I have wanted to update my blog and have been debating on whether or not to just focus on photography. Although my blog is LMB Photography, LMB is what I do, not necessarily who I am. I want to share my photographs and write about photography, but I also want to write about other things that are important to me. I would like to share things that others can relate to, not everyone is obsessed, as I am, with photography.
Today I have a heavy heart. I was working on my taxes for LMB (maybe that should have been a clue that it wasn’t going to be a light and fun day). My friend posted a note on this picture that I had posted on facebook last Fathers Day of my dad and I. I kept staring at this picture thinking that it wasn’t even a taken a year ago. Dad died September 16th, 2011. While looking at his picture, and listening to JoyFM on my computer, the new Mercy Me song came on. I had never heard the song but really started paying attention when I heard… “I’m alive even though a part of me has died” …exactly what I was feeling at that moment. Imagine that.
I moved my dad to WV to live with me on September 16, 2004. Yes, seven years to the day that he moved in with me, he left me. I started journaling about that adventure shortly after he moved in. It was harder than I ever could have imagined. It was also one of the biggest blessings I have received.
I had debated about sharing the grave side service that I wrote for my dad but never felt quite ready to do that. Today after looking at this picture, I decided that I wanted to share a little bit about the the last seven years of my life and some of the things my dad taught me. I am so grateful that I was able to get to know my dad better in the last chapter of his life. A part of me is missing.
Carl Milton Jessen (04.21.1925~09.16.2011)
Military Tribute
“I Can Only Imagine” (Mercy Me)
Thinking about this service, I thought we should have someone say a few words, maybe tell some stories, and share some memories, about a man that had weight in this world for 86 years. I thought maybe a pastor, or priest, or funeral director and then realized that we would have to tell them what to say. That made no sense to me. I wanted these words to be a tribute of sorts to the man who was our father, grandfather, uncle and friend. As nervous as I am to speak, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to share. So, although I know we all have different memories of dad and who he was in all of our lives, and I know my brother and sister have different memories than I do, I would like to take a couple minutes to share some of mine. I would like to tell you about the man I grew to know better in the last seven years.
When I would come home from the hospital at night after sitting with dad all day, watching him struggle to breathe, I started reading a journal that I began writing shortly after he moved in with us, seven years ago (actually to the day that he died). My first posting was 10/4/2004. I wrote: “It hasn’t even been three weeks and I am overwhelmed. …I am running out of patience.”
I want to share with you some of the things my father has taught me in the last seven years. … He taught me patience. He taught me what is important, and what is really not so important at all.
From another entry in my journal: “Dad enjoys eating probably more than he enjoys anything else. So, I try to take him out to eat often. This is a test in patience and endurance for me. He salts and peppers everything for minutes at a time. Literally. I was going to count to myself how long he continues to shake the salt and pepper shaker but decided that was not healthy for me. I say,”…boy you sure like salt and pepper huh dad?” “Yep!” Then he eats a bit and starts shaking again. Should I be concerned about how this is affecting his health? I don’t think so. I think I should probably be concerned as to how it is affecting mine. The doggy bag is also another fun adventure. I want to take it and do it myself but I sit and let him scoop up everything. Jelly packets that are on the table are packed in with the cheeseburger that he has cut into many small pieces. Ranch dressing is poured onto his sausage sandwich. Mayonnaise in a plastic tub must be put on his French fries, one knife full at a time, thus spilling coffee that is between the mayonnaise and the French fries. I want to tell him to just take the plastic tub, but don’t. Then we must always shake more salt and pepper on the whole masterpiece.
I am finding myself making fewer suggestions and letting him do things his way. This is a good lesson for me, as I want to control most every situation that I find myself in. I am having a hard time not taking control. But, my dad needs to have some dignity, some purpose. He needs to feel at 79 that he is capable of doing things on his own. What’s a little spilled coffee matter when you are talking about the worthiness of a man who has been alive for 79 years? A man who enlisted in the navy at the age of 17, served in WWII, flew airplanes, supported his wife and 3 children working hard labor; took extra jobs during strikes to make ends meet because he was too proud to use food stamps or take any type of government help; watched the love of his life suffer through and die of a horribly painful cancer. What’s a little spilled coffee?
My dad has taught me to how to just “go along for the ride” both literally and figuratively.
Dad absolutely loved getting in the car and just going for a ride. Every morning when I would go to his little apartment in our back yard in WV, he would ask me, “What’s on the agenda today, sweetheart”. Many times I would tell him that maybe we should just go for a ride. “That’s my favorite thing to do,” he would tell me, “that and eat, should we grab a bite to eat while we’re out?"
Dad absolutely loved getting in the car and just going for a ride. Every morning when I would go to his little apartment in our back yard in WV, he would ask me, “What’s on the agenda today, sweetheart”. Many times I would tell him that maybe we should just go for a ride. “That’s my favorite thing to do,” he would tell me, “that and eat, should we grab a bite to eat while we’re out?"
Going along for the ride also had deeper meaning…taking life as it comes, accepting situations you find yourself in that you have no control over and trying to make the best of it.
Most of you know that I moved dad from Locust Street, where he had lived his whole life, to WV, then ME, and then MO….three major moves across country, all in thee years. I remember being so worried about how he was going to take another move. Each time my heart would be pounding while telling him because I didn’t want to have to disrupt his life again and I didn’t know how he would handle another move; each time his response was “Great, when do we get to go?”
Dad taught me about the things that really matter and the importance of letting someone know that you are proud of them.
12/29/2004: Karl’s family is here for Christmas. Dad came over Christmas morning to open gifts. He had been worried about his part in all of this. He kept saying that he really didn’t want to be a part of anything. I told him I wanted him to come over, that there were gifts for him and that he had bought gifts for others. He got tears in his eyes and said he didn’t know what he would do without me. He then wanted to know what he should wear. I told him he looked just fine in what he had on. He said he wasn’t concerned for him, it didn’t matter to him what he wore; he just wanted me to be proud of him. I wrapped my arms around him, and we both stood in his cozy little kitchen and cried. I told him how very proud I was of him and at that moment I couldn’t have been any prouder.
My dad taught me how to make the most of whatever situation you are in, to live life to the fullest no matter what your age, and to not be afraid to try new things.
When we moved to MO, dad decided he was going to start enjoying himself and went to every activity the assisted living that was now his new home offered, and he was pretty put out when anything was cancelled because of snow. He let everyone know that a little snow shouldn’t stop him…He was from MT. One day I went to see him and found out that he had went to St Louis for the Senior Games the day before. I had no idea he even went. He just hopped on the Gibbs bus and headed for St Louis. He took a gold medal for fishing, which he wore proudly for months.
He taught me how to laugh and keep your sense of humor when there is absolutely nothing else you can do.
Dad would get confused. There were times he couldn’t remember things. But for the most part he even took that with a sense of humor. He would laugh and make jokes about wondering who was in the mirror looking back at him. One thing he could remember is lyrics to every song he had ever sung and would break out in song at any given moment. Everyone at Gibbs talked about what a great voice he had. And he did. When he sang, his voice was strong and powerful and he sounded like a much younger man. The day before he died, he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and started singing “In the morning, in the evening, aint we got fun.” What a blessing that moment, that song, was and continues to be, for me.
The day after dad died, he taught me about loyalty and friendship.
Dad had a friend named Paul who has a muscular disease that makes his walking difficult and his talking very hard to understand. As I was leaving dad’s apartment the day after he died, I ran into Paul. He told me, with tears in his eyes, that dad had gotten mad at another man who was giving him a hard time. Chris, one of his nurses said, yes, she stepped in between dad and this other man just in time. Our dad, with his heart only functioning at 15-20%, was getting ready to throw a punch, standing up for his buddy. Although his heart was physically failing, my father’s heart was huge, and stronger than many!
Whenever I would walk in dad’s door, it wouldn’t matter whether it was an hour, a day or a week that I saw him last, I would always say,”Hey dad, how’s it going?” His response…every single time was …”I’m fine now”. Dad, I know, without a doubt, that you‘re “fine now”. But I’m not. I miss you terribly. I miss our rides, I miss our lunches, and I miss your songs, your voice, and your hugs. I miss how you made me feel every time I walked in your door. I so miss you telling me that you’re fine now. It’s going to take me a long, long time to be able to say the same.
Please bow with me and pray:
Father God…I thank you for the life of our earthly father. I thank you for who he was to everyone here, but mostly for who he was to the ones that called him dad and grandpa. Thank you for his strengths and his weaknesses and what he taught us through both.
I stand on your promise in (Revelation 21:1-4) that says we will be united with you where there will be no pain, no sickness and no tears, and (2 Corinthians 5:6-8) that says: So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
I ask you to watch over us that are left behind and help us to remember that dying is a part of living. Help us to remember that Your time is not our time and what seems like an eternity to us is a blink of an eye to You. I thank you for showing us that life is good and blessings are many. We are witnesses to that at this very moment through the miracle of our new child and grandchild that will be joining our family soon, bringing us the hope of a new beginning.
I ask you to bless each one of us as we go our separate ways and begin this new chapter of our lives, remembering all of the good times that we have shared being the children and grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends of Carl Milton Jessen. In Jesus name I pray, Amen
“You Raise Me Up” (Josh Groban) ………..
