Filed under: Nathanael Isaac
I love this and want to share it with people who remember Nathan as well as those who never knew him. This was written by Nathan’s mother-in-law, Kim Lambert, and shared at his funeral. It has been such a blessing to me to know my son was loved so deeply by others. Thank you, Kim. And thank you, Lauren. My love to you both.
It has been two years, this month, since our son-in-law, Nathan, (Lauren’s husband) died. At his funeral, Lauren had asked me to talk about him as a man, husband, and father. These were the thoughts that came to me, and I wanted to publish them as a way to remember this most precious man
Mike and I have always told Lauren, Ryan, and Patrick that if we got to choose our kids all over again from a million kids, we’d choose them again. And if we got to choose our son-in-law all over again from a million sons-in-law, we’d choose Nathan.
Lauren never dated anyone before Nathan, so I always felt that she would recognize who she was looking for when he came along. And she did. She told us she had met this guy, but she didn’t describe how good-looking he was, or how intelligent he was, or how athletic, or how driven he was. Instead, her description of him was that he had just taken a group of inner-city boys on a campout; and, since he couldn’t afford to go to his mom’s for Thanksgiving, he instead had invited a group of international students to his apartment and he was going to make them a traditional Thanksgiving feast.
Lauren and Nathan started dating in January, and by the time he moved to Chicago (for the semester) two or three weeks later, they were committed. It was such a whirlwind; we didn’t even get to meet him before he left. But while he was there, they spent really quality time each day on phone calls, emails, and even wrote real live letters to each other. Lauren read me one of his 16 page letters, and I thought this is the man we want our daughter to marry.
In March, he was able to come back to Dallas to visit. I had spoken to him on the phone, but it was our first chance to spend a weekend with him. This was a very important man to our family, and we did not take it lightly at all. So the day came. He walked into our home, sat down at our dining table, and he. . . . . . . . . tooted! Welcome to Nathan’s world.
After that, almost every weekend, he made a 7 hour flight down here (with the connections), stayed a day or two, and then had to fly 7 hours back to get to work. It was such a labor of love, and he went to great lengths to court this young woman. They spent hours talking, challenging each other, and discovering where they wanted their lives to go. And all along, as he stayed with us, we got to know him well. He called me in April, and asked if I would pick him up at the airport at 4:30 am because he wanted to surprise Lauren and officially ask her to marry him.
When we got back from the airport, I got him temporarily set up in the kitchen as he composed himself. As I left him alone, I have the sweetest memory of this godly man reading his Bible, with a single lamp on in the house, memorizing what he wanted to say as he offered his life and his love to our daughter. I could hear him quietly going up the stairs, walking into Lauren’s dark room where she was sleeping, and thinking about him quoting from the Song of Solomon, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.” It was so very meaningful. (It was, however, temporarily halted when Lauren awoke in the dark and momentarily thought it was her brother Patrick. But it worked out just fine.)
This is a man who understood at his young age how to be the head of his family, and Lauren wanted to be submissive to him. It really was the way the Bible describes it if the man is allowing Jesus to lead him first. He did not use control, or demands, or ultimatums. He used love, logic, strength, support, and prayerful direction, and won the respect and admiration of his bride. He was the Watchman on the Wall for his family.
I wish you could have seen the look on his face one day when he, Lauren, and I were talking and she told him that she trusted him more than anyone else in the world. What a blessing on a husband for a wife to tell him that.
They learned very early on how to truly communicate. I told Lauren that they were blessed in that they never went through early marriage discord. God just worked on their hearts and gave them the opportunity to not waste time in needless bickering. In October, when it was Lauren’s birthday, she called me in the afternoon to tell me she thought Nathan had forgotten it. She wanted me to call him and try to indirectly remind him. Her only concern was that she did not want him to feel bad if he missed it. They made the effort to keep their eyes on the important things in a marriage, and they were rewarded for it.
The gifts he gave her were always unique. I watched as this fisherman, hunter, skier, mountain climber sat on our couch for several days macrameing a necklace for her for their anniversary. Or, how he set up a camera in downtown Denton when all the Christmas lights were on and took some beautiful photos of the two of them, and then cut out the mat and frame to give her for Christmas. Or, the day he called to find out how to make a robe for her, with no pattern, even though he had previously only stapled his badges on his scout uniform. He knew how to give.
I remember when they first got back from their honeymoon. They had just started moving their stuff in the apartment that week, so it was a wreck. While they were gone, Ryan, Patrick and I went over every night and put stuff away and cleaned it really well, set the table, put out the candles and the flowers for them so it would be nice when they walked in. I’m so glad we did. As they were leaving our house to drive back to theirs for the first time, I mentioned that they were going to their own little home. Nathan stopped and thought about it for a minute and said, “I have not had a home of my own since I was 15.”
Then two years later, God blessed them with their very own house. I walked into our mortgage broker at work, and said, “What are the chances of two 23-year olds with no money, barely a job, barely any credit, getting into a house?” He said, “Pretty good!” Thirty days later they moved in, and God gave Nathan and his little family a safe place to lay their heads.
Two months later, Jack was born, and I got the privilege to be there, while Mike and friend Carter waited right outside the door. Nathan was so calming, and supportive. In fact, there was one point where the midwife asked Lauren if she wanted some drugs, and she said that maybe she did want drugs. Nathan gently reminded her of their goals, and said, “You don’t want drugs.” Then Lauren repeated, “I don’t want drugs.” Nathan nor I had ever seen a baby being born (at least from that perspective), and we both stood a little stunned that just as the top of Jack’s head was coming, we silently, but collectively, thought that it did not really look like a wrinkled baby’s scalp. Nathan was still so calm. He later told me he thought Jack was being born with an exposed brain, which is better than me, because I thought he looked like a Shar-Pei puppy. But, nevertheless, Jack came out with gusto. The only little thing Nathan missed on his timing was 1-2 minutes after Jack was in the world, Nathan excitedly said, “Lauren, that was great! Let’s have seven of them!”
Nathan was the first person to ever put a diaper on Jack, the first person to ever dress him. It took him about 25 minutes, but he did it. He was so excited about watching Jack do all the boy stuff – in fact his name, Jack Elijah Taylor, i.e. JET, would look great on the back of his football uniform. I loved to tease Nathan, so I said it would also look great on the back of his tuxedo during his piano recital. Nathan just groaned.
There are quite a few of us that felt Nathan sensed he wasn’t going to live too long. He did tell Lauren when they were engaged that they might not have a long life together, but they would have a full one. And, he most definitely kept his promise.
One of my favorite quotes has always been the one from Jim Elliot, “Live, to the hilt, every situation you believe to be the will of God.” Nathan personified this. He did not beat people over the head with the Bible – he just read it, understood it, and lived it.
He was a precious husband, a loving father, and a child of God. As Nathan moved from this life into the next, the picture I have in my head is of Jesus greeting him, with arms open wide, as He says, “Well done, Faithful Servant.”
Oh, and how the wind is blowing. A tree blew down early this morning – however, since we’re surrounded by forest, we don’t know which tree it was and may never even notice it. Still, it makes for an impressive sounding alarm clock. The pond flooded and is being drained at the moment (dam gate is open). The poor, pathetic chickens look like they just came out of a rinse and spin cycle. Rather funny looking, not at all how a chicken is supposed to look.
I love fall, but I don’t like November and that juxtaposition of excitement at the change and sorrow at what November is to me now is kind of confusing. Sabrina says it’s the smell of November. I understand that. The sweet fallen leaves, the cool wind with the hint of cedar and wood smoke, the salty sea mist in the air – all favorite things and yet all things that remind of us the day we lost Nathan nearly two years ago. It’s not a constant pain anymore. Rather, it’s an occasional spasm, a sharp poke to the mind, a stab to the heart. We acknowledge the source of the pain, pause as it washes over us, and then try go back to what we were doing, thinking, or feeling. It’s my favorite and least favorite time of the year.
Filed under: Preparedness Challenge
It’s fall…the time change (I’m so efficient I was a day early – and subsequently an hour late all day Saturday), dark at 5:30 (I hate that part), raking the leaves on Thursday, and again on Friday. Speaking of leaves, I dumped three big loads of leaves onto the compost pile and, after sweeping out the dump bed, I had a decision to make. Climb back over the side, or just step into the massive pile of fluffy leaves. Guess which I chose?
OK, let’s see how we’re doing on our preparedness challenge since the last entry…
1. Plant Something I cleaned up the greenhouse (mostly) and collected used potting soil which I am sterilizing for reuse. I straighted up the potting racks to create a heated mini-greenhouse within a greenhouse. Once I finish sterilizing the soil (baked at 350 for 45-90 minutes – in the shop oven), I’ll be all set to pot up seeds and cuttings for next spring. They’ll get a three month head-start in their cozy little space.
2. Harvest Something TOMATOES!! We’re reaping a bountiful tomato harvest finally.
3. Preserve Something A friend with several apple trees brought a box-full over and I dried thin apple chips (sweet and crunchy) and I found nice ripe bananas for 24 cents a pound and my basement smells like toasty bananas. Yum. I dried herbs and they were such a beautiful bright green I’m ready to dry some more – thyme and rosemary are on tap this week. I’m really loving this dehydrator. Need more apples!
I also started an online food preservation course through Georgia Extension Agency. OSU Extension offers a Master Food Preservers course, similar to Master Gardeners, that I might take next spring.
4. Prepare Something The ripped-open wall has been repaired and painted and the scaffolding removed. I’m doing fall cleaning – pre-winter nesting really. Since we’re going to be inside so much more for the next six months, I’m decluttering and getting rid of junk, aka stuff, that has accumulated in corners because there’s no place else to put it. Can we say Goodwill?
5. Cook Something I like the “stretch the chicken” magic trick. Roast chicken one day, make chicken sandwiches, soup stock (and soup), salads, and anything else to get every possible bite out of a chicken (not our own – they are layers). We also had a marathon lasagna prep session, complete with homemade noodles. One in tummies, one in freezer.
6. Manage Your Financial Reserves Our average credit card interest rate is a whopping 0% (since you can’t technically divide by zero. They are really 0%, 0%, and 1.9%). Lesson: If you’re paying too much in interest, make some phone calls. They’ll lower it by a few points every few months if you keep on it. Increasing rainy day savings each month and should be able to cover our entire property tax bill this month.
7. Work on Local Food Systems We’ve put the Oceanlake (nee Lincoln City) Community Garden to bed for 2008 and, other than some cool weather challenges, had a pretty successful year. Benefits to living in a mild climate is most of what’s growing now will continue producing until next spring. Until than, plans are progressing for the Taft Community Garden. Target date is April 2009. This winter will be very busy with grant writing and drumming up community support.
8. Learn Something New Hmmm. It’s one thing to learn; it’s quite another to remember!
9. Serve Someone My best friend’s mom passed away and I was so blessed to be there for her memorial. I went right to work on the kitchen crew during the reception, filling glasses, washing plates, cleaning up. Then was able to spend several hours with the family. My sweet friend called me the next morning just to thank me for being there. Another friend sent me a note thanking me for my faithfulness and never giving up on “us” even when we don’t see each other often. I’ve talked to several of my favorite women – several of whom don’t know each other – and we’re working on a sisters weekend before Christmas. It will be two things: 1) very loud, and 2) incredibly encouraging. I hope they can all come.
I think I might add a tenth item to the list 10. Move Toward Self-Sufficiency. Tim and I are attending a seminar later this month about energy, food, and economic self-sufficiency for our coastal communities. A few weeks ago, we presented to the local sustainability committee some of the things we do on a daily basis. The main part of the talk was about producing bio-diesel. We’ve gained energy independence for our vehicles in 2008 and the potential is great if we can recover more used fryer oil from local restaurants. The number of community gardens in the county is growing each year, with more and more people growing their own produce, in addition to the popularity of farmers markets. This topic fits with out homestead lifestyle so next time I’ll add more on this topic.
Happy fall!
