Remembrances

TOGETHER AGAIN!!

Pastor Taylor Park said it well---a time for grieving as well as celebrating as Terry Parlow has now left his blindness and paralysis behind and is embracing a new life in the heavenly realm. 

Whole. Complete.

Yesterday, I was privileged to share memories of Terry Parlow with his friends and family.

Terry Parlow Memorial Service 1/21/15

Many of you here have known the Parlow family longer than I have, yet we all know one thing---Terry Parlow loved the Lord.....

...and that love for the Lord “kept” Terry (Numbers 6:24)--God’s grace enveloped him in a way and with a depth that those of us on the outside could only marvel. It was that “light” which Terry had an abundance of---a light intensified by the physical darkness of his blindness, light which Terry shared with me by lifestyle example.

For a few years after Terry’s 2004 accident, I would read to him on Wednesday afternoons---he loved biographies and history----esp war stories ---civil war---World War II

A few months ago I read a book whose title spoke to me of Terry---All the Light we Cannot See, a story of a young girl who was blind from age 6--and the storyline emphasized all she was able to see and sense in relationships, even without her sight, reminded me of Terry’s “condition.” Terry “saw” spiritual truth at every turn and was willing to share with everyone---the dependence and grace necessary to live blind and wheelchair bound---all the while seeing God’s hand in it and celebrating God’s goodness. I never once saw that faith waver.

Oswald’s Chamber’s 1/19 entry in his devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, spoke volumes to me about ”darkness being a time to listen and wait on God to send the light.” Terry would wait and then he would share what he was learning, his own personal "light"---

Being blind and paralyzed removes all self-sufficiency but there is still a choice ---bitterness or acceptance. 

Humility and acceptance were a part of Terry’s faith fabric. I never saw anything but humility and acceptance from Terry---ever trusting God throughout these past 10 years. All else paled as Terry continually “placed His confidence in God Himself, not in “blessings.”

Terry epitomized the words from Psalm 130:5. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in His word, I hope.

Terry Parlow used his “disability platform” to shed God’s light on all of us and we were blessed for it.

Recently, one of my most memorable “Terry blessings” was the day the lift on his van broke. I was speaking at First Evan’s monthly “He Cares,” a ministry for the homebound. He was between ICU visits at the time and had said very boldly, “I’ll be there!”…..and he was. Determined, he had asked sweet Ronye, his caregiver for help and she “pushed him in his wheelchair” all the way there. What an encouragement to me. What a man of his word!

Terry loved the Lord and he loved Claudia---since Whitehaven high school days until her cancer took her home. Tt\hey were always together, outliving medical projections for both of them and celebrating their 50^th anniversary just months before she died.

“His Claudia,” the ultimate caregiver, ever at his side, even at Shepherd Ctr when Terry was deemed the worst---at Shepherd’s that’s like being the worst of the worst. She kept him going. All of us seemed to say their names in tandem. A true couple.

As former neighbor Julie said that, “After moving to Memphis, Terry and Claudia embraced her like a warm blanket” ---always encouraging, guiding and sharing God’s love with her. They did it together.

Terry loved the Lord, loved Claudia, and loved sports, esp. if they wore TIGER BLUE---he taught hubby Larry and friend Terry Tippet the value of a good radio commentator --one who could make the “game” come alive for a sport’s fan. He said he could visualize every move in a Tiger game if Dave Woloshin were commentating. 

Terry made us all aware that when “listening” to TV commentators it was a LOT harder---as commentators rarely recap and spend more time giving their own opinions instead of describing an event---or saying, “Would you look at that?” “Or have you ever seen anything like that?” It’s easy to understand a “Blind Viewers” frustration.

Terry loved the Lord, loved Claudia, and loved sports ---and that competitive spirit spilled over into another love---an affinity which Terry and I shared. We both loved Jeopardy and often “watched” it together. Many days I had an unfair advantage because there would be a “visual clue” category, but somehow that seemed to bother me more than it bothered him. What chance does a “blind” man have in identifying mustaches of famous people when you can’t see the mustache, much less the face of the person.

Even if I were in another part of the condo, and the “T-h-i-s- is Jeopardy” theme music came on, he would call out to tell me it was starting. Ronye & Katherine, his God-sent caregivers, seemed to always have it on Channel 3 at 3:30 on week-days.

His memory was incredible and he would often comment on the girl from Wisconsin or some other tidbit gleaned from one of the contestants---esp. the blind gent who came back for the “Battle of the Decades” this past year.

Terry had his own rules for keeping score. Even on days we watched it separately, he would phone me with an update on the number of Jeopardy questions he answered, and the number from the double Jeopardy round. Occasionally, he would factor in the true daily double but that was harder to do since he only gave himself points and not money amounts.

But....the "Final Jeopardy" category was where Terry ruled---because if he got the Final Jeopardy answer, he considered that a real win!

Saturday January 17^th Terry got the Final Jeopardy answer. Terry always knew the Final Jeopardy answer to his own life.

The question is, “Where will Terry spend eternity?”

The answer (in question form, naturally)   “Where is heaven?”

Terry “Got” the correct answer the minute he stepped into the Presence of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That makes Terry the winner…..

I’m just grateful to have been able to be a player in his life.

Meditation for Monday

6/20/11 Son, Buddy sharing his Grandaddy Brud's story gave lots of "food for thought" from God's word.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11: 28-30)

How like God to take the very words that I had included for last Monday's meditation to be used today at Daddy's funeral with different implications---that's just like I asked you blog readers to consider (6/13/11).
Buddy used the words humility and gentle as two words that others often used to describe Daddy but shared that those two descriptors were the only ones found in scripture that the Lord used to describe Himself.

What a testimony to lead a life in which those adjectives come to mind as others remember you! What a blessing to have called such a man, Daddy!

“memories, nostalgia and flashbacks”

4/7/10….that’s what Nathan Hughes heading was on a LHH message board to me in March 2009. I have had more of his comments and e-mails since then but that message line reflects my feelings today knowing his parents have had to arrange for his funeral.
• Nathan---that little 5 yr. old who “stormed” through my kindergarten door at Germantown Elementary in September 1978. Those first few days it was anyone’s guess as to who was really in charge in that class. I finally prevailed, probably because I was the “bigger” of the two of us.
• Nathan, who would turn off both his hearing aids and close his eyes when he didn’t want to “listen” to me.
• Nathan, who because of his profound hearing loss, saw the world better and brighter than any of us could. He noticed everything. Once while “listening” (probably by reading my lips) to me read a story and while daughter Molly, in utero, began kicking, Nathan jumped up and placed both hands on my stomach and declared in his “Nathan voice,” “It’s alive in there!”
• Nathan, who when trying to learn “social” rules about church behavior, declared, “one shouldn’t throw tomatoes at the preacher."
• Nathan, whose kindergarten symbol was a cross to make it easy to identify his work, had the “end of the year cake” iced and decorated with everyone’s individual symbols. He passed out the correct pieces, symbol by symbol to everyone in the class.
• Nathan, who years years later wrote to me saying, “I remember you assigned me a class symbol..a cross. How significant and poignant that was, because later that year I would come to know Jesus, and what the Cross stood for."
• Nathan who stole my heart!
His family embraced me as well. On the home visits, I saw the big slate wall where his kindergarten concepts were reinforced daily by his parents. I also saw the speech-to-speech machine where his dad, Ralph, worked nightly trying to help Nathan voice sounds to match his. Nathan followed only the needle on the machine because he could not hear those sounds. Tedious work, done day in and day out---all for Nathan’s benefit. His mother, Carolyn, even babysat 3 week-old, Molly for me so that I could teach that last month of kindergarten. She would bring her up to me at the school each day for me to feed her. What a ministry! What a loving, caring family. Carolyn even gave me a framed scripture verse reminding me to “Choose each day” whom I would serve. She knew, before I did how, how important scripture would become in my life. She passed that on to Nathan because he shared scripture for me in his e-mails 30 years later.

Nathan, whose life moments I celebrated and often attended and whose daughter I held, has left me and many others feeling sad and empty. The grief is palpable. No more of his quips to lift our spirits. No more of those gorgeous eyes to twinkle in mischief. But, he has left us with lots of good “memories, nostalgia and flashbacks.” I choose to smile through my tears as I remember these things.