PART FOUR THE BIRTHDAY CARD

WORDS BY: BRIAN DAHLEN

Last month, Brian Dahlen shared that after the passing of Grandma Betty, the relationship between Grandpa Tom and Brian’s dad, Bill, quickly began to erode with three marked incidents: 1) the returned inheritance check, 2) the requested train set that suddenly disappeared, and 3) the road map for apparently insufficient directions. And now, for the final straw … the birthday card.

IN THE ONE-HOUR CONVERSATION with my parents, they gave me a detailed account of the birthday card incident, which was the event that led to the break in our relationship with Grandpa Tom.

Brian’s Mom: “If you look at a calendar year, your birthday is first in the year, Brian. Your birthday is in February and then your brother is April, I’m May, and Dad is September. And one year, February came for your birthday, and we didn’t hear from him … And then April came, and your brother got a birthday card [and a check]. And you said, ‘Why didn’t Grandpa send me a birthday card?’ And then it was May, and it was my birthday, and nothing. And I remember telling your dad, ‘If you get a birthday card, we’re going to have some trouble here.’”

September came around and my dad received a birthday card and a check. My mom didn’t think it was fair that my brother and my dad received a birthday card from Grandpa Tom while she and I didn’t.

Brian’s Mom: “The check was no big deal— [it was] $10 or something. It wasn’t the amount, it was the principle that half of our family was being excluded or ignored or left out, whatever it was… I remember that I felt strongly that you children needed to be treated the same. That either he [Grandpa Tom] would acknowledge both of your birthdays or neither of your birthdays… I wanted your dad to somehow communicate to his dad that it had to be that way.”

And so, my mom pressured my dad to return his birthday check to Grandpa Tom.

Brian’s Mom: “I insisted and made life pretty miserable.”

Brian’s Dad: “I wasn’t real thrilled with [returning the card] because I wasn’t exactly sure what the reaction would be, but I was quite surprised with the reaction that came about.”

After my parents returned Grandpa Tom’s birthday card, they never heard from him again.

Brian’s Dad: “No letter. No call. No contact. It seemed like an extreme reaction.”

No more birthday cards for anybody, no phone calls—nothing.

My mom added that, even though Grandpa Tom wasn’t speaking to our family, he continued to have a relationship with my uncle and his family.

So, there you have it: the birthday card incident. Make sense? Probably not. Doesn’t for me. It isn’t clear at all. I’m more confused than I was before. To clear matters up, I decided I needed to visit my uncle and cousins. The only problem? I haven’t spoken with them in over a decade. But they have the answers that I need.

My Uncle [Uncle Tom Jr.] is in his 70s and still lives in the Minneapolis area. I haven’t spoken to him in at least 10 years. For whatever reason, he and my dad just aren’t very close. It’s [my mom’s] impression that Tom Jr. and his two daughters saw Grandpa Tom regularly.

So, with both skill and finesse, I wrangled my inner cheapskate and secured a flight to Minneapolis.

And with an equal measure of linguistic gymnastics, I persuaded my Uncle and two cousins to meet with me over breakfast to talk about Grandpa Tom. My parents were out of town, so I commandeered their house as our designated meeting place.

My cousins Nicole and Kelly are gracious, kind, successful, and intelligent women. Without any difficulty, we settled into casual conversation. We laughed. We got caught up. My Uncle wasted no time cracking jokes, and my brother was chattier than usual.

It’s not just my dad. My Uncle Tom has vague recollections of their childhood that include Mom as the disciplinarian, and Dad as rather disconnected.

Maybe the memories of my cousins would shed some light on my mysterious grandfather. Was he Super Grandpa to them while he ignored us?

Brian: “Was he the ‘take you out for ice cream’ type of grandpa? Or 'Come on girls, come sit on my lap and let me read you a story?'”

Cousins: “No… I just remember him driving that big car.”

Uncle Tom: “Always had Cadillacs.”

Cousins: “I feel like I always remember him in a button-down shirt or a suit or something…”

Uncle Tom: “Very formal.”

Brian: “Was he talkative with you two? Like ‘Tell me about school?’ Did he seem very interested in what you were doing, [as in] ‘I can’t wait to go see you cheer or make a goal’?”

Cousins: “Oh, no, no.”

By this time, we were all getting uncomfortable. So, I figured I better bring up the elephant in the room. You know, how the guy we’ve been talking about disowned my side of the family—over a birthday card?

I’ve waited all these years and flown across the country. I couldn’t wait any longer to hear the other side of the story.

But I was completely unprepared for what I was about to discover.

Brian to his uncle: “As I know you are probably aware, they didn’t talk—your dad and my dad—for at least a decade.”

Cousins and Uncle: “I didn’t know that… So when did they not talk for 10 years?”

Brian: “Um … so that’s the odd story…”

Uncle: “After we put him in the nursing home, they still didn’t talk?”

Brian: “That was the first time they spoke in over a decade.”

My Uncle had no clue that his brother and his dad hadn’t spoken for at least a decade. I had entertained the possibility that my Uncle and cousins didn’t know why the disownment occurred. But I never imagined the entire disownment was an unknown thing to them. Did my grandfather really never bring it up? Did my dad really never mention this to his brother? Was their communication that sparse and empty?

Brian recapped the birthday card story: “…So they sent him [Grandpa Tom] the letter and they never talked again.”

Cousins: “Wow… why did he write a letter versus call?”

Brian: “I have no idea… I think part of it is that my dad is [similar to] how you would describe your father [Grandpa Tom]… he just doesn’t know how to talk emotion.”

Cousins: “So he never sent another card after that?”

Brian: “Never… never heard from him again, never talked to him again. And the next time my dad talked to him was after you guys moved him to a nursing home. He didn’t know who my dad was… he didn’t know who he was.”

Cousins: “You almost feel like there is a piece missing.”

Brian: “There’s got to be.”

Cousins: “Yeah… it doesn’t add up.”

Brian: “What I did ask [Brian’s parents], 'Do you regret this at all?'”

At this point, I shared some information with my Uncle and cousins that I haven’t shared with you yet. It’s about regrets. And whether my parents had them about this whole mess. Here’s what they said in their own words:

Brian’s dad: “In hindsight, if we had known the reaction, I’m sure we would have done something different, but it certainly wasn’t the reaction I anticipated.

Brian’s mom: “I wasn’t a real Christian at the time, and I hope that if I had been I would have acted differently. I regret I was so insistent about it … I really regret having been the cause of the break in that relationship.”

Maturity in Christian faith is a long, laborious, never-ending process. All followers of Jesus go through it. In that sense, my mom’s change of heart over time is understandable. My Uncle and cousins took it all in quietly. The tragedy of the whole thing hung in the air. What could they say?

What’s left? Grasping for answers, I cut right to the heart of it.

Brian: “Did he ever say things like, ‘So what’s Bill up to?’ or ‘What are the grandsons doing?’”

Uncle: “No.”

Brian: “Didn’t come up? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

Uncle: “Oh yeah.”

He never asked about us. I wish I knew why. I was hoping for a dramatic revelation. A simple explanation. But after reconnecting with my Uncle and cousins, I walked away with conflicting emotions. They are wonderful people. And yet, I also walked away heartbroken over all the lost years of not knowing them. But that’s not all I walked away with. I’ve got three new clues on my journey toward making sense of this seemingly unexplainable disownment and familial separation.

The First Clue: The Phone Call

My grandmother unexpectedly passed away at the age of 60 on December 31, 1975. I asked my Uncle about it, and he shared his memory of that terrible day.

Uncle: “I get a call News Year's Eve [about his mother’s death], and all of a sudden I have to go to

California… That’s when I called Bill, and we had to hop a plane to go to San Francisco to help my dad bring her back… she was dead.”

Could it be that my dad found out his mother unexpectedly passed away on the other side of the country… from his brother?

I texted my dad to see whether my suspicions were correct.

Unfortunately, I was right.

My Dad received two phone calls at work the day his mom died. One was to let him know that his mom had a heart attack on the plane back from Hawaii and was in bad shape. The second call broke the tragic news that she was dead. One of those calls came from his brother, and the other from his Uncle Marshall. He’s not 100% sure who made which call, but he’s confident about one thing—his dad didn’t call. Is that what you would do if your wife died? Have one of your kids break the news to the other?

The Second Clue: Alzheimer's

The second clue flings open the curtain on my Grandpa Tom’s Alzheimer’s. All I’ve ever known about it was the crisis incident that ended up necessitating his being admitted to a nursing facility. As it turns out, there were many other symptoms and incidents.

Uncle: “We could tell he was really going… we went over to [a restaurant] for dinner. My dad was supposed to drive over. ‘Where’s dad?’ He was lost. He didn’t know where he was at… Anyway, the former next-door neighbor would keep me up to date on what was going on. ‘Your dad’s down on the corner. He thinks the bus is there.’ [Uncle Tom whistles with concern]. Then you knew there was something going on. My dad needed help. [As a cosigner] I would go through the checkbook, and I would see all these entries, ten entries of $5 each. [Those] are tell-tale signs. I’m afraid the stove is going to be on and he is going to kill himself. That’s when you knew you had to get him committed [to the nursing facility].”

The Third Clue: Buried Emotions

The third and final clue in the breakdown of family relationships was actually about my dad. Without any prompting, out of nowhere, my Uncle revealed decades of hurt he’d been feeling.

Uncle: “It’s terrible, we [Bill and Tom] haven’t talked in a long time… I really got upset. Diane [Uncle Tom’s wife] and I took care of my dad, and cleaned the house up and got it ready, and where was Bill? He never asked, ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I really took offense to that… I’m a big boy, and I should have called your dad years ago and said, ‘Let’s sit down and let me tell you my problems and why I don’t talk to you.’”

My heart was racing. I had no idea my Uncle was holding on to this hurt for 30 years. I was so focused on my grandfather disowning us, that I hadn’t even considered what reality had done to the relationship between my dad and his brother. And the man he was describing doesn’t sound anything like my father. The dad I know is selfless, hard-working, ready to help. An all-around incredible guy. But I get it. From my Uncle’s perspective, his feelings are valid. It makes sense. If I were in his shoes, I’d be hurt too.

So here I am. I didn’t solve anything. In fact, I’ve got three more issues to resolve.

First, was it really possible that my grandfather was cold-hearted and narcissistic? He never asked about my family.

Second, his Alzheimer’s symptoms were much more intense than I realized. Could that have played a role in the disownment?

Lastly—is it too late to heal the broken relationship between my dad and his brother? How will my parents respond when they hear about this for the first time?

To get any sort of resolution, I’d have to share this difficult information with my parents. I’d have to talk to an expert in Alzheimer’s. And I’d have to track down the only remaining relative who knew my grandfather. //

A

This Month's Question:

Life is hard, and we often need help. How can I accept help from others without feeling the need to repay them?

Emily Hershberger & Daniel Miller

Emily: Forty-two hours is how long my niece and her husband were able to hold their beloved stillborn daughter before she was laid to rest. Adrielle Kate— her name meaning belonging to God and pure brought heaven closer to her young parents. Farewell, dear baby—may we meet again someday.

Grief is hard. Family, friends, church, and the community weep with this couple and look for ways to help bear their burden... which ultimately does lighten the load and can help along with healing. But … being the recipient of all this kindness can be difficult in itself. After losing three babies to a genetic disorder, we have often found ourselves in this position, and to be honest, it wasn’t always easy. We wished we were the ones bearing the casseroles, sending the flowers, and reaching out in love. We wished it was our time to share instead of other people taking that time for us. Yet, I can’t put into words how much these things meant to us and how greatly we did appreciate every little gesture.

So how should we respond when we are in need of help and are not able to reciprocate? My mom gave me wise words years ago and they have always stayed with me. I was probably lamenting the fact that we were once again on the receiving end and how I felt bad about taking up people’s time. We had not asked for this, we don’t want to feel indebted, and so on. In plain language Mom explained: We are asked to help bear one another’s burdens, and by not graciously accepting that, we rob the giver of the joy and can lose the blessing for ourselves. Gratitude—the state of being grateful and thankful. So, by not showing gratitude, we are not doing our part in the big scheme of things. That little talk was a tremendous help to me and encouraged me to always try to express my gratefulness. Another thing might be that we have this fear of coming across as sponges, someone who sighs and thinks that people really should be doing things for us. After all, we’ve got such a rough lot in life. Maybe that’s pride, but you really, really don’t want people to think that of you.

The point is not doing things for the honor and glory, but most women probably have had the experience of putting a lot of thought into something and getting a tepid response, which simply rains on your parade. I had a friend whose relative had a new baby, so she put in a lot of time and effort crafting a beautiful blanket to present to them. “Oh, another blanket. He’s gotten so many already,” was the thanks that she got. How horribly awkward! She took the blanket back home again, but talk about a letdown! Or at the gathering where the mother comments how her family groaned when meals were being brought in, fearing that it would be dressing-noodle casserole again. I can assure you that every woman there quickly wracked their brain, trying to remember what meal women want our food—or whatever it may be—to be appreciated. So, by not recognizing what had been done for them and thinking of the giver, these women, in my opinion, missed out on a whole lot. The giver still received a blessing, but the experience could have been a lot more meaningful.

It is a humbling experience to get an outpouring of support knowing that you can never repay nor thank each one individually. Last summer, we had a major windstorm go through our area wreaking destruction for lots of people. Our friend’s daughter was getting married on a Wednesday, and this happened Monday night. Their heifer barn was gone, the wedding tent collapsed, and there were fallen trees and branches everywhere. Our friend related how difficult it was to not have a sure answer when his daughter asked if the wedding could happen. Power lines were down, roads were impassable, and would people even be able to come? Then the people came. Neighbors, their son’s friends, and people they didn’t even know started coming from all directions, and by Tuesday evening things were cleaned up and ready for the wedding. This was community at its finest! The heartfelt thankfulness and appreciation of our friends was surely conveyed to everyone who was there. God’s plan was fulfilled: the people kindly gave, and our friends respectfully accepted.

Being grateful is something that should be taught to our children at a very young age, and by being an example, you set them on the right track. I’m not talking about falsely gushing or carrying on but just a sincere appreciation for their efforts. Writing thank-you notes is a great tool, although I could vastly improve in that area! Good intentions don’t make the cut.

The Psalmist says, “You may weep for a night but joy cometh in the morning.” 1 We can help this joy come by humbling ourselves, recognizing our need for help, and being a true and gracious receiver.

Daniel: By divine design, we’re dependent on each other—the giver, the receiver. Accepting help graciously may be among life’s top attributes. Nobody said it’s easy. But for the glory of God and for the good of the giver and yourself, the biblical directive is to embrace this kindness with a grateful heart.

There is a destiny that makes us brothers

None goes his way alone

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.

- Edwin Markham

Looking at the larger picture, aren’t we all in this together? In olden times, wise old Solomon wrote, To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven. 1 Along those lines, there’s a time to give and a time to receive. Easy to say, much harder to do.

Accepting help we can’t repay does leave a feeling of indebtedness, which motivates us to pass it on whenever and however we can. Two thousand years ago, a tax collector named Matthew sat in his booth of customs in the town of Capernaum. By dint of his profession, he was detested and reviled, the lowest form of traitor. When Jesus came by, He addressed him, “Follow me.” And Matthew arose and followed him. 2 He opened his heart to the help Jesus offered. What he received was a new life, a changed heart, a second chance. Did Matthew feel indebted? As one of the 12 apostles, he helped spread the gospel of Jesus and died a martyr.

Life is hard in the sense of its uncertainties, its reversals of fortune and circumstances, its setbacks, heartaches, and misunderstandings. People carry heavy burdens. Families lose much-needed loved ones. Tragedies occur. Incurable sicknesses arise. And so often the crowning blow comes with a hospital bill that threatens to cripple the family in whose mailbox it arrives. Is it any wonder Apostle Paul wrote: Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 3

The awareness of need and the spirit of giving is notable in the community we live in. But it doesn’t stop there. Like the poem by James Foley goes:

Drop a pebble in the water, just a splash and it is gone, But there’s half a hundred ripples circling on and on and on.

That’s how it is with giving and receiving—the circles keep going and going. They span church denominations and cultures; they break down walls. The Good Samaritan, despised in the Jewish world he lived in, showed mercy for the traveler who was beaten and left half-dead by thieves. He poured oil in his wounds and bound them up, set him on his own donkey, and brought him to an inn. The Samaritan himself paid the innkeeper for the wounded man’s bed and care and would stop back to pay for further expenses incurred in the recovery. By the way, the man who was beaten and robbed happened to be a Jew. The lesson in this is for all of us.

In the great scheme of things, though, life as we know it right here, right now, isn’t hard in the sense of material possessions. Taken in the context of people worldwide, we’re living on “Easy Street.” What generation of common people at any time in history has lived with more conveniences than we do today? Ancient Greece experienced a period known as The Golden Age . Today we live on the cusp of our own “golden age”—common comforts, job opportunities, leisure time, tools to get any job done, freedom to do this, freedom to do that. What did we do to deserve this? How is it that we were born in this community at this time? Considering the difficulties and deprivations our forefathers encountered, before and after immigration to America, living the good life is certainly not our right, nothing we’ve earned or paid for.

In our rural setting of farmsteads, now and then a barn goes up in flames, which means a barn raising is in the works. The outpouring of funds and donated labor humbles the farmer who loses his barn, then he stands by as a new one rises out of the ashes. He understands first-hand the sacrifices being made by scores of volunteers who want no pay or recognition. At such a time, watching the community rally around one of its own puts a new dimension to: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 4 When it’s all over and done, there’s something touching in seeing the farmer standing there in the shadow of his new barn, hands in his pockets, wholly at a loss for words.

Sometimes what is given by way of help escapes our notice until a long time later. In my impressionable early teen years, a new farm family moved into our neighborhood. My high regard for this farmer amounted to nothing less than adulation, for more reasons than one. He was known as Roman A.I. From this point on, I was kept busy emulating him. Since we belonged to the same threshing and silo-filling ring, working shoulder-to-shoulder with him through much of the summer made age 14 a banner year for me.

Roman A.I. drove a team of beautifully matched dapple grays, Dick and Doc. His farm wagon, complete with side racks, was painted silver-gray, complementing that team of his. Two small leather loops on the front upright rack held his threshing fork, its handle worn smooth by many years of use. That upside-down, 3-tined fork jutting above the rack lent just the right touch of flourish to his whole outfit. Contented black and white cows occupied his stable stanchions in

About Emily and Daniel

double rows. The exceptionally hilly farm he rented yielded bumper crops some years, other years not. All that, plus Roman A.I.’s practical know-how about soil, horsemanship, and life in general held me in thrall.

It wasn’t just his dapple grays and silver-gray wagon that evoked my admiration. It was what he said and how he said it, what he did and how he did it. I must’ve asked the man a question every minute that summer. Though I was a raw teenager, Roman A.I. never talked down to me, sidestepped a query, or shortened an explanation. He treated me as his equal. The proverb, A word fitly spoken... 5 conjures up images of his weathered face between a straw hat up top and a silvery beard below. I can hear him yet, that burry quality to his voice. “Well ...” he’d say, dragging it out while he pondered his reply. Another thing— the suspenders his wife sewed on his denim britches didn’t crisscross in the back. Instead, they were held together by a short connector bar. It sounds a bit silly now to say this, but back then I decided if I ever got married, I’d want my wife to make my suspenders just the way Roman Fannie made his.

Years went by before I understood what it was that drew me to him. It was simply this: Roman A.I. gave freely of himself, true-blue, unadorned. Of course, I can’t repay him. All I can do is give glory to God who oversaw the bringing together of a wise farmer in barndoor britches and a raw teenager.

"Years went by before I understood what it was that drew me to him. It was simply this: Roman A.I. gave freely of himself, true-blue, unadorned."

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WORDS BY: Melissa K. Norris