by John Creasey
It took me longer than it should have to appreciate the complexity of Dixie’s relationship with her parents. I didn’t ask the questions I could have asked and she didn’t volunteer the feelings she might have shared. I now know it was because she couldn’t. She was too uncertain in our young days of marriage. Would I respect her? Would I love her still? If the dysfunctional years with her parents were exposed in its depth, what would her new family think? Everything was too new. It was too risky. It is a lesson for every man, I think, to tenderly open our hearts and minds to the feelings of our mate in ways we are not used to doing.
The signals were there in her letters. I was too self-centered, too much in-love to read them for what they were. Her comments about her mother and father were complimentary. She spoke of them in glowing terms at times, hiding the deep pain she felt in their relationship. Her mother was outwardly pleasant to me, and to others soft spoken and kind. Dixie wrote of times when her mom had been especially considerate and warm to her. Still, I knew things were not good. Not really.
Though I was not around her father for any length of time, when I was with him, he seemed gentle, respectful and complimentary in his attitude. A down-home farmer-in-the-city kind of guy. She wrote of borrowing his car or going to his home to prepare dinner together. The kinds of father/daughter things that say, “I love you.” At no time did she refer disparagingly toward either of her parents.
When we were first engaged, she asked her dad to walk her down the aisle and give her away at our wedding. In spite of everything, she wanted this. Most brides do. However, when her mother refused to attend the wedding if this happened, her parent’s bitter animosity proved impossible to cover up. Dixie was certain it was more than an idle threat. Her mother meant it. To avoid a wedding catastrophe, she caved to her pressure as being the lesser of two evils. She had tried to recreate her parents into what she desired and needed them to be. Parents like those her best friends had. In the end it was not to be.
My earning her trust was essential to her overcoming silent fears of being tainted somehow by the failures of her parents. I missed this at first because I wasn’t listening well. I was too absorbed in what I was trying to be and do. Eventually, she risked sharing her hidden story. In the sharing she became stronger, and so did I. I was blown away by her inner strength and the courage of this beautiful creature I had married!
Our move to the West Coast put distance between them and us. Though it was not something we had thought through at first, it proved to be healthy in the long run. Like knowing the Grand Canyon is there, but not having to cross it every day. I am confident God had this in mind long before we understood its importance.
There were a couple of times she went back to Oklahoma alone and on a few occasions our whole family made the trek. Each time both parents received a visit, though they lived some distance from each other. Dixie’s mom visited us three times before she passed away. Her father was never in our home. Even when he came to California, while we were pastors there, he made no attempt to come see us. On a visit back to Tulsa, given his awareness of Dixie’s childhood and young adult years, her brother, Don, assured her our move to the West Coast was the best thing she could have done.
Meeting Ward’s family was an experience like none I had ever had. He has aunts and uncles galore and cousins beyond counting, compared to this girl who hardly knew any extended family. I was a novelty for inspection at the Coulee City church, where the pastor’s wife had already dubbed me from pictures she had seen as having “evil eyes.” It is a small town, a small church. Where could I hide?
I sensed Ward’s immediate family close ranks around me. His sister, Nadeen, was amazing! Nothing ruffled her. She included me in whatever she was doing, wherever she needed to go, and with such ease that I soon truly felt part of the family. By my observing, she taught me about being a mom and a wife. She was patient with me in the kitchen, performing the simplest of tasks that were totally new to me. Things an impatient mom had failed to teach me. Her capacity for patience and caring for her daughter, Candy, and husband, Earl, was with good humor that impressed me. This was quite a different family picture than I was accustomed to seeing.
Ward’s brother, Doug, was a baby about eight months old. Ras and Luella, grandparents to six-year-old Candy, and a baby of their own, were likewise impressive. I was quite sure, however, I would never measure up to Luella’s standards. She was Nadeen’s opposite. Where Nadeen was relaxed in a room scattered with the debris of living, Luella was neat and tidy. If I was reading a book and put it down to go to the bathroom, the book was closed and put away on the shelf when I got back. Everything had a place and everything was in its place.
Ras, on the other hand was very warm from the first time we met. He was a “huggy bear.” When I first met him, he didn’t offer me his hand, or say, “Hello.” He hugged me! I was shocked and first looked at Luella to see if this was an okay thing. And then I looked at my mother to see her disapproval. I don’t recall my father ever hugging me growing up. Ras would engage me in conversation just to hear my “Oakie” accent. I didn’t realize he enjoyed hearing it. I thought he was making fun of me. I wanted his approval so badly, I worked very hard to get rid of the accent, much to his disappointment. To this day, I can’t easily pick up accents.
Luella and I sought for a comfortable place with each other. I eventually realized she was not judging me; she was giving me time to find a place to be. She invited me to tell her about myself and she shared her life with me. She became my dearest friend, a spiritual guide, a mentor, and a mother confidant who helped me through many perilous places in the years ahead. I still miss her. ~ DLT diary, 2015
Thursday. We are at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, F4, admitting Dixie for her second chemo infusion. The view across Lake Union is the same in this waiting area as it is on any of SCCA’s seven floors. Through long floor-to-ceiling walls of clear glass windows, one cannot help being mesmerized by the old/new Seattle scene.
Houseboats moored along the shore. A seaplane dropping onto the lake from the north. Construction cranes, like giant steel and cable obstetricians, signaling the birth of new office and condo buildings, while older buildings stand by silently absorbing the inevitability of it all. Change. Signs of the times.
Blue sky. Blue water. Queen Anne Hill, long a Seattle favorite, looming on the opposite shore. The bridge that crosses over to funky Fremont. The revival of old Wallingford and the University districts in the distance, where we lived our first years of married life together. Yesterday. We laughed here. We cried. We struggled. We dreamed here. Yesterday. We loved. We held new life in our arms here. We went away. Yesterday. And now years later, as ironic as it seems, we are here again. Today.
This could be a fine hotel, a gorgeous vacation spot. But it’s not. That was yesterday. Not able to cherish this season but unwilling to waste it. This is today.
In her pre-check they say she’s doing well, although the white cells need a boost. It’s the neutrophils. Of course it is. We listen silently, as if we knew all along. She shows us the chart. There were 4000 before her first infusion; today 1100. The second chemo treatment will be administered as planned, but if these aggressive little fighters were to drop below 1000, Dixie’s chemo treatment will come to a screeching halt. To correct the drop, she needs two shots to motivate bone marrow function. They must be administered right away. The first will be tomorrow, the second the day following.
And with that, the chemotherapy process gets underway a second time.
On the drive home, late in the afternoon, we stop by a local nursery to purchase a few small plants for our deck. And we choose an early Mother’s Day hanging basket of flowers that will be seen the first thing every morning through our bedroom window. The beauty of color accomplishes something medicine cannot do. Yet by dinner time, she is feeling nauseous. The chemo is on its deadly mission. Her body is the battlefield. She eats some lactose-free i
ce cream with ginger ale poured over it. It’s all she can manage for nourishment tonight.
Friday. We are back again at SCCA, awaiting yet another nurse, who, upon her arrival, mentions she came here some years before from a little town in Sweden. As she prepares to administer the neurogenic injection, she explains to us the “why” of what is happening.
Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells in humans. They play a key role in one’s front-line defense against invading pathogens. A low white blood cell count, or “neutropenia,” is a condition characterized by abnormally low levels of neutrophils in the circulating blood. Dixie’s neutropenia is a side effect of the chemotherapy. Chemotherapy uses drugs to destroy cells that grow rapidly, like cancer cells. Unfortunately, as we are learning, chemotherapy also affects normal cells that grow rapidly, such as blood cells in the bone marrow, cells in hair follicles, or cells in the mouth and intestines.
These white blood cell defenders rush in to prevent and fight infections. As in the time-honored Bible story of Esther, they, like she, are created “for such a time as this.” But as their numbers drop the risk of infection increases, resulting in the disruption of cancer treatment. Fortunately, the nurse tells us, neutropenia can be prevented by the injection of white blood cell growth factors, thereby reducing the risk of infection and hospitalization. Reinforcements now appearing. Important to any cancer patient, but especially to those who are older and at greater risk of more severe infection and longer hospitalizations.
And so the neurogenic injection is given. Moments later we make our way to the underground parking garage. I see her falter. I reach for her and ask, are you okay? No, she says, looking down, concentrating on each unsteady step. We pause for a moment. She takes my arm, presses up against me. It’s not far, I say. We are almost there.
And I think how glad I am to be here. Right now. Walking with her on my arm, pressing up against me. Here where it all began for us, so many years ago.
Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), reformer of the Carmelite order in Spain, once said that “one’s suffering should be as incense offered before God.” I’ve never cared for the smell of incense and never quite understood why God seems to have such a thing for it. Why do Catholics use it during Mass? Is this another reason Protestants exist today? Is it to make the place smell a certain way, or is it just to encourage some of us to cough at the mere scent of it?
In reality, of course, it is an expression of prayer, and it is in fact very scriptural, very Roman Catholic, and very Judeo-Christian. There is a recipe for incense in Exodus 30: 34–36, and incense is associated with divinity and reserved for God (Ex: 30: 37–38).
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of hosts. ~ Malachi 1:11
I get all that. I still don’t like it, any more than I like the suffering being foisted upon the love of my life! So Lord, this is my prayer; an offering of suffering as the incense of worship and praise to God. If it must be, then let it be a pure offering, the scent of which reaches your own heart that knows suffering. And also the heart of someone whose faith may be wavering in their present affliction, who feels discarded and abandoned in their own great testing time.
Be the One. The One who cares. The One on whom we can all lean. The One who sees us stumble but will not let us fall. Help us to discover again the great power of prayer. May our relationship grow deeper and stronger with each unsteady step.
It’s not far. We are almost there.
I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction. ~ Psalm 31:7
14
Questioning
The harvest season was over. It was time to find a place to live in Seattle and settle down to school, jobs, and the life ahead. Our University district upstairs apartment was tiny. The kitchen was so small that every corner could be reached from one spot in the middle. The eating area was a booth in the corner, the living room a hall between the kitchen and bedroom and the shared bathroom was out on the back porch. Lucky for all of us, the next door couple were quiet and clean.
Ward enrolled in Northwest College and we both found jobs. Ward was a typesetter at Sound Printing and I, a secretary at the Seattle Fire Department. I really hated the job, but I met a friend there. Barbara, and her husband Dick, a UW Forestry student, became our good friends. We ate many spaghetti dinners together in each other’s homes the next two years.
Seattle was a new kind of environment for me. Oklahoma was a dry state – no legal alcohol sales permitted. The route to my new work place took me along a street in a revolting part of the city where drunks lay passed out on the sidewalk, sleeping it off in their vomit, including women. What a revelation of my new home!
Growing up during segregation in a segregated state I had seen prejudice but had never been on the receiving end. The fire chief believed I was Jewish from my looks; cause enough to not interview me. This was only after he had insisted his secretary telephone first to ask if I was black because of my name on the application. Dixie was just too doubtful for him.
Six months was all I could take until another job opportunity came my way. At Minneapolis Honeywell, my boss was a womanizer who had trouble keeping his secretaries. I was no exception. Sexual harassment in the work place would cost him his job today; but then the workplace was a man’s domain.
I eventually settled into a job that was a good fit and paid well at Carter Oil in downtown Seattle. I was the manager’s secretary and all was going well until I discovered I was pregnant. Morning sickness and my boss’s long, green cigars were not good companions. His wife had just delivered a new baby and he recognized my symptoms. The cigars disappeared and all went well until unexpected symptoms at five months made bedrest necessary.
Soon after Ward’s graduation, our 8 pound, 3 ounce Michele Lenea (pronounced Lenā) arrived. It was 23 July 1958. A precious bundle had dropped into our lives and it was love at first sight. Every experience was new. I was on a steep learning curve when it came to infant care. The nurse taught me how to put a diaper on, how to bathe and feed her and how to hold her. This was just the beginning of a lifelong adventure with the daughter of our dreams. She is a wondrous love gift from God.
With college behind us and seminary ahead, we moved to Portland Oregon, when Michele was five weeks old, to be in time for Ward to start classes. I had a job waiting for me at the Carter Oil Portland office. However, my post birth body was not cooperating. Luella flew down to help us, but upon her arrival realized the seriousness of our situation. The next day the three of us, Luella, Michele and I flew to Wenatchee and I went straight to the hospital. Luella and Michele went home to Coulee City. Ras stayed with me. What was God doing? Weren’t we following his plan? Seminary had been our plan since before our wedding.
Several weeks later, Michele and I rejoined Ward, the seminary student. We hired another student’s wife to take care of Michele and I returned to work, driving fifteen miles each way to my job, crying all the way. Those were bleak days for both of us. Ward was questioning our circumstances, his call to military chaplaincy, and I was questioning everything about my existence. We both wanted to be in God’s will, but we weren’t sure what that was. Neither of us were quitters, but that’s exactly what we did. Ward quit seminary, I quit my job, and we became evangelists. ~ DLT diary, 2015
15
The “What if” Question
Recently Ward has asked repeatedly the “what-if?” questions. What if we had stayed in seminary? How would our lives have been different? What if we had stayed in Springfield where we first began? We were following what we believed to be God leading, even though we were both scared and unsure about the direction we were going. We were like blind people holding onto each other on a very narrow path.
We moved all our
earthly belongings to a tiny rented house in Coulee City and for the next year and half we were evangelists. Ward studied every day and preached every night. We stayed in other people’s homes, ate what they offered, and took what they could pay us. During the summer Ward worked in the harvests and I cooked for a harvest crew, while Michele stayed in the safety of her play pen. When summer was over, we moved our things into the attic at Nadeen and Earl’s and when not in services somewhere, we lived with them as lingering house guests. Robin and Michele, a year younger than her cousin, grew up as good friends and remain so today. ~ DLT diary, 2015
It is not easy to think back now on our post-seminary days. With no money and only one meeting scheduled, we set out to serve God in the only way open to us. We drive to Marblemount, Washington, a small town in the northwestern part of the state, at this time situated literally at the end of SR 20. The pastor is a passing acquaintance who has invited us for a two-week revival series. Thus the end of the road is the place we are to begin. It’s all we have going for us. Someday I need to talk to God about his sense of humor.
These are days in which itinerant evangelists hold revival meetings as community outreaches. I have seven sermons in my pocket when we begin. The meetings go on every night and twice on Sundays. This would be sixteen sermons in case you’ve not been counting. Dixie and I sing a couple of songs each night and I preach. During the daytimes, Dixie watches out for our baby girl and I pray and study, putting more messages together.
We have no clue really as to what we are doing. Neither of us have any clergy or formal church experience ourselves, or in our families, other than what we observed growing up. The folk here are kind, good-hearted mountain people, who for the most part hunt and fish and work in the forests or in agriculture. They are evenly split politically, and the religious majority are the “nones,” meaning those never seen in or interested in church.