Thanksgiving Tribute

As many of my readers will recognize from years gone by, I often will give thanks for someone who was memorable in my life for thanksgiving on my website.

This year however, I have to mention two people who were so special and so memorable, that even the slightest thought of them is often too painful for me to hold on to for very long, but for this same reason I felt it necessary to tell my readers about them.

Morris (Boss Man) DeYoung 1915 - 2004

My grandfather, Morris DeYoung who I and many who worked for him affectionately called Boss Man was one of many older men whom I looked up to as a young man. I loved to watch my grandpa work with his pigs. Sometimes the things he would do seemed so comical, I often wondered if he was showing off for my amusement or if it never occurred to him how funny things can get in just the normal events of the day.

My grandfather, while not given to much overt displays of affections had a deep sense of moral obligation to those around him who were less fortunate. I often recalled how he would hire on workers who I thought weren't necessarily the best help, but I knew that my grandpa wanted to help them more than he needed their help. I also worked occasionally with my grandfather, and I never understood why he needed my help so often, especially in the years between 1988 through 1992. Now that I'm much older, I know that my grandpa didn't need my help as much as he wanted to spend time with me and showing me that working with your hands is one way of connecting with God and your fellow man that is unique.

Each week after church, my grandmother would talk with the ladies while grandpa would go sit in the car and wait for her. I took this opportunity to sit with him and talk about all kinds of things. This is where I learned the difference between conservative and liberal politics. At the time, I could never understand how my grandfather could be so enamored with the liberals of the day, and I never thought we would ever agree on anything political. Now that I'm older, I understand that my grandfather felt that those who God had blessed in this life needed to try to help those less fortunate as often as possible. While I don't agree with the methods of helping the poor, I wholeheartedly agree that it is our responsibility to try to help them.

As I mentioned, my grandfather was not prone to many outward displays of emotion, I do remember one instance where we were both brokenhearted over me leaving for Los Angeles to go to college, and he sang me a song. I'll never forget it as long as I live. An era of weekly fellowship between my grandfather and I was coming to and end. While I still came to visit my grandfather as often as I could, it was never the same as those wonder filled years we shared.

My grandfather taught me many lessons about life, but the one that I'm finding on my mind more often than not is that as we get older and more of our friends and family pass away, it's like a big scale and as they pass from this life to the next, it's like a scale tipping and it makes the prospect of dying and passing into the next life that much easier for us.

Dirk Arthur DeYoung 1988 - 1992

At the same time in my life as I shared about my grandfather, my second to youngest brother was born to my family. Dirk was the brother that personified everything good about my dad and my grandfather. He was a meek and gentle boy who loved to play with his legos or toy cars quietly or read a book, or follow my dad around the farm. He loved his friends at school and in his eyes, people were always good.

It hurt me to see when some kid would pick on him and he would only respond with love and kindness, never with retaliation. I feared that this world would be hard on him and that he would often be taken advantage of.

One of the things that he used to do that annoyed me at the time was playing his Sunday school music wherever we went. At this point in my life, I still thought of Christianity as something separate from our everyday life, but not my brother. Dirk walked and talked with Jesus in the way only a simple child can understand, and followed Jesus with the simple faith and belief that I have yet to fully understand.

I spent many hours playing with my brother and teaching him about things that I thought would be interesting to a boy that age. Unfortunately for my brother, he also had a stuttering problem which I found out later is very common to children that had some of the developmental problems that he experienced as a baby. As a short sighted teenager though, I would on occasion tease him about his speech.

On March 6th 1992, I started the day without a care in the world not knowing that this would be the most horrible day for everyone in my family. I did my hair, I ate my breakfast, I gathered my schoolbooks. Before leaving for the day I remember picking on my brother and I remember him being upset at my teasing.

Six hours later, he would accidentally kill himself while playing at our family farm, and I would never hear him sing again, I would never play with him again, I would never hug him again, my world would never be the same again.

Occasionally I will have a dream that I'm back there and my little brother and I will be playing with legos and having a wonderful time... except I'll wake up, look around and realize that it was only a dream and I will cry realizing that I'm still living in this nightmare life that I'm left behind in.

I tried to stay strong for my parents and the rest of my family, but never learning how to grieve has left me emotionally devastated to this very day almost 25 years later.

This Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I want to remember all the love that I once had for Boss Man and Dirk. I don't want to force their memory out of my mind to get through the day. I want the joy and the pain of everything they meant to me to wash over my soul and I want to know Jesus in the way that they did.

This Thanksgiving I want them to know that I never forgot them, and I'm thankful for every moment that I shared with them, even though every moment that I'm without them is an agonizing eternity.

I know that they are both enjoying the peace of heaven right now, and I look forward to serving in God's Kingdom with both of them, as well as other friends and family who have gone on before us.