Jennifer

Sometimes life isn't fair.

Jennifer King (1956-2009)

Nathan's mom, Jennifer, died last Sunday at 1:35am from complications of Multiple Myeloma - a disease she'd survived for almost 3.5 years prior to this week. While we had subconsciously been preparing for this all the while, knowing that she's gone is still surreal to me in many ways. I think it's safe to say that I finally grew up this week.

While we weren't surprised that it happened, what did surprise me is what happened afterwards. I have a renewed respect and admiration for Nathan's entire family, especially his dad. I have never seen a group of people pull together like they did in the few days afterwards.


Monday was when a plan started to be put in motion. After having proposed their ideas for the celebration of life and what to do with Jennifer's cremains in an episode that will forever be rightly-described as 'shock and awe', Nathan, Justin, Allan, and myself went off to Krause Funeral Home to take care of the manifestation of their glorious plan. Based on what happened in this meeting, I know the three boys are going to be ok without mom. All I can say is that the answer to the director's first question, "So, what happened?" lasted 20 minutes and thereafter the three of them proceeded to crack me up the entire meeting - whether they meant to or not. It is their way of dealing with the loss, but it's also just plain their style. In fact, it was fun to be around them and the entire family all week. That's right, I'll admit it, I was having fun this week. Not to say we all weren't really sad, but the silver lining really is that we all got to hang out as a family and it turns out that is fun no matter what the circumstances.

One of the services the funeral home had for us was to put together a nice DVD montage of around 50 pictures of Jennifer - but we had to find the pictures. Man, they really know what they're doing over there. What we came home thinking was an assignment, was possibly the most therapeutic activity of the week. Pictures came out from high school, middle school, college, wedding, kids' births & graduations, vacations, and everywhere in between. We learned things about everyone in the room we never knew and it dawned on me that Jennifer had a pretty fantastic life, with a lot of people who cared very much about her!

Jennifer & Allan's first date - Homecoming circa 1971

Jennifer & Nathan in a picture that appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette

Allan on their wedding day - I told you we heard some good stories!

Tuesday was a family visitation - some much-needed closure was had and Wednesday was the celebration of life and public visitation. Nathan and Justin gave incredible eulogies (read Nathan's here). These were the highlight of the week for sure.

The next day was Justin's 24th birthday and he was determined to do something fun. In honor of Jennifer, we started the day at Kohler-Andrae State Park, a place she had always really enjoyed (and so had the rest of the family). Next, we drove to West Bend for some go-karting (Justin re-living his childhood through pictures this week probably had something to do with this). We ended the day with a much-needed drink at the Highland House.

Kohler-Andrae State Park

Sibling Rivalry

Birthday Margarita!!

Like I said, this family will be just fine. The strength and love I experienced in all of them is proof of that and also proof that Jennifer helped build an incredible family. She doesn't really seem to be gone when I look at them.

Death is no longer a scary mystery to me, but rather an unstoppable event that places all of us in an incredible, unbelievable, but very real string of events that started billions of years ago and will continue for billions more after we're gone. We're lucky to have the short time that we do here - the odds are against us and yet we're here. That's a beautiful thing.

We'll miss you, Jennifer!