About the Benefit. The Lutheran Woodstock.

I think this is my favorite picture, but I haven’t seen them all yet. My Dad and Pastor Sue. Who would ever think that I could ever get a picture like this? The truck driver and the pastor. Turns out they would chat about the Iditarod, the famous dog sledding race in Alaska, which Pastor Sue used to run when she and Dave were pastors North of Nome. My pastor is a Norwegian dogsledder.

“That woman is lost in the Alaskan wilderness,” Pastor Sue said to my Dad.

“They found her,” my Dad reported back. I didn’t even know that my Dad followed Alaskan dog sledding.

And that’s what the benefit was like. People connecting. A love in.

Amanda’s school friend, Elowyn said, “That piano player sounds like my piano teacher.” Turns out, it was her piano teacher, who is the organist from one of the Bob’s internship churches, Minnehaha Communion. The amazing Jeonglim Kim.

For some reason I have this fantasy or something that everyone we know could know each other and like each other. I don’t know why. Yet that’s kind of what it was like. My Uncles mingling with Bob’s Brother. My LWR Director Brenda, meeting my good friend John, who came with our next door neighbors, little Soyoung's family. People from the internship church with aprons and brooms working at our present day church. Aidan's friend, Tim, who thought I was leaving because he had heard that 'Mom Speirs' was going back to Brooklyn.

Like a utopia. Like how it could be. Like a perfect garden of Eden before sin. Just love.

This is your life, is what it was, like everyone from everywhere showing up. Martha, my best friend and her family. Marit, our real estate agent. Brenda, my LWR Director from Baltimore. And people from Minnehaha Communion, Our Redeemer, River of Life, Adams Spanish Immersion, Luther Seminary and our home church who hosted the event, Christ Lutheran Church. People from King of Kings Lutheran Church, friends of my aunt's cousin, who also happen to know our Tanzanian neighbors. Believe it or not, there were some people with whom I had to say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are.” They would say that they just heard about this, and they wanted to come. How big is the grace of God? My brother, Trey, with the home theater agreed to a Broken Trail showing in April or May.

So many people asking me, “Is Mom Speirs here? I want to meet her!” Yes, she was.

And others asking, “Is your brother the paramedic-extraordinaire here? I want to meet him.” No, he wasn’t. Funny thing, he was in Baltimore at a paramedic convention, just blocks away from my work’s headquarters. I’m on the cell phone trying to explain to him how to get to my building.

Looking back is like looking in or out or over there.

“I don’t want to say this in front of anyone else, but I think Bob is dying,” is what I said to my director Brenda, when she came to take my projects last November. I took her to a back room before admitting this.

“I didn’t want to say anything, but there was a dark cloud over Bob,” is what brother Richie said to us about when he came in from Brooklyn last November.

“I didn’t want to say anything, but death was in your apartment,” is what Kathy Mackdanz said, about when she and Bobbie came over right before Christmas, bearing gifts from Minnehaha Communion Lutheran Church.

It kind of feels like a dream. And we are filled with the grace of God. What world am I living in? What the world needs now is love. Everyday.

Love, T