Posted in Lessons I Have Learned

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the death of my mother-in-law.  A year ago I posted her Eulogy.  After reading it again a year later I am posting it again.  It is long, but I promise it will hold you interest.! What an amazing lady she was!  When I re-read this I could hear the story being told in her voice.  How blessed we are to have her life story in her own words!

Here is my original post:

My mother-in-law passed away Friday night due to complications to the chemo treatment she was getting.  I was very fortunate to have a mother-in-law I really, really loved.  She called me her daughter-in-love because she said that better described how she felt about our relationship.  In the almost 17 years my husband and I have been married she never interfered in our lives.  She never criticized, complained or caused us any grief.  We had a lot in common and I enjoyed spending time with her.  She was a wonderful grandma to my kids.  Although we lived many miles apart she still managed to be close to them.  We will really miss her!  At Christmas this year we were thrilled when she gave us a completed copy of her Memoirs.  She had a fascinating life!  It has been my privilege in the past 48 hours to take her beautiful story and edit into her Eulogy.  I hope that this mix of her words and mine will bless the people who come to the services to pay their last respects to her.  I know that her life, love and devotion to God has been a deep and unexplainable blessing to my family.  We will always miss her.

Here is her Eulogy:

If you met Jeanette ****** in the last 40 years you would probably have a hard time recognizing her as the adventurer she was in her youth.  But Jeannette was a diverse woman.  More complex on the inside than she was on the out.  On the outside she may have seemed like a simple woman, devoted to her family, her friends, and her Lord.   And although she was that devoted woman,  she also had adventures that most of us can only imagine!

Jeannette was born in 1932 in Indonesia to Iranian-Armenian parents.  Her early years where spent on the tropical island of Sumatra living near the edge of the jungle.  This is where her adventures began!  Her Father, Jack ******, had what most of us would consider a pretty unique hobby, Jeanette recalls “My father’s hobby was big game hunting and on the weekends he was often gone into the jungles of Aceh to hunt tigers…”One day I will take you hunting with me.” her father told her.  “True to form my dad and his friend did just that!”  “I still to this day, do not know how my mother consented to such an insane idea”  Jeanette recalled in her recently completed memoirs Life’s Quilt  by Jeannette ******.    “However, there we were, two little girls with their dad’s in the jungle.  Once we got to the clearing our dads went off to do their hunting and left us by the car.  After awhile my dad returned looking for his friend.  All of a sudden we heard three shots, so we went in the direction they came from.  As bizarre as this story sounds it is nevertheless true.  A full-grown python had wrapped part of its body around the hunting dog and was crushing it to death while starting attacking my dad’s friend.  With one hand grabbing the pythons head and aiming his rifle with the other hand this man started firing.  The first shot missed the reptile, the second one knocked it out, but the 3rd one killed it.  By the time we arrived the python was dead.  Just the sight of this monster set me crying.  Need I say anymore – that was my one and only experience going hunting in Sumatra’s jungle!”

 Jeanette’s life included a lot of traveling. One of the first trips she remembered was “In 1938 my father had earned an all expense paid trip to Europe for six months and so our little family embarked on a huge ocean liner for distant shores.  I vaguely remember the trip.  We spent time touring Holland and France.  I learned to knit at the age of 6 while I was in Holland.  We returned to the East Indies in 1939 the year WWII started in Europe.  I vividly remember sitting with my mother on our porch while the battle of Britain was being fought.  My mother explained to me how brave the English pilots were flying the spitfires protecting Britain from the Germans.  Hitler and Winston Churchill became household names.  Even though the war raged on in Europe the Netherlands East Indies was not involved in anything.  However, Japan had its eye on the rich islands.”

Jeannette describes her childhood days in Sumatra:

“We had a nice house near the swimming pool (I was a real water rat and went swimming daily.)  And I was involved in Brownies, enjoyed roller-skating and bicycling.  My Mom, Elizabeth ******,  had a good friend named Truus Schenck. She had a beautiful house and I spent a lot of time there.  Her garden was like a big park.  Tante Truus (as I called her) also had a beautiful house in the mountains where I spent wonderful vacations. Mom and Tante Truus often had tea on the veranda and I would play in the lovely garden.  As they were well off, they had a telephone and a car, which was real luxury in the 1930’s.  My carefree days were not to last too long.  The dark clouds of war were rapidly forming on the horizon.”

At the age of 9 her ideal life was about to make a drastic turn.  The year was 1941 and the Japanese were on the march into the Far East, Jeannette and her Mother were about to escape through the jungle to attempt avoiding Japanese occupation.

December 7, 1941 – Day of Infamy


“It was about 7:30 a.m. in the morning and I was getting ready to go to school.  Dad was by the radio listening to the morning news when we heard about the attack; and, at the same time, it was announced that the Netherlands East Indies had declared war on Japan”.
 
“My first experience of a bombardment came that very same week.  On a sleepy Sunday afternoon the Japanese bombed our little city.  We had no defense at all!”
“Panic and fear set in; everyone was trying to evacuate.  Planes and boats were packed to capacity.  The rumor was that the Japanese would never capture the island of Java.  Consequently Dad wanted mom and me to leave for Java, where all her relatives lived.  However, that was easier said than done.”

“In the middle of all this chaos Mr. Ketchum, an American Diplomat, visited Medan and got in touch with my dad.   He apparently had met my dad previously on a hunting expedition.”  “Dad explained his dilemma that he could not secure a passage for mom and me to get away to Java.  Mr. Ketchum was instrumental in getting a car with an Indonesian driver to drive mom and me overland through the Sumatran jungles for several days until we reached the town where we could cross over to Java by ship.  All the efforts were in vain because the rumor that Java would never fall was bogus.” “We spent the next three and a half years under the Japanese occupation.”

Life was quite different for Jeannette during the years they spent under Japanese Occupation. “Schools, churches, banks, and medical facilities were closed.   The Imperial Japanese Army was visible everywhere and we were stripped of all our rights as citizens.  We were now captives of another power.”  She recalled. “Families were separated by gender.   Many people perished!    We were virtually cut off from the outside world.  All radios were sealed off.  However, the underground was very active and news about the war front always managed to be heard.” “As for us children, we did not have any schooling for 3 ½ years.  We would hear horrible stories of people we knew having been captured and tortured… so we constantly lived in fear and dread.”

“In August 1945, we heard via the underground that Japan had surrendered after a terrible bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima by America.  Needless to say we were overjoyed, not knowing the full extent of the damage done by the atom bomb.  All we knew was our ordeal was soon to be over and we would be free.”

But, “Our joy was short-lived and we certainly were not prepared for what happened next.” 

“A strange…period followed immediately after the war…For the civilian Dutch population it was at that time totally incomprehensible, violent and dangerous.”

“After the Japanese surrender the Indonesians declared themselves independent…the first new president was appointed… of Indonesian Republic.  The Allied forces had ordered that the Japanese authorities remained responsible for the safety of the allied POWs and civil internees until the arrival of the (British) troops.  Local young Indonesians started to disarm Japanese military personnel and to round up people suspected of not sympathizing with the new republic.  Quickly increasing violent agitation erupted in many places in Java and Sumatra.”

“The same Japanese soldiers that were our camp guards suddenly became our protectors, urging us to remain inside the camps and defending us against attacks from the… (youngsters).”

“Amidst this chaos the first British troops arrived and after some deliberation a combined British-Japanese force relieved the besieged camps and evacuated the inhabitants, first to a safe area in the center of the town and later to the capital Batavia, where the situation was more under control.”

“We, refugees from Indonesia, were placed in Red Cross camps outside the city in primitive concrete army barracks.  Trucks brought in food and water twice a day.  As we had left all our possessions behind when we escaped, the Red Cross furnished us clothes; however, shoes were in short supply.  I remember a truck coming into the compound full of Japanese boots. Since I had no shoes, I secured a pair for myself.   In order to bathe we had to walk down the hill to a former swimming pool, because there were no facilities in the compound for us to have baths.  Little by little however, things improved and after several months my father, who had joined us, was rehired by his former company and we moved into the city where my parents and I stayed in one room, as there were no apartments available anywhere.”
 
“Life in Singapore returned to a normal routine slowly but surely.  Around 1947 my father decided to send my mother and me to Australia where I was to go to school.  However, there was one slight problem, I didn’t know English well enough so started the tutoring.  In Australia I attended a Church of England boarding school for about a year, after which I returned to Singapore to finish my education at the local English Convent”

“Shortly after I finished school my father was transferred to North Malaysia to a little town called Ipoh.  After a short try at nurses’ training in Singapore I joined them.  At the time the Malaysian Emergency was in full swing.”  “The Malayan Emergency, in actuality was a 12-year guerilla warfare between the British and communist sympathizers.” One of the ways the British tried to control the situation was to issue identity cards.  Everyone over the age of 12 was issued a card and was told to carry it with them at all times.  This measure drove the insurgents further underground.   Such was the environment in which we lived, jungle warfare.  During the day we could hear the planes bombing the jungle.  Since hand grenades were a common occurrence the hotels, restaurants, and other public places, protected their entrances by chain link doors.  The planters and tin miners drove in armored cars and no one knew when a hand grenade or machinegun attack would be forthcoming.”  “Although we had a fairly nice house and an easy lifestyle complete with servants, I was not happy in Ipoh.  The few English girls around my age, who lived in Ipoh, came from society-minded families and I really never became a part of their lifestyle.  I did develop some friendships with families who lived on the rubber plantations and tin mines and often would visit them.  Even though I would be driven in an armored car, fear always accompanied these trips.  I always hoped and prayed we would not be ambushed on the way.”
 
“Girls in those days were not encouraged to go on to Higher Education and get careers.  Consequently I was never encouraged to go on to college.  Instead I attended a local small business school and learned to type and take shorthand.  Bookkeeping was never my cup of tea and I was not successful in that endeavor.  I landed my first job as a junior secretary while living in Ipoh.”

“In 1952 my dad was once more eligible for a 6-month sabbatical to Europe.  He sent my mother and me on ahead and in December, 1952, we boarded a big Dutch Ocean liner headed for Holland.  Little did I know what a memorable trip this was to be?
As we were nearing the Red Sea… at midnight our ship collided with another huge Dutch ship.  The jolt was tremendous and as the alarms went off people came out of the woodwork, all scrambling to reach the upper deck.  Panic reigned supreme.  The sight of passengers in their nightclothes wearing life jackets was really a funny sight.  There we stood in our nightclothes on the upper deck wondering what in the world had happened.   The other ship was on fire and we were at a 45-degree angle!  Someone was kind enough to inform me that if we didn’t get into a lifeboat we had no chance at survival, as the waters were shark-infested!  All this while it was pitch-black!”  “…after a while our ship managed to shut the big holes and stop the water rushing in and we were all safe.  No lives were lost!  However, in order to be able to sail the big holes had to be above the water line and we had to remain at a 45-degree angle.  All the cargo was transferred to one side of the ship, swimming pools were emptied and used for cargo and this was how we continued on to Port Said in Egypt where temporary repairs would be made to the hulk, so that we could continue our voyage to Holland.”  “In Port Said tours were arranged for passengers to go to Cairo and see the Great Pyramids.  I wasn’t going to let this once in a lifetime opportunity go by and so I went to Cairo.”  “I saw Cairo in 1952 and even then it was a city of mass confusion, noisy and overcrowded.  There did not seem to be any traffic laws, cars and oxen were going in all directions, making it almost an impossibility to drive.  We finally came to Giza where we were to visit the Great Pyramid.”   “I could hardly believe that I was actually seeing one of the Big Wonders of the World. …The Great Pyramid of Giza.” 

“Our exciting trip finally came to an end; we arrived in Rotterdam, Holland..  My mother and I were to spend about a year in Amsterdam.  Fortunately there were several Armenian families from Indonesia already settled there and so we felt quite at home”.

“I desperately wanted to find a job but I could not secure a work permit because I was a British national.  I eventually landed a job with KLM at Schiphol airport. … it was rather exciting to work at one of the busiest airports in Europe.”

“After a year mom and I departed for London, England.  As Armenians we always sought the company of other Armenians and it was no different in England.  We stayed at an Armenian boarding house.  Fancy that!”

“After a few months it was time for mom and me to return to Malaysia.  However, at this point I had found a job and had made friends and was unwilling to return to the dull life in Ipoh.  Mom tried to convince me to return with her, and frankly I don’t blame her, but since I was of age and could make my own decisions as an adult, I choose to stay in London.  My mother was really worried, I was not only her daughter but also her only child, and she had never been away from me and now she was going to be thousands of miles away.  Even though it hurt me emotionally to see my mother’s agony, I stuck to my guns and remained behind in London at 21 years of age.”

My life in London was interesting.  I went to plays and visited the Isle of Wight, Torquay and even Switzerland. I was also very involved in Armenian circles and attended the Armenian Church even though I cannot read or write Armenian and barely speak the language.”
 
“Little did I know that my life was just about to take another major turn?  As time progressed the lure of Hollywood (movies) convinced me that life in the United States of America was everything a person could wish for.  The wonderful musicals of the late   40s and early 50s made life in England seem too drab.”

“At the time, however, America had a quota system for new immigrants.  Anyone born in Asia had to wait at least 7 years before a visa would be granted.  Even though I knew how long the wait would be, since my motto for life is “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I visited the American Embassy and stated that I wanted to immigrate.  What I wasn’t ready for was the ton of paperwork this generated.  After all the forms were completed, police records from places I had lived in, and an assurance that my uncle would be my financial sponsor, I sat back and put the whole matter on the back burner for 7 years, or so I thought.”  “Imagine my surprise when I received word from the Embassy, after only one year, that I was eligible to immigrate.  I sailed from England sometime in June and arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 11, 1956.  I was 24 years old and pretty scared.”  “My uncle met me at the harbor…That night I met the rest of the family for the very first time.   As so much had transpired in such a short time, I became overwhelmed.  Everything was strange to me and I remember bawling that first night wondering what on earth had possessed me to leave everything I knew behind and start this new life in this strange country.  Due to British monetary restrictions my parents would not be able to help me financially and I had only brought $80.00 with me.”   “My first priority was to find a job and a place to live.  I was successful at both endeavors.  I was hired as a pool stenographer in a law firm at $60.00 a week and was able to find board and lodging at the Salvation Army Home for Business Girls in New York for $17.50 a week.”
 
“My life in New York was busy.  Besides spending time with my family I was once again very involved in Armenian circles and associations.  I soon became used to traveling by subway and battling the horrendous crowds.”

“Once more my wanderlust got a hold of me and in 1957 I took a trip by train across the country to Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Grand Canyon.  It was a wonderful trip and I saw Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and Fisherman’s Wharf  before they were so heavily commercialized.  In 1958 I visited California again and knew that without a shadow of a doubt I was going to move.”

“It did take me two years to get this accomplished.  A person has to be young and daring to be able to move to a new city - cold turkey - without a job or financial security.  However, there I was in 1960, leaving everything behind me once again, to make another major change in my life.”

“The move to California shaped my entire future life.  I had met some relatives of my dad who lived in Hollywood.  In order to be close to them I rented a studio apartment in a complex where mainly elderly people lived.  It did not take me long to notice a young man coming and going. “
 
Jeanette must have been the only person on the planet to meet the love of her life at a trash incinerator! It was“… September 6th, 1961, and I was at my apartment with my cousin and a friend.  As my door was open I saw this young man throwing his trash away in the incinerator outside my door.  Throwing caution and modesty to the wind I approached him and introduced myself.  That was the beginning of our courtship, a mighty strange one as he was from Kansas and I was from Indonesia.  We found out that we were the same age – he was born July 6th and I was born July 1st.  On November 25th, 1961, Robert George ****** and Jeanette Flora ****** were married at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.  I am sure that most of our guests did not give our marriage much of a chance, as we had not known each other very long.  They were wrong, our marriage lasted almost 31 years only ending when Bob died in 1992.”
 
“Bob and I started life on a shoestring. As we had no money to invest in furniture we rented a furnished apartment in Glendale.  Bob returned to college and I worked and kept house.  We became members of the Glendale Presbyterian Church and got involved with church activities.” 

Although Jeanette had grown up with loving doting parents she always yearned for siblings.  She knew she wanted a large family and was delighted when “in November of 1962 I became pregnant.  We were overjoyed…. I gave birth to Colleen Patricia on July 21, 1963.”
 
“She was our pride and joy.  As soon as I became pregnant my mother and dad decided they too would immigrate to the USA.  This was now possible, as I had taken American citizenship.  Mom was a great help to me – I was a greenhorn as far as babies were concerned.  I had prayed for a blonde, blue-eyed little girl and true to form Colleen had blonde hair and blue-eyes.”

“When Colleen was six months old I became pregnant with Greg…Robert Gregory made me wait sixteen days after my due date.  I thought I would never give birth, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  He was born on November 7, 1964.”
 
“Four years went by and on February 2, 1968, Mark Shannon came into the world.

“When the 3 children were little most houses did not have privacy fences.  Since I had no dryer, mom and I had to hang our wash (diapers in particular) on the line in the backyard.  This was a wonderful place to socialize with our neighbors.  Mom and I were constantly busy either washing the diapers or preparing formula that had to be put in sterilized bottles.”

On February 9, 1971, we where living in Sunland California, at 6:00 a.m. we were suddenly awakened by a tremendous jolt and a tremendous noise.  Immediately we knew – a massive earthquake had hit.  Our house swayed at a 45 degree angle.  All the water sloshed out of the swimming pool and our brick fence was totally destroyed.  We had no water or power.  At that point all we could see was the damage around us. We were to learn later of the tremendous impact the quake had left on the freeways and bridges.  Since I thought that I would be buried in the bedroom I was too nervous to sleep there for a long time.  We slept on mattresses in the living room.”   “Right after the earthquake we moved to a brand-new house in Burbank.  Our family did the usual – scouts, sports, outings to the beach and fruit orchards, Indian Maidens and church and school activities.  Life in California was great; we could go from the beach to the mountains in a matter of hours.”

During this period life was good and Jeannette and Bob were happily enjoying their children.  But, they were soon to find out…“I was not through having children yet. John Andrew ****** made his debut on October 23, 1974.  I was 42 years old and definitely did not want any more children after John.  I was very grateful that our other children were older (Colleen was 11 now) and was a help to me with the new baby.”

Shortly after John was born “Bob’s company transferred us to Pennsylvania in July 1975.  This was very upsetting to my parents.  They felt they had come to the US to be near their grandchildren and now we were moving 3,000 miles away.  However, we had to go where the job was.  A lot of tears were shed!”  “It was beautiful there, nothing but country and the lake.  Dallas was small enough where we soon became acquainted. We all loved living there, but another change was around the corner.”

In the summer of 1976 I was preparing Kielbasa for dinner.  I had just put in the Kielbasa in the boiling water when John, a toddler, came up behind me and pulled the chord of the electric frying pan, dumping the boiling mass on him.  It only took one split second.  Mark and Greg were both sitting near the stove in our kitchen and I was right there also.

It is unbelievable how such brief moment can change the entire focus of a family’s life.  But these injuries proved to be life threatening.  John was a very seriously ill little boy.  Over the next few months and years Jeannette’s life became very much centered on taking care of her youngest child.  She followed him from hospital to hospital.  Sometimes flying thousands of miles scared to death, in small private planes flown by Shriners. “These trips always proved challenging yet interesting. I was always the only woman in the company of two or three Shriners.  One time we had to land in Emporia Kansas in a thunderstorm and when I looked out I could see the pilot hand cranking the plane so that we could make it home.  There are lots of stories I can tell about these trips most of them hilarious.  Sometimes we hit rough weather and then we would bounce up and down in the plane.   As I am not a very brave person, anxiety would set in a month before we were scheduled to go.” But through it all she kept her faith and she kept the fight in her that had carried her thousands of miles around the world.  John, who was burned at the age of 18 months continued treatment for his burns until he was 21 years old!

The year 1976 was about to bring more change to Jeanette and her family.  After the loss of Bob's job in Pennsylvania “Bob…received a job offer from CBS Publications.  The only problem was that the opening was in Dresden, Tennessee, a very small town in Northwest Tennessee.  I had hoped against hope that Bob would find work near by so that we would be able to stay in Pennsylvania but this was not to be.  Once more we had to relocate to an unknown place!”

To make life even more interesting  “Just a few days before we left for Tennessee Mark contracted chicken pox.  We had no choice but to travel with him, the way he was.  It was hilarious to see the ****** gypsies arrive at motels, Mark with the chicken pox, in addition to a guinea pig in a cage and a dog.  It is a real miracle the motels let us stay at all!  The trip from Pennsylvania to Tennessee through the Smoky Mountains was lovely.  We had to stay in a motel in Milan while we waited for our furniture to arrive.  Of course, the chicken pox swept through our family like wildfire.  As an adult I became very ill and still bear the scars in reduced hearing to this day.  All this while we were in the motel!  Poor John, he was already suffering from itching, the pox just made his agony worse.”

But after a lifetime of finding adventure in moving from place to place Jeanette alas found a place she could not comfortably call home. “Dresden proved to be a cultural shock to the children and me.”    The Southern way of life was one she could never become accustom too.  The children were unhappy and refused to attend school!  “My mother came to visit and seeing how overwhelmed I was in dealing with John and the school situation offered to take Mark back to California with her until I got matters under control.  Mark ended up staying two years with my mother and father.  In order not to get into trouble with the law we put Greg and Colleen in private school in McKenzie.  Poor Bob, he was driving 80 miles round trip each day in addition to holding down his job.”  Jeannette…”continued being unhappy in Tennessee and could not get used to their way of life.    After about a year we moved to a house in Martin, which was a slightly larger city..  Though I was working part-time at the University I was still unhappy and this caused a lot of grief to Bob.  I was forever complaining and griping that I did not want to stay there and could he please look for another job.  Well I got my wish all right!  In 1978 his job was eliminated and we had no choice at this point but to go to Wichita, where Bobs family lived. ”   “In Wichita Bob went to work for Coleman and I got a job at the deli in an IGA store.  After a while we moved to a townhouse on East Kellogg.  I transferred to another IGA store where I baked cakes for restaurants and the store.  In 1979 I took the Kansas State Examination and passed it.  On January 20, 1980 I was hired by Wichita State University to work in their admissions office.”

“Mark came to Wichita in 1979 and finally all the children were in school.  Greg and Colleen at Southeast High and Mark at Fabrique Elementary.  John, by now was about 4 years old, full of mischief; he had to be watched continually.  One time he found an open gate at the preschool and walked back to the apartments.  Fortunately the apartment manager knew who he was and immediately called us.  After that episode the preschool put their staff on extra alert whenever John was present making sure he did not have any avenue of escape.”

Jeannette continued to cherish her now long distance relationship with her parents.  She recalled “Mom and Dad came to visit me in Wichita but no matter how hard I tried they refused to move to Wichita.  I started to make yearly trips to California to see them.  In 1985 my father took ill and was in the hospital.  Upon the doctor’s strong advice I resigned from Wichita State and left with John for California to see my father and help my mother.  My father passed away July 5th, 1985 and that left my mother alone.  As John wanted to return to Wichita to his school I sent him back while I stayed with my mother for about nine months.  In order to make ends meet under these difficult circumstances I had to look for work.  After some temporary positions I landed a job in a Glendale law firm.  Once my son Greg had moved to California and was staying with my mother, I returned to Wichita.  As there were no jobs at the University for which I was eligible I went to work for a Wichita law firm.”

“In December 1988 I once more… moved out to California.  My mother needed eye surgery…so with the consent of my husband left for Burbank”. I started looking for work and   “I was sent to Warner Brothers on a temporary assignment and whilst there I applied and obtained a full-time position in their music division.  Working for the entertainment industry may sound glamorous but it is anything but – a lot of stress and deadlines!”   “I stayed with my mother for 3 years, commuting to Wichita on a yearly basis.  Either I was going to Wichita or Bob was coming to Burbank.  Bob and I both loved California and had made up our minds to move to Fresno as soon as John finished high school.”

“After three years it became clear that instead of settling in Fresno, I should return to Wichita.  I had mentioned to my mother to move with me but she was not in favor of the idea.  However, in 1991 I convinced her that it was for her best interests if she came with me and she agreed.  She was 85 years old and it was not easy for her to move.”

“I myself had grave doubts if I would find employment in Wichita, knowing the Wichita market, my age 58, did not hold out much hope.  However, I went the temporary route again and retook the Kansas State Examination and in 1991 was rehired at the State working part-time for the parole office.  Soon an opening became available at the College of Education at Wichita State; I interviewed and was rehired by Wichita State December 1991.   Not in my wildest imagination did I foresee the horror that was just around the corner.”
 
“It was graduation time 1992.  We were really busy at the College of Education.  Friday, May 15th started out in much the usual way for Bob and I, having our coffee, making lunches and rushing off to get to work.”     But the ending of the day was one that Jeannette would never forget. “Around 3:15 a.m. I woke and realized Bob was not in the bed.”  The unthinkable had happened,  Bob had suffered a massive heart attack and had died.  “The next few days are still a haze to me.  Somehow arrangements were made…Since I had no forewarning I felt like part of me had died also.  Difficult days followed, a lot of crying and putting matters in order.  I remember wanting to leave everything and just disappear...   Grief forms a zigzag pattern.  One minute a person feels he can cope with the tragedy, and the very next minute the grief comes at you like a tidal wave, just drowning a person in sorrow and sobbing.” …”how would I go on?”
“I remember receiving words of great wisdom from a dear friend.  She wrote to tell me that in every tragedy there is a blessing and I was to look for it.  At the time when I was so raw with grief I could not imagine any blessing.  Catherine Marshall writes:  “A man swimming a horse across a turbulent stream does not stop to take a picture of the experience.”  It was much later that I saw the blessing, Bob never suffered any pain!  Knowing that Bob, as a born again believer, was now in the presence of our Lord and Savior was very comforting to me.  I also clung to 2 Tim.1: 7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 

Jeannette’s words can bring us comfort today.  Knowing that she loved the Lord and had committed her life to Him, we can rest assured that she in also in the presence of her Savior. 

During this time Jeannette “knew that I needed to get into a Grief Support Group.  Good Grief of Wichita saved my sanity and slowly my life became somewhat normal again.  I made new friends, all of who had suffered the loss of a spouse.  The next year John graduated from High School and entered college.  I spent a lot of time with my mother who never seemed to be able to get over the loss of Bob.”

“Two years after Bob passed away my mother developed pneumonia and died from complications.  Once more I suffered a major loss.  Life however, does go on and like Eleanor Roosevelt had stated “we do what we don’t think we can possibly do”.  I had no choice other than to go on with life…”
 
Just when Jeannette felt she could take no more she embarked on one of the most difficult struggles of her life…”I had not been feeling well for some time in 1995 and early 1996.  The doctor claimed I had diverticulitis and treated me with antibiotics.  When my condition got worse I demanded to consult a specialist, who immediately suspected a cyst on the ovary.  A sonogram confirmed his suspicions.  A 14 cm growth on my right ovary and another one on my left.  Within two days I saw the surgeon and heard his chilling words:  “With this size of a growth it is 80% sure it is cancer.””

Jeannette decscribed her feeling at the time as  “Numbness and disbelief.  This couldn’t be happening to me”.  Cancer was quite a journey for Jeanette.  It walked with her for the last 10 years of her life.  Cancer led her to the final move in her journey. “I finally decided to come to Houston, to M.D. Anderson, which is world-renowned for cancer research and treatment.” During these years she was an amazing tower of strength.  She made the best of these difficult years,  continuing to love her family she saw her now grown and married children, give her grandchildren & great grandchildren, 15 in all!  She loved each and every one of those grandchildren.  The most important thing in Jeannette’s life, through all her travels was her relationship with Christ.  She told each of her children and grandchildren about Him.  She lived her life in a way that all around her could see and know that she was a dedicated Christian.  She leaves behind a legacy of Christian faith and love.  The night she left this life and went on to live in glory with Jesus was hard on each and every one of those grandchildren.  One of her granddaughters, *****, age 4 had this to say the night Grammy Jean died.  “I guess Jesus has Grammy’s house ready!”  “What” her mommy replied?  “Remember what we read last week in the Bible?”  She was referring to the passage John 14:3   “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”   This knowledge of the Bible by her 4 year-old granddaughter would have meant so much to Jeannette.  Of all of her adventures in her life the one that was greatest to her, was her walk with the Lord.  Knowing that her children and grandchildren follow her in that journey was her greatest joy, worth more than a lifetime of treasured memories!

February 11, 2006
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