on changing seasons

A few weeks after we left Travis at Milligan University in the fall of 2019, I was feeling homesick for him on a Friday night. Having been careful not to bug him with too many calls, I decided to risk it and was delighted when he answered quickly and with a voice that sounded happy to hear from me. We talked for a little bit and I asked him if he had any fun plans for that evening. He said that he and a few friends were actually about to head to a small concert “at Barley’s, actually!” Surprised, I commented that I hadn’t known that Johnson City had a Barley’s and he replied, “Oh, it doesn’t. We’re going to Knoxville.” My breath caught in my throat, but I held my tears until we hung up. I looked at Jimmy and, in a small, pathetic, quavery voice asked, “Who said he could go to Knoxville?”

Remembering that moment still makes my breath catch in my throat, because even though I had given myself plenty of space to grieve the end of the most precious season of my life thus far, I hadn’t yet begun to put real words to it all. That moment was a conrete display of what had only been a vague knowing before: I was no longer The Authority in my son’s life. He didn’t need my permission to go to Knoxville, except that it wasn’t really about Knoxville at all. Sending kids into the adult world is as tangled a season as any I can think of; I’m pretty sure the word ‘bittersweet’ was invented by a parent doing just that. We began with the end goal in mind of nurturing children into young adults who are capable and wise and mature and able to go out into the world to do the good work God has called them to do, but then when it happens it means that we have to say goodbye to some of the sweetest years of our lives. It means that the dynamic of the family will have to shift into something that isn’t familiar. It means that you will get eight plates down at dinner time when you actually only need seven and unexpected tears will come to your eyes. It means that you’ll watch a younger sibling grieve the end of the years of living and growing and making the kind of memories that only happen in the context of daily life together with that brother and your heart will have to break over all that they won’t know about each other. It means that while you have been the expert on that child for the first eighteen years of his life, you will not be the expert for the years that are ahead. That honor will be given to people that you likely haven’t even met yet, much less decided to love and trust, and you didn’t know that being moved out of that spot was going to sting a little.

Yesterday we loaded the car with our second son’s clothes and books and a few items from his childhood (one Raymond Award made the cut and now sits proudly on his college desk). We made the two hour drive to Milligan University, we made two trips to Target for extra extention cords and over-the-door hangers, and we made his bed. We tucked good-bye letters into secret places to be found after we were gone, we gave our final hugs and we watched him walk to the cafeteria for dinner with his new teammates. We have every reason to belive that we will see our son again soon and for many years to come; we do not pretend as though this is the end of our time with him. But this does mark the end of our time with him as we’ve known and cherished it, and that is a genuine grief.

Not all grief is the same. The honor of getting to launch a healthy, mature young adult child into the world is a privileged one. It’s not a guaranteed right for every parent, and there are surely deeper heartbreaks and sorrows than packing up a childhood and moving it out of your home. Sharing in the lives of our children brings a level of joy that we often don’t fully recognize until the end of our time with them is near. That end brings a measure of grief for the parents who are left to look back and reflect on all of the ways we wish we could go back and do better, and on all of the tiny, commonplace moments that were so beautiful it made our hearts nearly burst with joy and gratitude. We’ve sent two sons to college thus far and the second time hasn’t proven to be any easier than the first. I’m still new to this season, but my theory is that it doesn’t get easier because it’s a genuine grief. Each child has been cared for and nurtured and guided and disciplined and discipled through his own particular life in ways that have knit your heart to his. Each child is his own person and brings a unique dynamic to the family. Each child brings out specific parts of his parent’s and sibling’s personalities that those of us who are left behind won’t get to see in each other when he’s gone. Each child will contintue to grow and develop into the person God has made him to be beyond the years in your home and, after eighteen years of being on the front row, it’s a genuine grief to be moved off to the sidelines and into a role you haven’t yet learned how to fill.

There isn’t a greater calling that I could have asked for than the one of nurturing the souls in this family that God has given me. As each child leaves our home, I know full well that it’s part of a good process designed by God, but it is exactly because it is good that the end of it brings sadness and a necessary time of grieving. Grieving the end of a good, known season that I have loved means that I will have to open my hands to an unknown future. It means that I have to remember and belive, again, that God will be as faithful and steadfast there as he was in the known and cherished past. This is the beautiful work that the Holy Spirit does in us through grief and it is good and right to walk in it. Walking through every grief, no matter how small or large, with wholness and honesty and faith in God’s goodness grows our hearts and deepens our sanctification; I’ve seen that truth in seasons of deeper grief. The Lord knows that my reluctance to leave behind the gift of a beautiful life spent with all of my chicks together in my nest comes from a heart of gratitude to the Giver of that good gift. He knows that my frail heart has a hard time imagining that the days ahead could be as sweet as the ones I’ve already known. He knows my frame and he is patient and kind to hold those tears in the same hands that have held the tears of harder griefs. He is generous with the grace we need to open our hands that are tempted to hold on to what we know and love to a future we can smile into. He’s already there and it’s good.

A Eulogy | written by Jimmy in honor of his Dad

A friend of mine, Harrison Scott Key, wrote a memoir about his father several years ago entitled, “The World’s Largest Man.”  Even though we grew up only 20 minutes apart, Harrison and I didn’t meet until college.  In his book, Harrison details how he spent his whole life seeing only the differences between him and his father, and it wasn’t until his father’s death that he began to see how his life and ways had imprinted themselves on his own life and in his soul.  He describes his father as a man who was absolutely larger than life, and uses the phrase “world’s largest man” as a metaphor to describe the aura that followed his father.  

I was talking with my sister Annie a few hours after Dad passed. We were trying to come up with the best way to describe him when she said, “Dad was just a Force.”  And he was.  He was a force.  An incredibly strong presence whether he was physically there or not.  I have spent the last few years,  and especially the last 4 months since he passed, thinking about the kind of force he was in my life. He left indelible marks on me and on all of his family.  

In the loft where my 3 little boys sleep, we have written a code on the wall called, “What Real Men Do.”  It’s a running list of some of the traits of manhood: things that real men SHOULD do.  There are items up and down that code that were imprinted on me by my dad long before I came to know the Lord.  Today I want to look at just four of them.

Number one: tell the truth. Always.  I could get away with a lot if I just owned it and told the truth.  My Dad would say, “Once you lose your reputation, it’s almost impossible to get it back.”   It’s a lesson that comes up daily in our house.  If you did it, just own it.

Number two: Respect Women and your Mom and Dad.  It was not pretty in my house when I spoke disrespectfully to my Mom.  

Number three: Work hard.  You work until the job is done and you do that work well.  My dad told me a hundred times, “If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”

And the fourth: Real Men are capable. The family simply relies on the man to know how to do certain things and here my Dad was eminently capable.  He was an airplane mechanic in the Navy and that translated into knowing how to work on most mechanical thing, or anything that involved a drill, wrench or screwdriver. He was especially good at working on cars. He would pick up a bolt, give it a quick glance and say, “Son, grab me a 11 millimeter socket,” and he was right the first time, every time.   If anything needed to be done around the house, he had a tool or gadget to do it and he knew how to use it. 

He was also an expert fisherman with a lifetime of experience that even included fishing in some bassmaster tournaments.  He was an avid hunter of deer, ducks, quail and hogs. He raised bird hunting dogs, though he made me clean out the dog kennels everyday.  Fun. He was a skilled trap shooter and even shot in the National Trapshooting Tournament in Vandalia, Ohio on several occasions.  But he wasn’t just off enjoying his hobbies alone. He taught me to fish and to shoot a gun, and when he did any of those things he always brought me with him and we did them together.  

As an avid outdoorsman, of course he needed a truck to pull his boat or get him in and out of the woods.  He got on quite a hot streak at one point, trading in and trading up new trucks almost every year.  Over the span of about 8 years, he went from a new GMC Trailblazer, to a Ford Explorer,  Ford Expedition, Ford Excursion, Ford F-150, then an F-250 before finally settling in on a brand new white,  loaded, and not so humble F-350 with after-market tuning for a touch of extra horsepower.  I remember giving Judy Kay a boost just to get into this behemoth and thinking that it was probably the best truck that that Jackson, Mississippi dealership had on the lot.  She took a look over the dash at the arsenal of gauges, buttons and switches that looked more like the cockpit of an airplane than the dashboard of a daily driver and was quite impressed.   Her face lit up and she looked over at Dad and said, “Wow, this is quite something.” In a completely monotone voice and with a straight face, he looked back at her and said, “It’s just a truck, baby.”  I thought, “Yeah, right! I think someone may be getting worried that mom is going to do the math on your eight consecutive trade-ins and figure out you have basically ascended to the pinnacle of truck ownership one trade in at a time!” 

Dad always wanted to do things with me or any of his kids, whether it was fishing, hunting or playing sports.  Some of my very favorite memories as a kid include getting out of bed at 4:30 so we could be on the lake when the sun came up.  We always had a boat, sometimes even two.  Yes Judy Kay, sometimes two. Sam and I travelled to Lexington last year to see the Kentucky/Kansas game for his 16th birthday.  It was a huge game and was great spending time with just him and I.  I’ve never actually lived in Kentucky, but I grew up travelling the southeast with my Dad and brother to watch Kentucky play in Baton Rouge, Knoxville, Lexington, Nashville and other cities,  and so I watch now with my own kids. Currently, Ben is eagerly waiting for a pair of custom Nike shoes to arrive that he designed on their website. He placed the number 44 on the ankle of the shoe.  He did that because he’s seen me wear that number for eight years on my church softball jersey.  What he doesn’t know is that that number was the number of my favorite baseball player growing up, Eric Davis.  He played for the Cincinnati Reds.  We couldn’t take a summer trip to Kentucky to visit Dad’s family without my dad arranging for us to go to a game at Riverfront Stadium, and that number 44 serves as a permanent reminder of the time we shared together with uncles and cousins.

Dad coached my baseball teams as well and kids loved playing on his team,  partly because he was fun and partly because he was fair.  Coaches in those leagues tended to be all about self-promotion of their own kids, but my dad never did that.  One of my most vivid memories of my dad came from my 11-year old season.  At that age, boys would still cry if they got hurt or mad or for some other ridiculous reason and I hated that.  I never cried and I scoffed at any boy who would cry over a boo-boo or a baseball game.  We won the league championship that year so Dad got to be the coach of our league’s all-star team.  I was one of the boys selected to be on the team.  For our team, I was an average hitter, an average pitcher, a pretty good first baseman and the kid that always hustled everywhere.  In the second game of our single elimination playoff bracket, we were down by one run heading into the bottom of the last inning.  With one out already and the tying run on second, it was my turn to bat and be the hero. I was excited and ready for the challenge, but Dad put me on the bench and told me that I wouldn’t be batting.  Someone was pinch-hitting for me at this critical part of the game.  He felt like this other kid had hit more consistently and would give us a better chance to win the game.   I was crushed.  I sat down at the end of that bench and bawled my eyes out.  Instead of cheering on my teammate, I cried - did the very thing I hated - because I thought this moment was all about me.  But my dad taught me that this moment was about our team.  And the other boys who also worked hard to get there deserved the best chance to win.  He wasn’t going to put me over the best interest of everyone else on the team.  I don’t remember who batted for me, but I do remember that he got a hit and that we won that game.  I learned a valuable lesson about fairness, about the team being first, and about the mission being more important than the individual.

I learned many other things from watching my dad.  You should rise early and get your work done first.  Don’t dilly- dally at your job,  get it done and get home.  Spend time with your family, and lots of it.  He was always quick to play a game, fire up the grill and barbeque wings or fire up the fryers for his freshly caught fish.  He loved to do things, anything, with his grandkids.  Living in central Florida, he might have taken them to Disney World, Sea World or any other fun place a time or two. He also enjoyed taking them kayaking and going for bike rides along their trails.

The first time (and one of the only times) I saw my dad cry was when his dad died.  I was about ten years old.  We arrived at my Grandmother’s house the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at around 5:00 after traveling all day from Jackson.  My Uncle Chris greeted us in the driveway to let us know that Grandpa had died that morning, and my dad broke down sobbing.  He turned to hug me. Except I don’t think he was hugging to comfort me,  I think he just needed me to hug him.  

I watched him serve my mom faithfully.  He was rough around the edges but kind and gentle when he needed to be.  Now, my dad was very far from a perfect person.  He was a Navy Chief to the core and he was not afraid to elevate his voice to make sure you understood where he was coming from.  But he was also very soft when it came to his wife, his kids and especially his grandkids.   He did have broken relationships in his life. Important ones.  But those grieved him deeply and I watched him spend the second half of his life trying to mend those relationships.  He was incredibly smart.  Not the kind of smart you pick up in a classroom, the kind you earn on the battlefield of life.  The kind you learn from going places and doing things. He never thought much of himself or needed to talk about himself or his accomplishments.  As Tim Keller puts it, he was self-forgetful; a humble person in many ways.

When I told my Dad in college that I was joining the Marine Corps, he was very upset.  He didn’t want me going into harm’s way and he tried to convince me that I was too good for that.  The problem with that advice was that, as all parents learn, their children tend to not listen to their words but rather to follow their example.  And so I did.  And so did my two brothers and my sister’s husbands.  All of them. A few of the grandchildren have followed that example as well, and I think he was proud of it all.

Harrison Key spent almost the entirety of The World’s Largest Man, the first 331 pages of his 332-page memoir about his father, talking about how they were different.  It wasn’t until his father passed that he realized how right his Dad was about so many things and how similar they were in so many ways.  I know I carry some of my Dad’s best and worst traits (Judy Kay is trying desperately to sand off some of the hard edges I inherited), but on page 332, the last page of the book, Harrison concludes with the most important lesson he learned from his father and he says this, “My Dad’s greatest lesson was the one he never said out loud, the thing a father should do, which is this: Be there ….. Always be there….. And never stop being there, until you can’t be there anymore.”

Dad, you loved your kids and you loved us well. Not perfectly.  You had many flaws.  Your kids all had different journeys and I’m sure you would do some things differently if you had it to do over again. But you loved us - all of us - unashamedly until you just couldn’t be there anymore.  And you were very proud of all of your kids.  All of us.  You were proud of your sons and your daughters and our spouses.  You loved my wife like a daughter from the first day I brought her home.  You loved your grandkids and lavished them with your time and affection.  You loved your brothers and your sister and their kids.  And you loved Mom well for 44 years until you couldn’t be there to love her any more. Life is not easy and there have been hard days in our recent past.  I wish you could be here for the hard days to come, and especially for the many blessings that life will bring us in the future.  I wish my kids could have known you better and for longer.  I wish you could have seen them marry and make your kids grandparents.  But you were definitely all here until you couldn’t be here anymore.  Our lives were better with you in them.  And so we long for the day when our Lord will wipe away every tear. But until that day, Chief, we wish you “fair winds and following seas.”

Remembering Grandpa

He was named James Travis Kyker, Jr. after his father, who left the family just two years after he was born. He would never know him. His mother remarried a man named James Vollmer, who raised him as his own son. When he grew up and had sons of his own, it was not the name of his father that he passed on to Jimmy, but the name of his step-father, who was a good and honorable man.

Grandpa was a faithful husband for forty-four years. He was the kind of dad who was present. He was faithful, steady, and entirely dependable. He was strong, capable, and delighted by Jimmy, who was the baby of the family. Jimmy was welcome right by his side, whether he was changing the oil in one of his many trucks, or hunting, or fishing. He was the kind of dad who worked hard and played harder. He coached all of the teams, cheered on the sidelines of every game, and always believed that Jimmy would succeed at whatever he put his hand to (and he was right). He was a force to be reckoned with; in the early years the scales tipped only slightly more toward his nature of over-flowing love and generosity than they did toward his bear-like temper. But by the time I met him that bear was beginning to soften, and I’m told that it was owing to the arrival of the grandkids.

I was nineteen when I met him for the first time at a birthday party for my would-be nephew who was turning four. He called me Sweet Pea that day, and I’m not sure he ever called me anything else. He welcomed me into his family with his strong arms that were open wide and, whether he actually believed it or not, he made me feel like I could do no wrong in his eyes. When we had our first baby - a son - Jimmy wanted to give him his dad’s name.

The intensity of his love for our children will be one of the things I will be most grateful for in my life. He took his role of Delighted Grandpa very seriously (and tested the limits of my motherly patience with what I often saw as excessive treat-giving). He loved nothing more than to be where my kids were, whether that was in his home or ours. They requested his Famous French Toast for breakfast, and his grilled steaks for dinner, and he obliged them happily. He taught them to snorkel in his pool, shoot guns in his yard, and play Euchre at his kitchen table. He took them out for ice cream and doughnuts every time I let him (and a few times when I didn’t). When we lived three hours away from them he’d ask if they could spend the night. If we said they could he’d drive to our house, pick them up, and take them back all in the same day (and then beg for an extra night “since it was so far”). They called him Plop Plop and they had him wrapped around their fingers.

Gaga and Grandpa moved in with us five years ago, soon after his diagnoses of Parkinson’s Disease, and we were given the distinct honor of helping care for him as his mind and body slowly weakened. These years have been filled with hard work, some fear and worry, and a lot of sadness over what this terrible disease does to a body. We watched him become less and less like his strong and able self, and that’s a heart-breaker. But there was also tenderness; in him, in Martha, and in our kids. He needed them and they were glad to return all of the love he’d built up in them. There was a lot of laughter. We’ve filled a journal with Grandpa Stories, like the one where he traveled from the basement bedroom all the way to Travis and Sam’s upstairs bedroom in the middle of the night, shined a flashlight in Travis’s eyes and asked, “Are we at all worried that someone will come and steal the washing machine?” Or the one where he told me that the breakfast I had made for him wasn’t one that he’d order at a restaurant. And there was the time Jimmy and I woke up at 1:00 in the morning to find him sitting on the chair next to our bed, mad that “the Gaga won’t get up and make me any dinner!” Mid-night wanderings and the kitchen frequently went together.

This week, when his body began to fade even further still, Jimmy brought him home. He made all of the arrangements in one morning, and by mid-afternoon he was home and settled in his own room. He was surrounded by his wife, a son, a daughter-in-law, and six grandkids and, once again, we got to take care of him. We got to make him comfortable. We got to laugh together over his antics, cry together over his steady love for us, and pray prayers of gratitude together for the goodness of having been given his presence in all of our lives. Everyone was able to have a moment with him to say goodbye. Come Thou Fount was playing quietly when he left this world, just twenty hours after he came home.

Eli has his tenderness and his bright, smiley blue eyes. Jack has his fierce love of snuggling. Ben has his attention to detail, and his long, thick eyelashes. Caroline has the nickname “Peach” that he gave her the summer after she was born (“She’s as sweet as a peach!”). Sam has his intensity and his devotion to UK basketball. James Travis Kyker, III has his name.

Jimmy has his square jawline, his strong brow line, and his chin dimple. He has his fierce loyalty, his commitment to honor, and his dedication to caring for his people well. And I have a heart and soul made bigger and fuller for having had him for a father-in-law.

week thirty-nine

September 24 - 30, 2017

As my 40th birthday approached I made it very clear to my celebration-loving husband that I wanted two things to mark the occasion: a quiet evening with friends, and time with just our family. As usual, he managed to give me exactly what I wanted and completely surprise me in the most perfect way at the same time. On the afternoon before my birthday he told me to dress up and be ready for a dinner date that evening. What he didn't tell me was that our driver for the evening would arrive to pick us up and then make the rounds to pick up some of our dearest, always-ourselves-around-them friends. We rode together through my favorite mountains sipping champagne and listening to tunes from my birth year,  my 16th year, and my 21st year (16th year was the best). We had dinner at Grove Park Inn, my favorite fancy place, and then a festive ride home with specialty cocktails (YOFO - You're Only Forty Once) and plenty of laughs. It was such a special night.

The next morning I woke to our birthday banners, presents on the counter, and a chocolate raspberry ganache cake with mascarpone cream frosting. Made by my daughter. I know. My children are delightfully thoughtful gift givers, and they get it honestly from their daddy. It's not every husband who would think to get his wife a deer feeder for her birthday, but mine knew I would love it and he was right. But just in case he was wrong, he threw in a weekend get-away for our family to a lake in Charlotte! We packed our bags and left that very day. 

If I had made any predictions (I know better) or resolutions (I've switched to goals) as to how I'd start my 40's, I would have been way off. I'd played around with the thought that my babies weren't babies anymore and had wondered what that might mean for me in this next decade. I had spent the summer in ministry training; training that had challenged me and excited me. I hate to think that it would take such a hard reality, such legitimate suffering for one of my most precious treasures, to center my thoughts again around my work and calling here, and maybe it wouldn't have. Regardless, the feasting was soon to come to a halt and the fasting was to begin. The hikes and fancy dinners and weekend trips would make way for emergency doctor visits and hospital admittances and all-nighters with my baby. In hindsight (and aside from the doctors and hospital part), maybe it was a pretty beautiful way to begin this new decade after all. 

week thirty-eight

September 17 - 23, 2017

My 40th birthday week started out with my favorite family activity and ended up being our favorite hike to date. Black Balsam has a reputation for being Shire-like, and it did not disappoint. The lush greenness, the blue ridges, and the rolling hills owned us from the moment we arrived. Much of the path was narrow and rocky, and my contemplative self couldn't help but think about how fitting a picture it was for how life often feels for me. So often I feel as though I'm trudging uphill, and the way is closed in, and I have to keep my head down and focus so that I don't stumble and trip. And then, just as I'm finding it hard to keep catching my breath, I reach a ridge and everything opens up and a beautiful scene is before me like a glimmering reminder of hope and beauty. What we couldn't know was that it would turn out to be our last hike for a good while and that steep, narrow, rocky path would prove to be a fitting metaphor for what was ahead. We also couldn't know the beauty that was waiting to unfold. 

week thirty-seven

September 10 - 16, 2017

Muscadine jelly making.

week thirty-six

September 3 - 9, 2017

One time we had a friend give directions to our house using our dead plants as a landmark. Well, through no small effort and with a whole lot of teamwork, we've kept our new plants alive all summer. One of the happy results of our new green thumbs has been getting to enjoy these little friends. 

week thirty-five

August 27 - September 2, 2017

Our baby learned to ride his bike this week. He just asked to have his training wheels off, hopped on his bike, and pedaled off. No big fuss, no big fanfare. And I think he felt even bigger because of it. 

week thirty-four

August 20 - 26, 2017

Turns out, even after a few days of thinking I still can't quite explain what it was like to experience a total eclipse of the sun. While I expected it to be worth the party we pulled together, I took our Path of Totality for granted. It wasn't on my bucket list before the 21st, but now it has a big check next to it. 

week thirty-two

August 6 - 12, 2017

Framed by these two; Grandpa's happy place.