Not Vernon’s Vespa (which we never saw again), but this gives the idea.

As I’ve written, son-in-law Vernon passed. Now so have the memorial services—which were great, by the way, and just the kind I’d like when my time comes. (Maybe daughter Allison will plan that one, too.) But there were a few things thought and not said, or not said quite enough for such a major moment of closure. Here’s a list, with just a sentence or so of commentary by me.

Why was Vernon (or any person) cut off early?

Judgment? It comes to mind, but it doesn’t make any sense . . . certainly not in Vernon’s case. Many people in obvious need of judgment live on and on when often the good die young. So we can’t go there.

Was it chance? Maybe. Accidents happen. By coincidence, I happened on a YouTube video of motorcycle accidents. Every one of them was tragic and hard to watch, but somehow fascinating, especially as I was able to go back and run them frame by frame. In every case I was able to see where the error was made and who made it. The irony, of course, is that often the person causing it is the one unhurt, or unkilled. So it was in this case.

Is it because the person’s work is finished? History is full of people of genius cut off way before it should have happened. Vincent Van Gogh was just getting going; so was Raphael (both died at 37). How about Abraham Lincoln? As it happened, Vernon left a lot more, occupationally-speaking, than any of us knew at the time. (For more see my blog on that.)

Was it for the sake of others? It’s through hardships we grow. Many of us have watched (and read) how Allison bravely and creatively stepped up to the love-vow: “In sickness and health . . . till death do us part.” These are things none of us would wish for, but when they come, so can a whole new strength we never knew.

These are mysteries. Making demands to know why only steals our peace . . . and suggests that we’re in charge. But, in fact, we’re apparently in charge of very little.

Best to make our peace with the one who is, accept things we can’t change, step up to the challenge before us, and move on.

That’s what we’re doing.

You too.

___

PS There will be bills piling in for a long time. The insurance was next to nothing. If you’d like to help there’s a place to do so (and an informative video) here.

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From one of Allison’s blogs. The insight: we don’t even really know ourselves. Check it here.

Last Sunday daughter Allison and friends put together a service/celebration/party for husband Vernon, just deceased. The date coincided with their tenth anniversary, which they always looked forward to but never reached. It was in the same backyard where they’d been married. There were lots of speakers, plenty of music, food and wine. It was all very special. Among the musical numbers was the song God Only Knows, performed by all the musicians, including Vernon’s son Maki at the center on guitar, and a mini-solo part by daughter Justine. If you want to hear it, it’s here.

God only knows is particularly telling now during this season of eulogy. Why? Because eulogies are never complete.

Last week, with various people sharing, we all got to know more about Vernon than any one of us knew before. And to appreciate him more. But it wasn’t complete, and never could be. There’s always more to the person than any ten friends can relate, or a hundred.

No eulogy is adequate.

I think about my parents. They lived so long that most of their peers were gone long before them. Outside of family, few could speak for them.

Then there’s the situation where the one who knew the person best and could speak most eloquently has moved away, or isn’t asked to speak, or is given only three minutes.

That we get to know and better appreciate someone only after he or she is gone is an irony. The slide show informs and helps fill in the gaps. The praises of the person’s hidden virtues inspire. But it’s still never complete.

As the song says, God only knows.

Happily, he does.*

_____

This coming Sunday there will be another memorial service for Vernon. It’ll be at Heritage Christian Fellowship, San Clemente, September 11 at 1:30 p.m.  All invited.

*  “You are familiar with all of my ways.” Psalm 139:3

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Russian ikon, Solomon and his temple.

I came across a psalm the other day written by Solomon. I’d not thought of Solomon writing psalms, but there it was. The opening statement was familiar enough: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” I’ve heard that; I just hadn’t put it together with Solomon, the master builder.

Didn’t he build the temple which was one of the wonders of the world? And didn’t he extend and enrich the Jewish kingdom far beyond anything ever done before or since? And didn’t he do it through a superior gift of wisdom given to him by virtue of his prayer as well as his sonship of a particularly pious father? Yes. And there may be more reasons. But they’re not the reasons he gives. He just says, “Unless God’s in it, it ain’t gonna happen.”

The nice thing about that is it opens the field to the rest of us. We may or may not have special gifts or be part of a unique heritage, but we all have access to the one who created us . . . and who is pleased to go on creating through us. It is something to acknowledge, and we’re further helped if we do.

Reading on down through the psalm, I come to another familiar phrase: “Children are a heritage from the Lord; blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”

I’ll take that.

What intrigues is the juxtaposition of those two thoughts. Here from a building we’ve move to a family. From a house to a home. And once again, it’s the Lord that makes the difference.

It’s been my experience, hopefully yours too.

Whatever we’re doing, we’re building; we’re reproducing in some way. We’re thinking of things to do next, new projects, endeavors, activities. It’s how we’re made. And we’re all the happier if we feel we’re succeeding, that there’s fruit coming from it all.

Below, a random moment at breakfast, the family gathered for Vernon’s memorial, just half the grandchildren represented.

But the mystery of the fruit is the life in it; and that comes only from the Lord.

Take it and run with it.

________
Psalm 127

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It’s September, always a nice ring, like entering a new season. Van Gogh’s favorite. I started it off with trimming a bit on that overgrown, yet beautiful, bougainvillea in the front of the house.

Another reason I’ve always been partial to the first day of September: It’s my birthday. By now I’ve had enough that I don’t particularly celebrate them, but as Anne says, I don’t like them to be forgotten. Not that I’m asking for anything from you, and no gifts from anybody. I already have everything I could possibly need or want . . . including a great wife, a great family, great friends, a great occupation and a whole bunch more that all start with “great.”

Like even a great future.

I know the one on this earth is not without limits. Calculating my years and comparing to my parents’ long life, I figure I’m just a little ways into, guess what? September! What a coincidence.

I tell myself to use the day for reflection on the past year and projecting into the next. To tell you the truth, the occasion hasn’t brought on anything new in particular. I do need to clear out a few things, in the mind most of all.

Like with that bougainvillea, things can get all bound up; room is needed for new growth.

Life is short, might as well make it as beautiful as you can.

One thing I have thought about is to get back to this blogging on a more regular basis. You’ll know whether I’m holding up with that one. And I’ll just hope I’m not getting hung up on (like I do with so many junk calls all day long).

So, here’s to health. Mine. Yours.

It’s September . . . time to get trimming, make a bouquet of what’s left over, and get growing again.

____

PS  We’ve been very grateful for the many condolences for the death of our son-in-law Vernon. Happily Allison is going on in strength.

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Vernon under hearts, mostly sleeping now. Photo: Allison Adams.

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything here on the Blank Slate blog. The last was from France when I did little but refer you to daughter Allison’s blog: Sans Oxygen.

Don’t know why this lull; normally I’m full of thoughts and am grateful for this avenue to express them. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the empty room syndrome . . . it’s hard to know if anybody’s out there. But no matter, this was not to express my momentary melancholy (though wallowing can be so fun, at least for awhile).

Anyway, I’ve got some ideas, and I’m thinking before long I’ll be up and at it again, with whatever strikes me and I think might strike you.

In the meantime, I’m loath to break the silence with the current news, but what can be done? It looks like we’re approaching D Day.

I always wondered what the D stood for in D Day. Then I read The Longest Day and learned it didn’t stand for anything. It was just the name Eisenhower and staff labeled the day they’d launch their invasion and all hell would break loose . . . whatever that day might be.

In this case I could give D a name: Death!

For Vernon, Allison’s husband and father of two children, that day is all but upon us.

I’ll not belabor with details. If you want them, as well as some very adult, philosophical, literary, vulnerable and honest processing of it all, go to Allison’s blog. You’ll be deepened if you do.

It’s sad . . . of course it’s sad. But the sadness started over two years ago. Vernon wasn’t supposed to survive that collision between his scooter and the truck. Through medical alertness he was pulled back from death then . . . but never all the way back. The severe brain trauma kept him from being ever his true self, then there was his body, deformed and spindly with no use, and then the kidney failure due to the long coma that kept him on dialysis multiple times a week, always with the attendance of family or friends lest he pull his tubes out or wriggle out of the chair onto the floor. And there have been many operations. It’s been no way to live.

Do I sound callous? I hope not. It’s just how it is. Happily I know, by my conversations with Vernon over the years, where he’s going. And I know Allison is strong; she’s showed us that.

The fact is, D Day could be tomorrow. Or if not then, another tomorrow . . . but not many. All options for further dialysis ran out two weeks ago and they gave him two weeks to go.

I just wanted you to know.

That’s it. I’ll blog on happier topics another day. I’ll hope you’re there.

_____

PS I don’t want you to think I speak so highly of Allison because she’s our daughter; here’s a comment from a friend of hers, Dorothy Dunn, a woman more my age than Allison’s:

Everyone wants a hero. While you are rushing around looking for the man/woman with the red cape, look closer at those you are walking life with. We are surrounded by people who defy the odds of their history, smile through their suffering, and demonstrate grace. I love my hero. She picks herself up each day and brings herself new to the challenges ahead. Her tears rest on the surface, her laughter comes from her depths. She has met words and promises made in the past head on. She is a teacher; an inspirer; a mother; a friend and a wife. Please keep her in your prayers as she says goodbye to Vernon. She knows her strength comes from the Lord. This is for my girl; my hero: Allison Moore Adams. —Dorothy Dunn

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I’m aware, as you may be, that nothing new has come out for some time on this Blank Slate blog. Indeed, the slate is blank. Maybe it’s a rainy period. It’s nothing to worry about; rain is good. And I have been producing the more-or-less-monthly features on the other blog, Blank Canvas, particularly about our art doings.

Meantime, I do want to recommend to you the ongoing blogging of our daughter Allison.

Speaking of rain, Anne and I are currently in France which is experiencing record flooding in parts. We were shut out of the Louvre yesterday and will be again today. Happily there’s plenty else to do. Here’s a photo on our first day (a week ago) from a bus window.

More than a few have told me they follow Allison regularly . . . and are impressed. Me, too. Not that she writes to impress; rather she’s just covering the ongoing emotional narrative of life as she’s living it with the new reality.

I say “new,” but it’s been two years since husband Vernon had his fateful motor scooter collision with a pick up truck, doing severe damage to body and brain. Keeping up with that, along with raising two children, has been pretty much Allison’s full time job ever since.

She does photography gigs from time to time (another thing she’s shown real mastery in) but what has come out very clearly to everyone is her writing. Not that she would have ever looked for it this way, the experience with Vernon has given reason to write and subject to explore. And while it’s their particular pathos, the reflections and insights are for us all.

I must confess I’m reminded of the history between Pablo Picasso and his father. The senior Picasso was an art teacher. But when he saw the prodigious talent manifest in his young son, he gave up painting altogether.

I’m not saying my recent break from writing has anything to do with that, but I can’t help seeing the parallels. Allison is extraordinary.

For any interested, here’s her blog: sansoxygen.com. (You can subscribe to updates right on the blog.)

Also, sometime take a look at her photography business website, here: allisonmoorephoto.com.

Meantime, take comfort that rain is good . . . for the earth, and sometimes for the soul.

We wade on.

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Me, painting, close up, two weeks ago in Crestline.
(Below) one of my big pieces in the window at Sandstone.

Years ago I took a workshop for painters where I didn’t learn anything memorable except one thing: “Step back from your work.”

It seems so basic. Did I need an expensive three days in another state for that? Maybe not, but it was a teaching the instructor kept repeating as none of us were doing it. Instead we were working diligently at our easels, focusing on one detail or the other, trying to get it right. Meantime he was cruising around behind us and getting a whole other view of things . . . because he was looking at the whole.

And that, in fact, is how every viewer looks at a work of art. If it doesn’t succeed from across the room, its not succeeding, regardless of how the detail is treated.

It’s something to remember. And not just in painting.

How our lives are succeeding in the whole is what matters. We tend to forget to step back.

When we do we’ll very likely see that things ARE going well, that we ARE blessed, that our prayers ARE being answered, that what really matters is in place and we have good reason to be happy.

Of course I’m talking about the redeemed state. There was a period in my youth when quite the opposite was true. Everything was incredible hassle and I seemed to be facing only opposition on every side. It was much later I saw I was fighting God, always a hard battle to win . . . until you give in. In time I did and my experience has been more with the current ever since.*

But that’s not what I set out to say. Rather it was to remind myself, and all of us, to take a break from the immediate, the current challenges that consumes us, and look at the bigger picture.

Our lives are a canvas; we’re working on details. Others, looking from a distance, probably see a pretty good piece of art. We need to step back and see that, too.

_______

* Related to this, I’ll be speaking this Sunday on The Prodigal Son, My Own Experience. That’ll be at Heritage Christian Fellowship, San Clemente, 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. All invited.

** Also, I’ll be the featured artist at the Sandstone Gallery in the Laguna Beach Art Walk tomorrow evening. Anne’s work will be there too, as well as both of us. That’s 6:00-9:00 p.m. Again, all invited.

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There’s nothing like an idea to motivate, recharge and energize the life.

Funny how that works, but I’ve seen it over and over.

I also know about the opposite. When there’s no energy, there are no ideas. Or if they are suggested they don’t sound good, have been tried before and really, what’s the use anyway?

But one good idea can change all that. If it’s a big idea it changes everything, drastically.

The person with multiple ideas, popping out all the time, is nothing but energized. For him there’s no time for what’s the use?

But where do ideas come from? It’s a mystery to me. Usually there’s context, some sort of problem solving that’s been going on in the mind. If you’re asked to explain where you got some idea you’ll likely tell of how you heard something or saw something, or were looking for something else and found this.

It’s sort of a mini-miracle, like a birth.

The brown dirt mysteriously pushes up green plants, but only when some seed has fallen into it.

I’m sure there’s a science to it, one that’s been studied and written all about. But even then it’s a wonder. In the end we’re left with, “I don’t know; I just thought of it.”

It’s answer enough . . . because it happens to all of us.

When it does, it makes us happy, pulls us out of our slump and, like I said, supplies all the energy we need.

And life, at its essence, is energy.

But that’s another topic. For now, let the mind flow. Keep seeding the garden. The time will shortly come when you have not a minute to rest.

And you’ll love it.

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A windy day just before we both turned 50 (last month).

Having just passed our 50th anniversary, I’m thinking I’ll start referring to myself as 50 years old. I don’t know if I’ll get away with it, but it goes along with the realization that my life basically began when I got married.

That’s when I began to get serious about things, when I had someone to live for, and to share (as the scripture says) in the grace of life.* I like that, the grace of life.

Marriage, I’ve long said, is heaven on earth . . . WHEN IT’S GOOD.

Of course when it’s bad, it’s like a strong undertow to the other place. And what marriage hasn’t experienced some of that . . . maybe on a recurring basis. But even that, when it’s overcome, is a grace. The grace of life.

Anne and I went out to dinner AGAIN commemorating our 50 years (something we plan to do all year long). I told the young hostess who seated us of the occasion. She said, “Wow, what’s the secret?” She revealed she’s in her first year of marriage and already looking for “the secret.” I just said, “God.”

To which she responded, “Praise God.”

I’m not sure I’m really going to push this being 50 though. I don’t know if it’s better to look like an oldish 50 or a youngish 72.

In the end, it is what it is. And what it feels like is more important anyway. So far, so good on that. The canoeing is fine. But I know the rapids are ahead, and the eventual waterfall.

Calling myself 50 won’t forestall the waterfall.

Meantime, I’m back to scripture, and one of my favorites:

Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun.*

And that’s ALL the years, be they ONE, like the young hostess in the restaurant, or 75 like my parents had.

It’s all grace.

A grace together.

_________
* 1 Peter 3:7
** Ecclesiastes 9:9

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Actually this photo was taken about ten years into our marriage, but still qualifies as “the early years.” It’s in the book.

Five-year-old Justine asked me recently how Anne and I came together and married. Our granddaughter is very precocious, of course, but I thought her a bit young for such curiosity.

I told her that first we fell in love.

She asked, “How you know when you’re in love?”

I told her, “It’s when you want to be with someone all the time, and when you’re not with them, you’re thinking about them.”

She thought about that a moment and then said, “I know about that.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” she said, “That’s how it is with me and Ryder.”

Okay.

Watch out Ryder, whoever you are.

It was fifty years ago now (something we can hardly believe) Anne and I were in the throes of all this. And a month later, to the surprise of everyone including ourselves, we were married!

It’s a story, one I shared a couple of years ago on this blog. Now I’m making a book. I plan to have it ready for our big anniversary, next month.

It’ll be called, Our Lives Together, The Early Years. Here’s the Amazon description (when it comes out):

A photographic review of two individuals, how they came together, fell in love, and on a week’s notice, married. Then began the adventures and travels and attempts to find meaningful occupation, happiness, and ultimately meaning itself. Covers their childhood (briefly), their young adult years, and up through the fifth year of their marriage–and the birth (at home) of their first child. Full of charm, creativity, and many candid pictures.

So, that’s a teaser. In the meantime, I may share bits of that here on the blog. Let me know if you think that’s a good idea.

Meantime, pray for Justine. I’m thinking she’s a little too precocious.

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