different set of circumstances, it might have been humorous. Actually, with the way our family works, we still made it humorous. But it was different. We still found joy in strange places like only our family can, but now it had an edge to it. I wondered how you could love the Lord your God with all your mind, when they had sliced into your brain and tried to steal some of it from you.

I began to long for you to just have peace. My secret desire had been to escape with you up Norse Peak and to hide out at Martinson Gap, where they couldn’t give you any more bad news and things could just go back to the way they were. It still is.

Instead, they took away your strength. I like to say “they” as if doctors and nurses did all this bad stuff to you. Yes, it was the cancer, along with chemo and radiation, but it just feels better to have people to blame rather than something inside of you. I have watched you get skinnier as muscles are replaced with skin and bone. I’ve seen you get frustrated over all of it. I would gladly give you every ounce of muscle and fat in my body, but instead I get to helplessly watch you and only wish to have something adequate to offer. And I wonder if my dad can love the Lord with all his strength, when he no longer has all of his strength.

And I get mad. And sad. And I go for weeks refusing to pray because I hate all of this and don’t feel like it is too much to ask for health and life and for a good man to be restored to all of us. But I can’t stay angry. I can’t be angry, because you aren’t angry.

The truth is, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m seeing your soul. I never knew how great it was until now. Your soul is kind and generous. It was your soul that made the meadows and hills of the Norse Peak wilderness magical for me. The way you spoke and looked and loved made it something greater than it would have been without you there. It is your soul that would cause you to seek out people who have recently been diagnosed with cancer so you can encourage them to not give up. It is your soul that causes you to look to God when so many would choose to be bitter with Him. When I began to understand this, everything else started falling into place.

I realize now that no surgeon’s scalpel could ever diminish the love in your heart. You came out of that surgery talkative and smiling and being kind to all the nurses, doctors and family member you saw. Watching you hobble around that hospital to play with your brother right after your surgery brought to light just how amazing your heart really is. You brought joy to a sad place. Christ’s love shines through you in ways that no average person could create without Him living within them.

The Bible describes God’s love like a refining fire. When we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, as Paul writes, this happens because God helps us along through the refining process of transformation. In other words, God has to lead us through that rough road because there is no way we would choose to go down it on our own. I’ve seen evidence of your journey down that road in the way your mind now works. All of the same stuff was there before, but now it’s more obvious; the way you love your family, how much you care and are thankful for the people who stop by to visit you. It’s as if when they cut into your brain, they left it open so your mind would be on display for all of us to see. You have a mind for others, a desire to follow Jesus’ second command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Which brings me back to your strength; a good way to end, since I had this all wrong for most of my life. You see, the truth is that you were a mythic being to me because of your strength. You could hike for hours, work long weeks, ride the Ramrod race, bench press the entire stack of weights on the machine while Adam stood on them. I thought this proved that you were strong. I was wrong. You are strong, but it turns out your physical strength has nothing to do with any of it. You have shown your strength in your courage. You have shown it in the way you never give up. You have shown it in the way you continue to fight back; going for walks, doing small exercises, forcing yourself to get up rather than have somebody get something for you. Most of all, though, it is in the way you have let Christ be strong where you are weak. That is what makes you stronger than any man I have ever met.

Since I shared my worst life moment in this letter, I’ll end by sharing one of the best moments of my life. It was Christmas of last year. As usual Mom had made a massive Christmas breakfast. The tree was packed with gifts, but not even your grandkids seemed to notice. This was a time for all of us as a family to be together. It felt hopeful and happy.

Do you remember what happened next? You tried to pray for our meal, but you couldn’t do it. At that moment I learned many things. It suddenly felt okay for my tears to be my prayers. What else can I say to God these days? It was also the first time when all of this started coming together for me and I could see just what God has used these trials to shape you into. Not that I believe He wanted you to go through all of this, but I think that He did want you to grow closer to Him during these terrible times. And you have.

On that Christmas day, the day we celebrate the greatest gift of all, I saw how blessed I have been. You are a gift to my life. You have loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul. And that love has spilled out into your life, making your love for the rest of us so obvious. As it turns out, that is what makes you my hero.

I love you Dad. Thank-you for the gift that is you.

Your Son,

Matt