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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Officially moving to Canada email
Well, the official letter has come and the deposit check has been cashed.
We are heading up to
FAQ:
Where are you going?
To
Isn't that in
Yes.
Don't you know it's cold there?
Yes.
Is Denise going with you?
Yes. Actually, it was her idea (see previous email on seminary).
Are the kids going too?
No, we're selling them on eBay. Of course they're coming with us. Isn't that kinda obvious?
Don't get an attitude, I'm the one asking the questions. What are you studying?
A Masters in Divinity
How long is the program?
Three years.
Wow. Don't you know it's cold there?
Yes. Actually, moving someplace with four seasons is pretty important to us, since we've never done that before. I think it'll be interesting to try out, and I'm certain that I won't want to try this out as I get older.
You got that right. What are you doing with your house?
It's on the market right now, waiting on somebody to buy it.
Wow. What do your parents think?
They're excited for us, and also very sad that we're leaving. It's been pretty cool living near them for so long.
So how'd you decide on Regent?
Well, I like the school and it's thoughts on life and God and ministry, I like that it's in an amazing city, and there is a lot of folks from different places and backgrounds so Denise and I can get to experience a wide variety of perspectives as we go through the program.
What are you going to after you graduate?
We don't have a clue. Going there is a part of the process of figuring out what we want to do next. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to learn more about how the church and the bible got here, how other people wrestle with thoughts and emotions about God and community and mystery and art and such, and to be around people asking the same sort of questions but with very different backgrounds. Through that, I hope to find where my voice is in all that.
Can I come visit?
Of course! We'd love for you to!
I hope this answers some of your questions as to what we're doing. On the off chance that some of y'all might talk about this when with your friends if we're not around, I've put together a few small group discussion questions:
Small Group Discussion Questions:
1. Can you believe they're moving?
2. Do you think they're doing the right thing?
3. Have you ever been to
4. Did you know it's cold in
5. How did a chump like Matt end up with such an incredible wife?
The Eulogy for my Grandfather
Donnie Lee Partridge
21 February 2008
I don’t have any memory of my first memory of him. Like my parents and siblings, he has just always been there. From the first few peculiar images I can recollect as a toddler to the updates I heard about him yesterday, he has just always been there. Perhaps that is the source of the shock I feel. Now he is not there.
If there is one good thing about dementia, it is that it allows plenty of time to bid farewell. No sudden goodbye, no shock of having him here one moment and gone the next. This is a disease that allowed us all to see death coming from a mile away. Mostly this allowed for only long, protracted pain, but I certainly had the opportunity for closure.
The road has been so long I have had the chance to bid farewell twice, separated by years. The first time I felt the weight of their departure was in 2004, almost a full calendar year after Granny had a stroke. Denise and I were in their home at 3202 Pinecrest with Emma and Jackson, playing on the floor and talking about the past. Granny and Daddy Don were fun to be with, and still somewhat animated when talking, but they were also quite different than the way they used to be. The caregiver in their home was a significant reminder of all the things they could no longer do themselves, and it took me a year to realize how big a change this was. Now there would be no more fishing trips to the Blanco, no more movies or symphonies or trips to Port Aransas or the strange and fun things that happened when they would enter my world. No, they were both on a different road, and I went home and wrote in my journal, “We went and visited Granny and Daddy Don today, and I find myself wishing for days that will never come back.”
The second time I said goodbye was this past May, when we made the decision to enroll him in hospice. Through a series of unfortunate events, he was in the emergency room on a Sunday and would be in the hospital for nearly a week. He was so confused and disoriented, at times not knowing who he was, and always asking to go home and asking for Elaine. I think that is so amazing, and testimony to the power of love, that he could forget his own name before forgetting his wife. He was just awful to the staff at the hospital. Mean and belligerent and cussing and confused fury. It broke my heart to see the man that I knew as so kind and patient act so poorly out of confusion and fear. I wanted to go up to each staff member of the hospital and apologize and explain that he isn’t really the man you see here; he is somebody else entirely.
He was a great man of faith, he came from a long Christian heritage, and he loved Crestview UMC. He met Granny through the Methodist church upon enrolling in “The Great University,” his faith motivated much of his passion and peace, and his faith blended with his love of art in a way that I always found intriguing. We were in Europe on vacation as a family, and I walked up to him while we were waiting for others in our group and I could tell I was interrupting him in thought. As he stared across the street, he said, “Look there at the shadow of the street sign, how it intersects the picture of the globe on that window, and with a black and white picture you would have a powerful image of how the cross covers the world in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of this small street.” Faith and art, stillness in the midst of busyness. That is Daddy Don.
He taught me the joy of fishing at an early age. I have so many memories of being outside with him, of fishing with him, and then going off to do whatever else came inside the head of a small boy that didn’t have the patience to sit and fish very long. He taught me how to whittle, and so while he sat on his camp stool fishing, I would sit on mine and try to turn a stick into a work of art. Usually it became a toothpick, and I would hand it to him, and he would put it in his mouth and marvel at what a fine toothpick it was. Then I would decide it was time to chunk rocks in the river, and he would only ask that I move a ways downstream and watch out for snakes.
He believed that Swensen’s Ice Cream Shop could settle almost any problem. If Andy and I got in an argument while staying with him, he would get down on his knee, look at both of us, and say, “Let’s see what Mr. Swensen has to say about that.” And then if we would get in an argument over who had to sit in the middle seat of his Ford Ranger, he would offer to flip a quarter. The winner got to choose where to sit, and the loser got the quarter. I thought about that for a few seconds and then told him I would sit anywhere for a quarter. He just chuckled and said, “I bet you would, but it doesn’t work like that.”
I remember exploring his house, which was a lot like a museum to me, and coming across a shoebox full of pipes. I asked him if he still smoked, and he said he really didn’t have any need to anymore. The only reason he started smoking was so, if he was asked a difficult question in a meeting, he could take that opportunity to relight his pipe and stall for a few minutes while coming up with an answer. Very slow, very methodical, very patient, taking it all in. In life, in work, everywhere. Makes for a great fisherman and a great storyteller.
He was an incredible storyteller. His bedtime stories were amazing and fantastic and, of course, always true accounts of what really happened. He would tell stories of how the town of Zorn got it’s name, why the town of May has a bulldog for a mascot, and about the jackknife under the trapdoor in the prison in Anson for when the hangings didn’t end quickly. Riding up to Munday was a lesson in the history of Texas, both because he knew so many stories about so many towns, and because my grandparents would stop at every single historical marker and read it. Every. Single. One. This drove me nuts as a kid in Jr. High, because I was just ready to get there and get the long drive over. But we would stop and read about why this tree was significant or what this collection of rocks used to be or what group of people had traveled this same road. It was a very slow, methodical way to travel, and that is exactly how Daddy Don approached life.
No, the staff at the hospital last May would never know who this man really is, only the remnants left from a disease that has robbed him of his memory, his dignity, and his identity. When I came home one evening, overwhelmed and sad and brokenhearted, Denise handed me a small package. I unwrapped it, and she had framed a picture of Daddy Don and I on the Blanco river from when I was a boy. Denise knows me well, and getting that picture on that day was a fantastic reminder of the great life we had together. Even if nobody else knows who he really was, his family knows, and we continue to tell his stories.
I think he was such a great storyteller because he was always talking about the
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