20th Anniversary of Chuck's Death

May 13, 2011

Today marks 20 years since my first husband Rev. Charles Westerman died of brain cancer. It is funny to think that much time has passed but when I look at Jeremy who was 7, Mick who was 4 and Charlie who was 14 months I know a lot of living has happened since that event which took our breath away. Jeremy is now about to turn 28, has his bachelor’s degree in both criminal justice and sociology and he is happily married to Tara. They live in Sioux Falls where he currently works as paramedic. Mick is now 24 and is just about to graduate from college with a bachelor’s in paramedicine and start a job with the same ambulance service that Jeremy works for. Chuck- I know that you are chuckling from the peanut gallery in heaven over that one. Just think… two Westerman brothers to take care of you?!?! Charlie turned the fateful 21 years old this year, and he is a junior at Washington State University getting his degrees in journalism and just like Chuck, English. Ironic, isn’t it? I look at my boys and think that Chuck would be proud. All educated, all with a keen wit and all following Christ. That is what he would have desired above all else.

In thinking over the 20 years I have several thoughts. The first is that I don’t know any more now than I did 20 years ago about the “why” of Chuck’s death. It remains a mystery and one that this side of heaven I will never understand. Over these many years I have decided that God really doesn’t owe me an explanation. He is God and He reigns supreme, not in a punitive way, but more because He ways truly aren’t our ways. In our limited thinking, with our limited perspective… there is simply no way that we can understand His ultimate plan. Chuck told me that God cared and that He knew exactly what was happening to us in little Cheyenne, WY back in 1991, and while we could only see the limited corner and the messy underside of the tapestry, God could see it all from above with every stitch in place. Of this I believe, with all of my heart, that Chuck was right. And, oh, how he loved to be right!?!?

Secondly, I have learned a great deal about God the redeemer of lives. The God who truly does make beauty out of the ashes, the God of new beginnings and do overs. God did it all for the boys and I and dragged Dan, Hannah and Abby along to spice it up and do a mighty work in their lives as well. We healed each other. God knew we needed a tangible way to do that. The beauty is that now we have something much stronger than we ever dreamed possible. As my dearest friend Val kept telling me “Our God is a great God and this isn’t too big for Him”. She too was right. Look at the 18 years of wonderful married life, on a ranch no less, that Dan and I have shared with our five remarkable children. That was no accident. Every stitch is indeed in place.

Dan and I often talk about the great story that is ours. We pray that it is never lost in our family history. We know that it can be a beam of light and hope for others who feel as though they have been crushed. God is who He says He is and truly is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask and hope”. Now 20 years later I really do know that. I know that I know that I know.

Chuck was a wonderful man. Actually a brilliant man who was extremely clever, a talented writer, a committed father, a bit eccentric, no doubt, but a good friend to many. But above all the wit and knowledge was a man who loved God and a man who stood grounded in his faith in God’s goodness. I can tell you that he died in peace. He told me that it was all just like God said in Matthew 6. That we are not to worry and that we are to live one day at a time with Him. So when all was stripped away that’s what Chuck did in those final months and he was still rich in Christ. Then it was all stripped clean he gave me the remarkable gift of hope to believe that God was going to bring about good from all the pain, was going to care for us and was about to take us on the most wild adventure of our lives. And you know what? Again he was right, and besides that, he got to have the final word.