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“Prairie Roots” column for The Earlville Post
January 10, 2003

This column is a continuation of a family story of a friendship between our daughter Maribeth, age 3, and an old, retired couple, Claude and Mabel, both retired from LOF, and childless. Our Maribeth had just spent the afternoon at their apartment on a Sunday when Mabel was home from the hospital.

Claude and Mabel (continued)

Later that evening as Barb and I sat in our living room, the Ottawa Rescue Squad went by with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Maribeth spoke up anxiously, “Is that for Mabel?” We both made eye contact, but didn’t say anything. About a half hour later the phone rang.

“We lost the old girl,” Claude sobbed.

“I’ll be right there,” I said. “Do you want me to bring Punkie with me?”

“Yeah, I need to hold and hug my dolly,” Claude said.

Later that night I sat up alone in the dark in our living room for a long time. As I walked up the stairs, I heard a noise coming from Maribeth’s room at the end of the hallway. I found her crying in her bed. I sat on the edge of her bed for a long time and shared some of the most powerful moments I have ever known as a father.

Punkie asked her child-like, but direct questions.

“Why did Mabel die, Dad?”

“Because she had been sick for a long time and God wanted her with Him in heaven.”

“Can I still talk with Mabel? Can she hear what I say to her?”

“You can talk to Mabel whenever you want, and she will hear everything you tell her up in heaven. You can even talk to her in your mind without saying the words out loud and she can hear you,” I reassured her.

“Will Mabel be able to talk to me?”

“Not in the same way that she used to. Not in words spoken out loud. But you can still hear her talking to you when you remember times that you were together. And I believe she can talk to you through nature. Like how Mabel used to like flowers or how she enjoyed the sun coming out from behind a cloud. That might be Mabel’s way of smiling at you and saying hello.”

“Is dying scary, Dad?”

“Probably a little...because we don’t know what it’s like ahead of time. But I think it will be a happy time too, when we can be with Jesus in heaven, and you can be with Mabel and everyone else you love.”

The next few days Maribeth’s questions continued through the wake and funeral. I sat alone with her throughout the visitation hours because Barb was at work at the hospital. We sat off to the side so as not to be in the way of the family. Every once in a while Punkie would leave my side to walk up and stare at Mabel lying in her casket, which Maribeth had decorated with some drawings and notes.

“If I touched her hand, would she feel it?”

“No, that’s just her body in the casket. Her soul is in heaven. But Mabel can see you touching her hand and she would feel happy about it up in heaven,” I whispered.

A few months after the funeral, Claude moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, but he and Maribeth kept in touch through phone calls and an occasional letter. Because he was lonesome over the holidays, I left the day after Christmas with Maribeth and our oldest son, Bump, and drove twenty-four hours straight through so that Claude and Maribeth could see each other. After two days I got homesick for my Barb and the rest of the kids and loaded us up to drive thirty-some hours through freezing rain and snow. We surprised Barb and the other two boys on New Year’s Eve.

Over the years Claude re-married twice, burying a second wife and divorcing a third who would not abide his irascible nature. He returned a few times for short visits to Ottawa, but most of our visits took place when we would drive to Florida to see Barb’s mother. As I recall, we flew Maribeth down there a few times to visit Claude and also to stay with her grandmother.

The last time Barb and I saw Claude, he was in a nursing home, failing fast. We were just starting the long drive back to Illinois and could tell that Claude was uncomfortable with our seeing him like that; our visit was short. As we were leaving, Claude called be back into the room to say a final good-bye. We both knew that he didn’t have much more time on earth and he, as Mabel had done on that Thanksgiving afternoon years before, thanked us for the gift of our daughter in his life. He died a few weeks later.

When Claude’s nephew from Indianapolis brought his ashes back to Illinois for a memorial service and to bury his remains next to Mabel in nearby Peru, he called Barb and me aside with a solemn demeanor.

He said, “Uncle Claude often talked of your daughter in his phone calls and Christmas cards. He really loved her deeply. He left her twenty thousand dollars in his will.”

Later when we informed Maribeth of this inheritance, she protested, “I can’t take that money. I didn’t love Claude for money.”

“Everybody knows that,” I replied. “That was Claude’s way of telling you how much he loves you and thanking you for all the love and joy you and he and Mabel brought into each other’s lives.”

And that’s the story of Claude and Mabel and our Maribeth.

As I reflect back on those times now, a message from my own dear mother’s life speaks loud and clear. She taught, not with words, but by example, that our kids are gifts from God in our lives...each one special in his or her own way. We rear each child the best we can–through the grace of God and with the help and love of family, friends, church, school and community. We cannot clutch and keep them for ourselves. We witness their growth–hopefully–into young men and women, and then we turn them loose so that each of their lives will be a gift to the world.