Hug your husband

December 9, 2013

A few days ago, Grandpa had his 90th birthday. I can't say he quite celebrated it, though he managed to blow out the candles on the 9 and 0 a few days prior, but on the day of, he was confined to a bed in Hospice. I spoke to Grammy the afternoon before his birthday, shortly after he'd been moved to hospice. Each of my conversations with Grammy in the week of his birthday began with, "I can not believe how good God is." She would go on to tell me of the peace and provision He has and was currently lavishing her with. First and foremost, she spoke with her faith. She was as selfless as ever, asking after Sofia, praising her cuteness and accomplishments, telling me how proud she was of Manny. "He's so smart and such a good daddy, I'm so glad you have such a good husband." And in and out of asking after or encouraging me, she would intersperse updates on her or Grandpa's condition. Being true and courageous, she openly explained how hard this time is for her. 

Hard and peace are not mutually exclusive. 

It was hard to see Grandpa in so much pain, bound by so much physical limitation, struggling even for the air he needed to breath. It was hard to think of letting go, but harder still to wish for anything but relief for him. And so, after pausing a moment as she got choked up, she commanded me with gentility and urgency, "you make sure to hug your husband." 

The following day, his birthday, when I called again and asked her to convey a happy birthday to Grandpa for me, she scoffed a bit. I imagine there wasn't much happy about that day. But she did immediately point out that this would have been their 69th wedding anniversary. I joked that "they can't have all been easy years!" But she immediately and with all seriousness expressed urgent gratitude for that many years persevering in the bond with this man she was overwhelmed with love for in this moment. "So many young couples give up at the slightest hint of trouble these days," she said. She wasn't going to deny their own troubles, but she couldn't be more grateful in that moment that she and Grandpa had persevered through all of them, all the way through to his dying breath. She remarked that the longer you're married, the more you figure out about each other and the better you can get through the difficulties. "You must learn so much about each other over the years that makes it possible to fight better," I postulated. "But you both change so much," she revised. 

How much those two must have changed from the moment they met each other to this day. I imagine Grandpa as a rather socially clueless nerd who always attracted more popularity than he ever desired. And Grammy was a tall, skinny, fashion plate who had an insatiable crush on a cute boy at church. He was cute enough that she easily looked past his awkwardness or failure to appreciate what he had in her admiration. She pursued him till the day she got him for keeps. They sound like typically naive young teenagers bumbling their way into life's biggest commitment. But they both had dogged determination. 

Naive as it may have been, that commitment was for good in both their eyes. In the course of their marriage, Grandpa saw Grammy go from comfortable middle-class privileged princess to conscientious, poverty stricken, resourceful finance manager. She endured serious poverty to stay with him. He saw her work to put him through those early years that launched his career. She remained true as he left for war, worked inhumane residency hours, and traveled the globe to speak on his research. He saw her endure the loss of three pregnancies, the loss of her body as she fought cancer, the loss of her family members and friends. She saw him go from arrogant unbeliever to born again, Sunday school teaching, passionately theologizing Christian. She saw him fumble through fatherhood, tolerate young grandchildren, and adore great-grandchildren. She saw him evolve from socially awkward nerd to a man who could be her collaborator in some of the best hospitality Houston or Carmel have ever witnessed. Come poverty, wealth, war, peace, birth, miscarriage, cancer, athletic award, shame, global renown, conflict, reconciliation, anger, gratitude, in sickness and in health, all opportunities to move on from one another and call it quits, they held together, somehow, someway. 

                             

"Hug your husband."

I have been blessed to have spent so many hours, days, and years with such involved presence of Grammy and Grandpa in my life. They have had the type of impact on me that is so significant, that I am sure I will never fully know, much less understand how much they have made me who I am. But I certainly hand't thought much about what they've taught me about romance. 

Movies and media tell me romance is all about chocolates and flowers and fancy dinners. Grammy might revise that to say it is more about buying you gorgeous jewelry at opportune moments. But in general, I wouldn't have looked at Grammy and Grandpa and thought them romantic. I might even have felt like for many of their years, they were mostly tolerating each other. I remember Grandpa enlightening me that the story of Romeo and Juliet is not about the beauty of romance, but of the foolishness of young people and the idiocy of eros. 

I remember asking what was going through her mind once as we witnessed a young couple getting married, and she answered, "they have no idea what they're getting themselves into." [and now more than a decade hence, I know she was right] My grandparents were not a couple exuding loads of warm fuzzy affection. But I certainly have witnessed my parents marriage as full of affection, and now get to enjoy such affection in my own marriage. And I can't help but feel like Grammy and Grandpa are largely to be credited. Their perseverance paved the way to show me how to love with dogged perseverance and commitment, to help me love and respect and desire and pursue my husband, Come. What. May. All they endured makes it seem easy, even in the midst of a fight, to hug my husband. 

And then I have to be fair. In later years, even as Grammy got much more honest and forthcoming with her grievances against Grandpa, I saw him changing before my very eyes. Now he was the one who wanted to cook for her rather than sitting at the table with fork and knife in hand awaiting his food. In Carmel, he always insisted that he was the one who would do the dishes, shoeing her off aggressively, as she tried to help and couldn't stay away, out of habit (or maybe fear, as he could not seem to cook food raw enough for his liking and was bound to kill us all with E. coli). As we would sit at restaurants or at a play, or walking along the coast, they were always holding hands, and sharing frequent kisses. One of my most vivid images of him as we would take walks all together along the beach is of his body bent over, one arm crossed at his waist behind his back, and the other stretched out behind him, all fingers extended widely, reaching for her hand. 

And I think that's the way I'd like to picture him right now. As he passes, and as Grammy's heart is breaking over his pain, exuding so much love and desire for his peace and happiness, I can't help but think that after all those years, bound so tightly together with this woman he showed so much love to, that as he walks forward into eternity, that he will be doing so, yes, with a smile on his face, ecstatic to be entering into blessed rest with his Redeemer, but even in that, with his hand outstretched, all fingers extended, reaching for Grammy to hold his hand and walk alongside him on the most beautiful walk they will ever take together. And I imagine Grammy's joy and jubilation as again, she is able to hug her husband for eternity. 

Eulogy of Grandpa, by Zoë, delivered at his funeral, December 14, 2013

As my mother accurately described in his obituary, Dr. Ralph Vernon Ford was a man who embraced terreauty, the place where beauty and terror intersect. But let’s be honest, my grandfather was terreauty. 

He was always pushing us beyond our physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual limits of comfort. His style of interpersonal interaction was sure to raise blood pressure, Grammy's most of all, but also yielded beneficial change in the recipient. And so, despite how scary he could be, we all kept coming back for more. He always had more popularity than he'd wished for. 

His capacity to terrorize was certainly related to how much, how hard, and how long he studied. His head was constantly being filled. To process all of that information, he had a steno pad system. All the highlights or inspired thoughts that came out of all of that reading were recorded in stacks of steno pads, in---as is so typical of doctors---his indecipherable handwriting. Many great thinkers have gained their fame by publishing writings such as filled those steno pads. But his pads never had an audience. 

A few months ago, I found myself in what felt like a particularly fruitful season of meditation with Jesus and the Bible. I felt like God was giving me countless insights, and I just didn’t know what to do with them. The frustration mounted to existential crisis, and so who would I turn to, but to Grandpa. I asked him why, after he’d loved and consumed so many books in his years, he never wrote a book of his own insights. He told me that while I suffered from logorhhea, (which he defined as diarrhea of the mouth), he always had the opposite problem and felt that he simply had nothing worth saying. Having overwhelmed so many people with his big words and intimidating speak, it is hard to reconcile that statement with our experience. But I believe he truly felt that way. 

He said that instead, it was simply enough, as he read and studied, to have encountered God and His truth. If it brought him closer to Jesus, then the effort, the insight, was worthwhile and had met its ultimate end. As profound as it sounded, the answer didn’t fully sit right with me, but I tried to embrace it nonetheless. 

I once heard a story of a monk from centuries back. He crafted wooden spheres with exquisitely detailed religious imagery. When these masterpieces were discovered, they were collected to be put into a museum display. But in the process, one of the spheres was accidentally broken open. Inside, where no human eye would have seen if not for this mishap, were additional carvings, as exquisite in detail as the exterior. Why put so much effort into art that would not be seen, unless the artist believed in a God who sees all? Unless the artist was working to please, honor, and glorify Him alone? 

I think Grandpa was something like that monk. 

He certainly did great things, worthy of the public acclaim he received. But the result of all his study and steno-pad fillings was not a great novel or piece of fine art. It was his capacity to speak directly, powerfully, personally, tough-lovingly into our lives. We are the hidden interior of his artwork, each uniquely crafted for the glory of God alone. 

And I rather prefer his story to that of the monk. The monk makes a simpler metaphor perhaps, but if Grandpa railed against anything in the past few years, it was solipsism. Solipsism is the view that nothing can be known to exist except for the self, not even the person sitting in front of me, much less a greater community around me. The greatest danger of any line of thinking for Grandpa was that it could imply or lead to solipsism. 

I think even in well-intentioned and very spiritual pursuits, a temptation towards a sort of religious solipsism is great. Solitary intimacy with God is sublime. And I think it was a temptation I may have mis-interpreted from Grandpa's answer about the use of his insights. But while Grandpa was finding satisfaction in drawing closer to Christ, something else was happening on the outside. Grandpa was speaking into lives in a way that was shaping the communities of his Navy ship crew, Berachah Church, The Pork-Chop-Gang, Grace Bible Church Sunday school classes, Bethel Church, River Oaks Country Club, Carmel Presbyterian Church, Friday morning breakfast walks, his tennis group, his hunting buddies, his mens ski trip groups, his extended family and all its tangents. 

Private intimacy with the Word, with a capital W as in John 1, pours forth something that is not necessarily expressible in words, but that results in the building up of other individuals and community. Loving God should result in neighbors getting loved. Grandpa terrorized innumerable individuals into living more beautifully in community. This love, that I believe was the Triune God's every intention in Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, is anything but solipsistic. Because of course, one can not truly draw closer into intimacy with Jesus Christ without also drawing closer to His Body, the Church, a community of human beings. Ter-reauty.  

One of my most poignant memories of the terror incited by Grandpa was when my sister, Lauren, and I traveled alone with him to Italy in high school and were often left stranded in our hotel rooms or in the middle of a busy train station while he wandered off to unexplained destinations for “a walk,” carrying all of our money and passports precariously in the ankle of his sock. He left us terrified and confused. Lauren and I would huddle together and start making plans for what we would do if he never came back. 

And now, that greatest fear my sister and I shared has become a reality. We've been left alone without him in a world where we wish we could forever turn to him for medical advice, vocational direction, comic relief, and grandfatherly affirmation. Thank God he did not live life solipsistically. 

Thank God he did not focus only on his own relationship with us individually. Thank God he co-labored with Emmanuel, God-still-with-us, to steward the power of Christ within us. Thank God he didn't just care about us as unique persons, but us as members of our families, members of our communities, members of the Body of Christ. Because thanks to him, we do not lead solipsistic lives. We live lives well interwoven into a web of support and purpose. He was foundationally instrumental in our lives, but he would not stand for being our center. That position he reserved for Christ, which nothing and no one can take away from us, even and especially not death. I think he'd be more satisfied that he'd accomplished that than all of his wealth, fame, power, love, and rugged good looks combined. 

Miney in Montreal (1962?)

Brick & Tess Stone

Aka Harold Aubrey and Iras Minnie

Stone Family January 1946

Happy Birthday Adrienne!

Happy Birthday Adrienne! We love you!

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Grammy, you have made treasures out of all of us, all of your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, sons in law, and on and on and on. We hope you know your love is one of the greatest treasures we have ever been blessed with. We love you so much! Happy Birthday!!!