Mark's Letters

On the way to Kansas, Teckla and I had one terrible night in a motel. We were exhausted and had driven many hot, sweaty miles without air-conditioning. The fan had gone out just as we got to Diamond Lake and began descending to the high desert around Bend and Burns. It was 103 that day.

After showers, we collapsed into bed until Teckla woke up in a panic from a bad dream. Her voice and eyes were full of fear. Trembling she asked, “Who are you?”

I gently said, “I am your husband, Mark.”

 She stared at me and said, “No, you aren’t. You are just pretending.” Tears ran down her cheeks.

Soon I was crying too. I knew Teckla’s dementia could someday come to this moment, but this hit like a hammer. I was crushed.

I gently took her hands and pointed to her wedding ring and then showed her mine. I said, “See we both wear the same rings. We are married. With this ring I promised to always love you and keep you safe.”

After I coaxed her back to bed, she sobbed, tightly holding my hand, her fingers rubbing my ring. Eventually, she fell asleep.

I don’t know what part of this was dementia and what was a nightmare hard to wake from. Next day she was fine, and she has not had another terror like this. She always knows who I am.

But the lesson of the night has pierced my heart. There have been nights when I have been as lost and afraid as Teckla, nights when I have not known where God is or who I am. Like Teckla clinging to my ring, I have sobbed and fallen asleep holding the promises of God.  I am His. He is mine. He will never leave me nor forsake me. Though the night is long, the dawn is His.

Teckla and I are leaving Oregon. It is not the first time. In 1980 we moved to Olathe, Kansas where I had been offered a teaching position. Although we had been living in Pullman, Washington since 1978, we still spent enough time in Myrtle Point to consider Oregon our home. We ended up living in Olathe or across the border in Kansas City, Missouri for about thirteen years. We moved back to Myrtle Point in 1993 when my father was dying of cancer.

Nothing helped me love Oregon more than my years in the Midwest. Upon my return, I delighted in Oregon’s rivers. Because you are seldom far from a river’s headwaters, many rivers here run clear and clean.  Near Myrtle Point, the north, middle, and south forks of the Coquille River meet. Myrtle trees, bigleaf maples, and red alders arch over the upper reaches of the coastal rivers. Salmon runs defy gravity and swim far up the rivers to their spawning grounds.

I also delight in the opportunity for solitude. I live in one of the least populated coastal counties of Oregon. I have sometimes walked all day on the beach south of Bandon and not seen another soul. The same solitude is possible on some of the trails in the Siskiyou Mountains south of Myrtle Point. I once hiked five hours on the Panther Ridge trail without meeting anyone. And if one goes a little off trail, though unwise perhaps, solitude is guaranteed.

I will miss the ocean—its power, majesty, and beauty. Through great sorrow and loss, it has been a comfort. Our family began camping near the ocean when I was only two. My mother often recounted that “osh” was one of my first words. For many years we camped near Cape Creek beach just below Cape Perpetua. I can still the point to the rock that was my pirate ship as the tide came in around it. Years later my own boys played on the same basalt ship. Yesterday we took Ari and Dylan’s kids (Leah, Noah, and Khloe) to Bandon where they splashed in the waves and ran wild on the beach until exhausted.

Both beach and mountains have also given me the “wild”. It is hard to explain why this is important. I hiked all over and through the nature parks and trails around Olathe and Kansas City, but it was never long before I came to a fence and some farmland or another sprawling housing development. In southern Oregon or the Cascades, you can be immersed in the wild for days before coming to even a road. You will see the scats of bears and mountain lions on the trail. Such wildness humbles me and puts me right relationship with creation—fear and delight.

More than all this, I will miss the courage and fortitude of those who live in Oregon but go to church anyway. In the Bible belt, no one blinks if you talk about going to church on Sunday. In Oregon, people, especially those I taught with at the college, were shocked. It is interesting that many of my Christian friends in Myrtle Point did not grow up going to church, becoming believers later in life. I appreciate their tenacious faith, free of religious clichés or lifeless legalism. I will profoundly miss my brothers and sisters in Christ who have loved us and helped us in our hardest times.

Oregon has been, of all places, my heart’s home. I was born in Pendleton. With great joy, I climbed the trees and waded in the creeks of Milton-Freewater. From six grade to college, I lived in Myrtle Point where I learned the beaches and forest trails of the South Coast. For many years my family and then Teckla and I camped on the central coast of Oregon. The beaches, trees, creeks, and rivers are friends.

So why move? When Teckla and I married, we vowed to seek first the kingdom of God. We have always gone where we believed God is calling us. This direction has often been a sense of God’s pleasure with a direction or decision. It has always felt more like an invitation than a command. We have sought His will over our own. My discernment of God’s will is imperfect, but going to Kansas feels like what love would do. We will be closer to my three sons and my nine grandchildren. Our move will help Ari get settled into Dylan and Vanessa’s home and give him a home, a mother, and a father. We will be moving into their basement and helping them adopt Ari.

This is not the retirement people dream about, but it feels right to end our lives as selflessly as we started them. It has never been about us. And over the years, every time I thought I was sacrificing something, God has embarrassed me with His goodness, ambushed me with His love, and surprised me with joy. Even in Kansas, perhaps especially in Kansas.

I