Near the end of World War II, Heinz fought for Germany on the eastern front. Russians took him prisoner. When the war ended, the Russians told him and the other prisoners to walk over a hill, toward freedom. When the prisoners started moving in that direction, the Russians started shooting at them. Heinz escaped and walked all the way home, from western Russia to northern Germany.
While Heinz was escaping and then walking, his brother Oscar was in Milwaukee, wondering if he was still alive. He sent money for Heinz's passage to America. When Heinz got home, he left again, for good, for a new home in Wisconsin.
In Milwaukee, Heinz met Betty. Betty was a Catholic. They got engaged, and Heinz found himself taken into a room with Betty's aunt, a nun. Heinz told Sister, "I'm staying Lutheran, and that's that." They emerged, and the aunt told her brother, John, Betty's father, "He's okay." John then approved of Heinz and Betty's marriage.
Heinz and Betty's first child was Linda. Two sisters, Lee Ann and Lori, later joined the family. On Sundays after church, the Bleinagels would get together with Oscar and his family, eat ham and hard rolls, and play Sheep's Head for hours.
Heinz worked in manufacturing, worked with his hands. In his spare time, he smoked a pipe and carved animals and people out of wood in his basement shop that was filled with tools. He liked to fish and play more Sheep's Head with friends and relatives, including his grandson Jon, at Carl Schurz Park on Moose Lake. He had a sense of humor and enjoyed telling stories. His bright blue eyes would twinkle and his hands would gesture.
Heinz rarely talked about the war.
On Sunday, March 2, Heinz passed away.
Many, many years after Heinz was born, a little girl named Jordyn was born in the north central United States. She spent a lot of time in farm country. She rode her bike while she wore her favorite skirts, and she giggled with delight. She loved her dog and kitties, her big sister and little brother, her mom and dad and grandpas and grandmas. She loved many people in her life, and they loved her. She was a Lutheran.
Jordyn was diagnosed with cancer when she was seven months old. She fought it for six years.
On Thursday, March 20, Jordyn passed away.
Heinz was our grandpa, grandpa-in-law, and great-grandpa. Jordyn was our neighbor, the great-granddaughter of friends.
In these days of ever more deliberate rhetorical choices to downplay death, Heinz was just another old man whose time had finally come. He nearly made it to his ninety-sixth birthday. The last few months--okay, years and even decades--were hard. But still, he'd had a long life. Okay, maybe that long life wasn't totally great and wonderful, but what more could anyone ask for?
In these days of ever more impressive efforts to show sick kids how special they are, Jordyn was just another young girl who tragically suffered. She didn't even make it to her eighth birthday. The last few weeks--okay, months and years--were hard. But still, people sure made great efforts to show how much they cared for her. Okay, maybe those efforts weren't as impressive as they could have been, but what more could anyone ask for?
My rhetorical questions are glib, even snide. They certainly belittle the very real pain Heinz's and Jordyn's relatives and friends felt, still feel, and will continue to feel. They especially undercut the lives, the precious lives, of Heinz and Jordyn. What little we remember about Heinz and what little we remember about Jordyn is nowhere near to what God the Father, who designed and created every hair on their heads, remembers about them.
The truth is, no matter how long human lives might last, no matter how much effort loved ones can love, the only end any of us really want for Heinz and Jordyn and ourselves is that there isn't one. No, we don't want them to suffer, and we certainly don't want to suffer in this life that is full of it. But death is no rosy, easy substitute for the slow debilitating decay of a body long used or for the terrible marks of cancer treatments on a young one. No, death merely reiterates to us how wrong it is to say goodbye to a grandfather or father, to a sister or daughter or great-granddaughter. Death is not natural. Returning to dust is not natural. Twinkling eyes and giggling laughter in dear ones that suddenly and forever end is not natural. Mortality in life made immortal is not natural. It is horrifically wrong, terrifyingly real, and hopelessly inevitable.
Heinz did things in his life that he wasn't proud of. I'd venture a guess that he regretted some of the choices he made up until his last breath. And Jordyn, sweet girl that she was, broke commandments. They both did. We all do. They just suffered the ultimate bodily consequences of sin before we did.
This week we remember Jesus, who rode on a beast of burden to His death. Who sacrificed Himself and feeds His own body and blood to our failing flesh. Who drowns us so that we will breathe in perfect bodies, forever.
Who took our putrid, stinking mortality and gave us His perfect, spotless, immortal righteousness instead.
Who remembers Heinz and Jordyn and all His saints even now.
Who made the hopelessly inevitable impossibly hopeful.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
For now, I remember these words from a Holy Week hymn:
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners' gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
'Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor,
And grant to me Thy grace.
~O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, v.2
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