A Meaningful Life

Thursday, January 12, 2006

A Meaningful Life I mentioned my friend Merlyn a few days ago. I just got a link to the newspaper article in his hometown newspaper talking about his life and his struggle against cancer that is about to take his life. All I can say is that I sincerely hope before God that my own life will have at least a fraction of the impact that his has had and is having still. Here's the link: http://www.waverlynewspapers.com/articles/2006/01/12/news/news01.txt And here's the story itself: A memorable moment with Merlyn by ANELIA K. DIMITROVA Anelia K. Dimitrova photo Merlyn VandeKrol is sustained only by his faith as his body fights colon cancer. The hardest part of leaving this world is leaving behind his family, he says. Here, he is surrounded by those who will live by his example-wife Karen; sons Joel, 18, (at left) and Kevin, 20; Kevin's girlfriend Amanda, and the family pet, cocker-spaniel Maggie. On Merlyn's lap is a quilt Kevin made for Amanda. editor@waverlynewspapers.com “You have only about a week to live,” his doctor told him in December. After receiving that sinking news, Merlyn VandeKrol wrote a letter to his friend, Merrill Oster, asking him to help him plan his memorial service. A day past the dreaded deadline, the two men sat down in Merlyn’s living room for a strategy session. For the two longtime friends and business associates, who had managed teams of journalists, salespeople, software developers, and artists at Oster Publishing, the Jan. 6 afternoon at Merlyn’s Hudson Heights home was perhaps the most important meeting they had attended during their 20-year working relationship. Sitting in his armchair just a few feet away from his hospital bed, Merlyn and his friend chatted about characters they had worked with, laughed about roads they had not traveled, and reminisced about the ones they had. With the oxygen machine in the corner counting down Merlyn’s every breath like a merciless metronome, the two men went down the list of Merlyn’s wishes, occasionally losing control of their voices. “I don’t want a morbid funeral,” Merlyn, 55, told his former boss. “I want it to be more like a graduation ceremony. I’m moving on.” Merlyn’s story is rare not only because of the fierce fight he put up against colon cancer, not only because of the charge he took in planning every detail of his earthly exit, not only because of the time he had to explore his relationship with his faith, not only because of the example he set for his sons and wife, but also because of the courage he and his family had to demystify the imminence of death. Last Sunday, the family held an open house for their church family to stop by and say goodbye. “There are a lot of people who do not know what to say to a dying person,” Merlyn told me. “Or they are afraid they might be interrupting a nap or do not want to intrude, so Karen and I decided to open the house Sunday." An estimated 150 people came to shake Merlyn’s hand, tell him how he has touched their life, and admire his courage. With tears flowing freely, many told him that they would surely see him when they themselves cross over to where he was headed. Their words were both soothing and disturbing for Merlyn. In their essence, they echoed his struggle to reach internal peace since he learned that he was terminally ill. Surrounded by his wife, Karen, his sons, Kevin, 20, Joel, 18, cocker-spaniel Maggie, and Kevin’s girlfriend, Amanda, Merlyn had all the time in the world to think out loud. “Leaving Karen is like shredding someone in half and leaving a great open wound open,” he said, summing up months of intense questioning. “I know I’m going to a better place, but I’m leaving behind some people that I love incredibly. No one ever took their marriage vows more seriously than my wife. I don’t want to leave her and I don’t want to leave my boys.” But he is thankful, he says, that he has spent meaningful time with his family and has had the opportunity to prepare Karen for widowhood and his boys for the world. “If you are looking for a story of courage, I’m not that man,” he told me on Saturday. “But if you are looking for a story of faith, I have one for you. I’ve always been kind of shy about talking to others about my faith in Christ. Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with Christ and if you do not have a relationship with Him, if it’s not something you can call on in a crisis like this, it’s worse than worthless because you are deceived.” It is Christ’s sacrifice, Merlyn said, that gives him the reassurance that he is going to a better place and the comfort that he will be leaving his family in good hands. “Merlyn said this is not a story about courage,” Karen later said. “But I don’t know many people who could go through what he has gone through and not have a lot of courage. No matter how bad he felt, he was always kind. He has been very gracious through this and that is something God has given him. We’ve had several nurses come in and say he had made a difference in their life. For a man as sick as he is to have that impact, we know that’s something that comes from God.” To amplify the message of faith, Merlyn plans to reverse the steps in the traditional funeral ritual and give the limelight to his Creator. “It’s more consistent with my Christian faith,” he told me. “I want this day to be one that results in God being honored and glorified, not about a bunch of people who come and say good things about me. I want people to examine their relationship with God.” Once his body has been laid to rest in the cemetery just a few miles south of his house in a private ceremony attended by family and his fellow church elders, the true celebration of his life will begin at Bethany Bible Chapel, the Cedar Falls church the family has attended for 28 years. It is there that the Oskaloosa native plans to remind everyone that while he has shed his earthly attire, they should rejoice because his spirit is one with the Lord. The crowd will hear a 1974 contemporary Christian song, “The Coming of the Lord,” performed by Merlyn and his two sisters, Gloria and LaVonne, in their only released album “The Everlasting Joy.” Two weeks ago, in his hospital room, Merlyn recorded the voiceover. “I’ve always been a kind of a chicken when it came to sharing my faith,” he says in the recording. “If you do not have a relationship with the Lord….” Kevin and Joel will play their father’s favorite old hymn, “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” and a dear friend, Waverly Christian singer Darla Eltjes Erskine, will perform a song she wrote about faith, called “Forever,” which Merlyn loves. Merlyn’s wishes did not surprise Merrill and his wife, Carol. The man who had presided over Oster Publishing and Oster Dow Jones before Merrill sold the companies had been a man of exemplary character and courage in the face of crises. “I may have had the vision and I may have provided some leadership,” Merrill wrote back to his friend earlier, reflecting on their relationship and on the corporate culture they had created, “but on a day-to-day basis, Merlyn, it is you who were the keeper of the culture that valued human dignity above profits, valued relationships above transactions, and valued our business people as associates, fellow travelers to eternity with precious souls…. I have never been so well served as a partner in business and ministry (we treated them as inseparable), as I have been in our many years together.” For a polished speaker like Merrill, who articulates his thoughts in elaborate paragraphs even when he improvises, standing by the side of his old associate at a moment when he was about ready to step off the threshold of earthly life into eternity, the experience was revelatory. “It’s a story of faith and the impact of a person’s faith on the imminence of death,” Merrill told me on Friday evening in his home. “We tell our grandchildren that when people die they only shed their earthly suits,” adds Carol, delicately wiping off a tear. “When we left, I told Merlyn I will see him soon.” On Saturday morning, a bouquet of roses and a basket of fruit, sent by the Osters brought joy to the family. Merlyn, who had not eaten solid food since July, helped himself to a small piece of an apple. “When Merrill came on Friday, I think he expected to see an emaciated, difficult-to-communicate-with, curled-in-his-hospital-bed, a former-shadow-of-his-former-self man,” says Merlyn. “And instead, he found a man sitting in his arm chair, eager to participate actively in the planning of his final celebration of life.” Ever since he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003, Merlyn believed he would beat the deadly disease. “The lowest day in my life was when my doctor used the words ‘inoperable and ‘cancer’ in the same sentence and gave me a year to live,” he wrote in an eight-paragraph tract, which has since been disseminated all over the U.S. and in some foreign countries as well. “…I sought a second opinion at Mayo Clinic, and they told me the same thing-‘about a year.’ It will take a miracle for me to beat this.” Merlyn put up a sumo wrestler’s fight with the deadly disease, praying, along with his family and friends, that his body be healed. But despite the operations, which numbered “more than I could count on my fingers and toes put together,” the disease came back in 2004. “God can still heal me still with only a thought,” he says. “After it came back again, I asked the Lord, if you’re not going to heal me, then please take away this incredible will to live because I'm a fighter. I’ll use all the strength I have to try to lick this thing. Please take away the desire to live and replace it with the peace that passes understanding that the Bible talks about. The pain and all that goes with it is so great, that in the last couple of weeks I realized I was losing my will to fight. I am becoming more and more at peace with the idea of dying and being resurrected on the other side and being in Heaven where Jesus is. I can sit here today and tell you that any fear that I had is gone and I’m ready to go. God has given me the peace that I so looked for, and my tears are not tears of grief.” Merlyn refused further dialysis after he got tired of “being scoped and prodded and sliced.” His body is slowly shutting down, one system after another screeching to an acute halt, overwhelmed by the aggressive tumors. Now it is time for Merlyn’s family to reassure him that they, too, have found an internal peace. And in a home where there are no taboo subjects, the words are not hard to find. “For some people, God is hard to believe in because they can't see Him,” says Karen, sitting on Merlyn’s hospital bed, where a pillow with an embroidered message from the Bible gives yet another testimony to the spiritual roots of the household. “But the grace to get through this comes from Him. Sometimes you worry about the future, what’s going to happen to our family after Merlyn is gone. The boys and I have talked about how we don’t have to worry about the future because God will take care of us just like He has taken care of us in the past.” Kevin, a senior in Emmaus Bible College in Dubuque, adds: “You can study the Bible, but living it is a different thing,” he says, underscoring the difference between life and literacy. “No one close to me has ever died. It’s all a learning experience seeing Mom and Dad deal with it. It is encouraging to see that it works--you read about it, but now I see that everything they have taught me my whole life is real. They’ve held on to it and now they’re living it.” Joel, who wrapped up his school career in January in order to spend more time with his dad, brings the spiritual conversation to a practical halt. “Come with us for a ride,” he says, begging his dad to hop in the 2000 Ford Mustang GT he was going to test-drive with his mom. Looking out of the window, where the car is beckoning, he pretends his dad’s frailty is imaginary and persists: “I want to see what this little thing is made of. I’d love for you to come with me more than you know, more than you’d ever know. All you have to do is get into the car and then get out again. It’s not going to take your breath away.” His irreverently simple wish brings a dew of love in his father’s eyes. “My week is up and I’m not flagging,” Merlyn says, nodding a disappointing “no” to his son’s request. “If my right kidney has started to work, I might be here longer than they expected me to. God can still heal me with only a thought.”