Thank You

We want to thank you for walking this road by our side. When I set up the blog, I did so as a convenience to myself! I thought it would be an efficient way to keep our friends updated daily. It turned out to be a ministry to us, as you supported, encouraged, and prayed for us. Wayne loved having your comments read to him. We loved reading them, and did so together often.

These last few weeks I did not leave my home except for trips to the hospital, not wanting to be gone if he needed me. Yet, I was able to be connected intimately with the body of Christ through your ministry to us on this blog. Our family was able to both keep our daily experience as a private and intimate time, and also to share it with our friends.

Wayne had the privilege of knowing the love and appreciation and esteem of his friends and family during the last months of his time on earth. It moved him deeply and gave him great joy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Don't worry that we won't fully grieve. I assure you, we are grieving. We have been grieving all along. But, as the apostle Paul said, we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

I close with a final picture. The boys specifically asked me to post this. We think this picture says it all. Blessings on you, friends.

Kennedy's Eulogy

(Kennedy is our middle son. A recent Baylor graduate, he is living at home while he job hunts.)

My dad used to always come home from a business trip with pieces of double-bubble wedged behind each ear. As a little kid, I thought I had struck gold. Whenever we saw my dad pull into the driveway, we ran to the window in anticipation. We knew that bubble gum was going to be behind his ear. He’d walk into the house and we’d be standing there looking up at what seemed to be a thirty foot giant. He’d bend down and let us take the gum from his ears and we were content. We weren’t content because we had our candy, we were content because our dad was home. And as I stand here now I am as content as I once was because I know that my dad is home.

One of my greatest memories of my dad is the excitement we shared when it came to sports. My dad had a line he’d use when something good happened. I can remember watching football downstairs and our team would score and I’d feel the ground shake as all 220 lbs of my dad came running into my room and he’d bust through the door and yell, “he got it!” Later, when Stinson was playing varsity football, I drove up for a weekend to watch one of his games. I stood there in the stands with my dad and each time Stin would complete a pass or throw for a touchdown on cue, my dad would yell “he got it!” This infamous phrase would follow me to college. On any given Saturday and Sunday, it’s a safe bet that my dad and I would be watching football in our respective locations. And, as sure as the sun rises, on any spectacular play my phone would ring. I wouldn’t have to check the caller ID because I knew who it was and I would greet him with his own words, “he got it!”…”he got it!”

My dad got it. My dad got life. My dad knew what it meant to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. My dad could see the needs of people and he knew how to meet them. My dad got what it meant to be a father and husband as he would stop at nothing to satisfy his family. My dad got what it meant to be a friend as he never once considered himself before another. Even in his last days, when being selfish would be the most justified, it wasn’t himself or his condition on his mind. It was others and what he could do for someone else. He got it. When my dad reached heaven I don’t for one second believe that god said “well done my good and faithful servant.” Instead, I know he came busting around the corner, arms wide open, yelling “he got it!”

My dad embraced life. I can remember one year during Christmas, he narrated the part of Peter for our church. All I remember is one line, “I’m Peter, the rock!” It seemed as though for weeks and weeks those were the only words he know as he would pace the house saying “I’m Peter, the rock.” The other night I was thinking of my favorite bible story concerning Peter as he was shackled to a wall in chains. And it was his faith that set the chains free. Peter knew what it meant to embrace life and whatever it brought, and that full embrace let him fully experience life.

My dad shares Peter’s embrace of life. He fully embraced life and when cancer seemed to hold him captive, his faith set him free and he was able to experience life to the fullest. In his last few months, cancer never once bound his wrists and held him prisoner. They fell right off and my dad’s faith prevailed. Throughout my dad’s life, he was handed some pretty heavy chains, and every time his faith set him free.

I know my dad is physically gone, but I know that who he is lives on. If you want to know my dad, know me; know my brothers; know my mom. One of the most powerful things about God is his ability to transcend. He transcends time, space, life, and death. He transcends, because to each one of us, we are given a legacy and that legacy will extend far beyond life. My dad left a legacy that lives on in my family. His legacy was so powerful that it lives on in everyone here. If you want to continue to know my dad, know the impact he made in your life.

I’ll continue to experience my dad as I live a life that he helped mold. The next time I meet the need of a friend, I’ll say “that’s my dad.” The next time I give extra attention to the kid who doesn’t have much parental support, I’ll say “that’s my dad.” When I have a family and am able to fully love them to a point where “inconveniences” do not exist I will say, “that’s my dad.” The first time I teach my kids the smallest details of life, I’ll say “that’s my dad.” Loving those whom others turn away from, giving with a servants heart, enjoying every second that life gives, truly investing in relationships (for years in college, I thought I knew what it meant to really invest in someone’s life. I had barley skimmed the surface. My dad took me deeper in my knowledge of knowing and loving people) those things are my dad. The next time I pat someone knowing the true power there is in a touch, I’ll say “that’s my dad.” And the next time I accidentally blind carbon copy an email joke to the wrong person, I’ll say “that’s my dad.”

Understand that a life lived for one’s self will bear no fruit, but a life like my dad’s; a life that is lived for Christ doing “kingdom work” is a life that will produce a legacy to extend far beyond generations. My dad left this world, but more importantly he left something for this world. My dad has touched many lives and we are all changed for being in his presence. Who my dad was will surpass many generations. Lives will be different 50 years from now because my dad helped pay bills when money was tight, he helped finance a honeymoon, he encouraged someone who felt alone, or he just simply sat down for some ice cream with someone. My dad’s life will overflow for generations to come. So, my challenge is to take those things and live life. Embrace life and what it brings. Let your faith set you free. Live for each moment, and love people. Do that, and you got it!

Brantley's Eulogy

(Brantley is our oldest son. He will be 25 in January. A graduate student at Baylor University. Here is the text of the eulogy he gave at Wayne's memorial service. I will post Kennedy's eulogy when I get it.)

I want to share some thoughts on my dad and on Jesus. Hopefully I can represent them well enough. I want to specifically talk about my dad’s understanding of fatherhood and of his experience with Jesus in the last two months.

Jesus promises His enduring presence on earth to us in the form of the Holy Spirit and says of this that, though we may not be able to see Him directly, His effects will be obvious. Kind of like the wind whose effects are obvious and whose presence is known by the action it produces. This stirs for me a very simple picture of a tree in a forest of trees. Imagine, of all these trees, one tree in particular bending in a different direction. Against the expectation of anyone who would be watching, and what our own human experience and logic might predict, this tree leans left while all others are leaning right. What kind of tree bends that way, we might ask. What would make one tree bend so differently, we would begin to wonder. In the bending of that tree a wholly different wind, a wholly different relationship to that wind, begins to reveal itself. The action of that tree becomes a confession of the wind that bends it.

On one of the last nights that my dad was fully himself, I was going to bed when I noticed my dad had gotten up from his own bed and moved to a chair in his room (no small adventure for him as he worked so diligently against the cancer that would try and deny him the use of his left leg). As I entered his room and sat on his bed, he began to motion to me and say “Hey Brantley…it’s been a while since we’ve talked, B. Tell me what’s going on; give us something to talk about.” Of course it hadn’t been long at all since we had talked, but for my dad thirty minutes without conversation counts as “a while since we’ve talked!” “Well Dad,” I began, “how are you doing?” He knew this was in reference to the fact that he was dying of cancer and immediately said “Well, B…I just want to make sure I’m worshipping God. I just want to worship Him, you know?” “Yeah, Dad, I know.” Before I finish recounting our little conversation I need to tell you that my dad had become for me what a friend from Baylor had written as my “dialogue partner in the things that truly mattered.” With my dad, as with no other, I could unpack my deepest, profoundest thoughts on life and God and the world and the Church. What a blessing for someone who cares so deeply for you to want to hear about the things you care deeply about! What an even greater blessing when that person cares about those same things as deeply as you do! Our conversation took a path that many of our conversations did and we talked briefly about what it meant to “worship God.” We concluded that Jesus didn’t come simply to call us to some concept personal piety, but to a new way of fellowship. It was in how we fellowshipped with others that Jesus would be revealed to the world as Lord. As a father, as a husband, a brother, a son-in-law, an uncle, as a friend…as a stranger, my dad was one who extended deep, interested, unconditional fellowship in a way that contradicted what is so often our expectation of a person. “Dad”, I said “…you’re the most Christian man I know.” My dad was like that tree, who bent in a way peculiar to our own assumptions, and in so doing revealed Jesus to the world – the closer you got the more obvious this became.

This description suits me, because it allows me to say with great joy something that I always, on some level, understood about my dad – he was a bit off an odd fit for this world. This could never be any truer than in the way that he approached fatherhood. Whether it was the day he infamously wore a clown wig to eat lunch at school with his 8 year old son (who would not recover from the trauma for a full ten years) or being the only adult in that cafeteria to rush to the aid of an unkown child who spilt his entire lunch on the floor drawing laughs and pointed fingers from all, except my dad, it was always clear to me that this guy wasn’t quite like other parents.

As a male, it has been a true blessing to have a father who was also a nurturer. A father who would prefer to be home so he could put great thought into what he would pack in his kids lunches; a father who defined success in the business world not by position or salary, but by whether or not his son enjoyed the time he spent with his Dad on a recent business trip accompanied him on; a father who loved his sons because they were his sons; had we never done anything worth mentioning to the rest of the world we would always be worth mentioning to whomever would listen to him! In other conversations we had in the last two months it became obvious that the energy – relationally, intellectually, emotionally – that we would expect most men to devote to career, advancement, etc. my dad devoted to fatherhood. With great emotion he would talk about how deeply he understood his role as father. It was his great ambition, his greatest endeavor, his triumphant witness to the world of the goodness of God.

One last thought about his own journey in these last two months…for those of us who talked with him during that time there was one word, more than any other, which reverberated through out the whole experience. I will always remember my dad’s first words after he and my mom had told me about his diagnosis and its likely outcome. “B, I want you to know that I’m alright…I’m at peace.” I need to share one last conversation my dad and I had. This one was simply about his peace – I wanted to know if it ever wavered; I wanted to know if my dad ever got anxious or scared. In his humble way, he let me know that there were days that were especially hard. Yes he got anxious, yes he got scared. But, he said, I am always able, in those moments, to choose peace over those things.

In these last two months my dad lived with an innocence that we should all envy. The burdens and encumbrances of modern life fell away, the things of earth grew strangely dim, as he walked with the freedom that comes not in submitting to the inevitable outcome of brain cancer, but in submitting to the inevitable outcome of knowing Jesus. He walked through the valley of death’s shadow, head held high, not in defiance of cancer, but in TRUE worship of God. I don’t quite know how to end this, so I just thought I’d copy and paste a portion of an email I sent to some dear friends the day my dad returned home from the hospital and we knew that the end was near:

Friends,
There is a moment in the Gospel story when Jesus sets his face "towards Jerusalem." More than a simple statement of chronology, this marks the moment when Jesus moved with intention towards his embrace of death on the cross. From that moment on the events of his life began to move him closer and closer to that end. In the last two weeks I have found myself reflecting often upon that moment when Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem. I think I have found resonance there with my family's story of late. This has been a very Christian experience; Christian in a way befitting of my dad who embraced a public call aimed at confessing Jesus through fellowship, relationship, and community.

In these last several weeks he has made his greatest confession of Jesus, and has allowed our family to partake in it with him, as he has approached his own death with peace, his head held high, not in defiance, but in humble submission to the path of the Author and Perfector of our faith, enduring his cancer, yet scorning its shame (never feeling sorry for himself, as many might think he had the right to do) and looking forward to his eternity with Jesus. In these final days, I want you to know that we journey together (and we journey now) knowing that because 2,000 years ago Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem, we can now turn our eyes upon him. Truly, as the things of this earth grow strangely dim, we are comforted by His glory and grace. Amen.

pictures

Here are some recent pictures... I will post more about the Memorial Service later this weekend. I will post the eulogies that Brantley and Kennedy gave. Probably this evening.

Today

It was so important to Wayne that the boys and I do his eulogy. Would you pray for us today that we would be able to do it well, keeping our emotions under reasonable control?

This weekend, I will figure out how to upload a picture of Wayne. Thanks for asking.

Memorial Service Plans

Memorial service for Wayne will be Friday, December 16, at 1:00 pm at First Baptist Church of Blue Springs.

The boys and I will do the eulogy, as that is what Wayne wanted. He also requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to ministries of your choice. His suggestions are:

Fellowship of Christian Athletes (www.fca.org)

Heifer International (www.heifer.org) See story below. :-)

The Praying Life Foundation (www.prayinglife.org) Full disclosure-- this is our ministry. I hesitate to put it, but Wayne specifically requested me to. Finances that are given in memory of Wayne will be used to fund opportunties for smaller churches to host Praying Life events, a dream of Wayne's. (Hosting a Praying Life event requires a fairly substantial budget and manpower.) He had been working out a plan for funding this and I can't think of a better way to let the ministry honor his memory. This is the only place I will list this.

Let me tell you this story about Heifer International. (This will give you something to compare the ring story to.) Wayne discovered Heifer International, an organization that provides livestock for families and villages in third world countries. He just loved their mission and became a financial supporter. One recent year for Mother's Day, he gave a donation to Heifer International in my honor. I have known Wayne for a long time and I knew it was just a great gift, reflective of his passions. His co-workers, however, were appalled and prevailed upon him to buy me something that he could wrap up and that did not have the word "heifer" in it. How surprised he was to find that everyone did not consider it a brilliant gift! I attended an event with him shortly after and enjoyed some good laughs with his co-workers about my lovely Mother's Day gift. I didn't tell him how much more romantic it was than some other places that have recieved donations in my honor! (You see why I was so surprised to receive the ring.) Wayne looked for ministries that met real needs of people and Heifer International was one of his favorites.

Wayne could never leave a need unmet... in individual lives or in society or in the world. He was a person of great compassion. Genuine compassion. And, really, he was romantic. He loved giving gifts. He loved Christmas for just that reason.

We miss him terribly.

Memorial Plans

We woke up our first morning without Wayne. Now that the focus is different, I am painfully aware of the gaping hole in our family. All of the prayers for us will continue to spill over into this next leg of the journey.

I will post details of the memorial service as soon as I know for sure. It looks like it will be Friday afternoon about 1:00 or 2:00 at First Baptist Church of Blue Springs. In a later post, I will suggest some ministries that Wayne loved for those who would like to honor him in that way. Wayne loved the work of God's Kingdom and himself gave generously to ministries that he felt had direct impact on the lives of individuals.

Today I have to take care of lots of things, but will post details as soon as I can.

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Wayne died peacefully at 1:00 pm. Brantley and I were with him. It seemed right that our 26+ year marriage would end with us sharing that last intimacy. Stinson and Kennedy came to the room just as he had taken his last breath.

Earlier in his illness, Wayne and I had time to muse on what the experience of dying might be like. We agreed it must be like a birth. Imagine a liitle baby in the womb. It's the only world he knows. His universe is small and dark, but he doesn't know that. Those of us out here in the big world think, "How crowded you must be. Why, your world can barely hold you! Every move you make leads you to boundaries. I'm sure you must be eager to come out into light and air." But the little baby-- he thinks he is in light and air. How amazed he must be when he pushes through the birth canal and encounters the big world.

Here on planet earth, we think we know Light and Air, but we only know the outside edges, a little caricature. How amazed we will be when we push through that eternal birth canal and find LIFE.

December 13, 2005. Wayne Dean was born.

December 13

Still here, but a noticeable decline from yesterday. Each day weaker.

Each day his breathing is more ragged and more shallow. Soon, the air he breathes will be the very presence of Jesus. He will breathe deeply then. Native air.

December 12

Nothing new with Wayne's condition. He grows weaker each day. He no longer looks like the handsome and virile man he once was, but his new look has become dear to us. His face is sunken and sallow and waxy, but it looks beautiful to me.

Thank you for the many birthday wishes yesterday. It was a hard day for me. Last year Wayne gave me an unexpected and extravagant (for us) gift. A ring. It had a particular meaning to us... one only we two understand. In one of our conversations during this time of his illness, he told me that shopping for my ring, knowing I would be so surprised, was one of the most fun memories of last Christmas season. I wore "our" ring as I held his hand early yesterday morning. Yesterday was my hardest day. Thank you for the prayers that carried me through it.

We have all given Wayne permission to let go. We have told him that we will be OK. He knows. No hurry. If he were in pain, there would be a certain urgency about it, I think. Indeed, his body has become a prison of sorts and I will rejoice for him when he is freed from it. But until then, each breath is precious. We will count a few more days as a gift.