Kathy Boroff and Iva Bolling

 Kathy Boroff and Iva Bolling are my Jihad Catholic friends.

That’s what my husband calls the three of us. He jokes that we’re the last of a dying breed of old Catholics - you know, the ones like your grandma who always carry a Rosary, pray endless Novenas and stash holy cards in the glove compartment. I never dreamed I’d be that old devout Catholic lady, but here we are.

You wouldn’t think we were so devout if you heard Kathy drop the “F” bomb. She says it like it’s the first word she ever learned.

When the three of us had to reschedule our coffee date because I forgot the original, I pleaded forgiveness.

“No worries,” Kathy soothed with her FM radio voice, beautiful and low. “Don’t f—k up again.”

Every time it kills me. You never expect that word to come out of the elegant, serene Kathy Boroff.

I love my young friends and former students with their life-giving energy and all-the-time-in-the-world freshness. But in my retirement, I find myself gravitating toward my older friends more and more. I need Iva and Kathy and my book club buddies and my long time cherished friends. None of us have lived this long without acquiring a little perspective, and we’re all on the same page of this crazy life together.

A young woman I am barely acquainted with on social media recently vowed to expose the identity of a merchant who sent her bedsheets with a 280 count instead of the 500 count she’d requested. She wondered how difficult it was for even a “barely educated idiot” to punch in the correct order.

I so badly wanted to reply.

“Someday you’re going to die.”

I bet she could sleep on those sheets then.

She, perhaps, would have perceived that as a death threat, and it didn’t seem worth the trouble. Besides, I remember having unhealthy attachments to possessions when I was young. These days I only care that my 2012 Prius lasts as long as I do. And my teeth and my kidneys. And also my hair.

That’s why I need my Boomer friends. So much of life is behind us rather than ahead of us, and we’re savoring our time together. 

Kathy and Iva and I don’t waste much of it. That coffee hour stretches into two sometimes as we laugh and talk and enjoy each other, and not once does the topic of bed sheet count ever arise. Iva calls it our group therapy. We don’t mean to hash out such weighty issues, but eventually we always turn to matters of faith.

If I’m familiar with the gut punches life delivers sometimes, it’s nothing compared to what Kathy and Iva have experienced. How easy it is to look at these two beautiful women with their pleasant smiles and laughing demeanors and believe they’ve lived charmed lives! Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Kathy’s married to a great guy and has a wonderful son who in turn has a wonderful family. She loves being a grandmother, and one of her passions is her job as a coordinator of TeamMates in Grand Island. When she was young, her older son suffered from serious mental health issues, and her first marriage didn’t survive the strain. Kathy persevered, struggling as a single mother and ultimately witnessing her son’s dangerous decline. He’s grown now and no longer part of her life. The suffering, letting go, and acceptance of her son’s issues took a long, emotional toll. Yet, her faith sustained her and still does. You can’t spend time with Kathy and not be embraced by her tranquility and humor. 

Iva - tiny and lovely - adores her good children and grandchildren. Most of all, she adores her big, handsome husband Russ. Iva was a hair stylist, and Russ was a beloved and widely respected fire fighter until their world came crashing to a halt. Several years ago, Russ was in a motorcycle accident that resulted in a spinal injury. Life from a wheelchair could have been a tragedy for Russ, but he was tremendously supported by a loving community, his kids, and most of all by Iva. 

Russ’s paralysis presents challenges every day, and he and Iva deal with them together. They’ve learned to let go of the old life and figure out the new one. Iva, as Russ’s primary care giver, is sometimes the only one in a hospital who knows how to transport Russ from the bed to his chair. The stress has been enormous. Yet, neither one of them is bitter or angry. Instead, they are grateful for Russ’s life and happy to have each other.

What’s most admirable about Iva and Kathy is not the way they depend on their faith. It’s the way they give it to others. Life’s agonizing hardships have only served to make them more loving and generous people. I could go on and on about their many virtues, but something that happened at our last coffee break explained it all.

Iva and I were sitting across the table from Kathy - as usual. Iva  was yacking cheerfully away - as usual.

“Do I talk too much?” she said.

“Absolutely not,” I teased. “You’re fascinating.” And she is.

But across from us, Kathy’s attention had been diverted. Behind Iva and me an elderly, homeless gentleman was doing his dangdest to coax a cup of coffee from the help at the counter.

“I’ve got good Canadian money!” he crowed, showing the crumpled bills in his hand.

Kathy shot a look at Iva.

“Shall we?” she said.

Iva nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Kathy turned on her megawatt smile and called to the gentleman.

“Sir!” she said. “I’d love to see your Canadian money!”

He turned and brightened at the sight of Kathy’s friendly face. 

“It’s real,” he said, striding eagerly over to us. “This is good money,” he assured us and offered one of the bills to Kathy.

She turned it over in her hands and exclaimed in wonder. “I’ve never seen Canadian money!”

At the same time Iva was quietly emptying her billfold. She gathered every single bill and pressed them into the man’s hand.

“It’s all I have,” she smiled warmly, “but I think it’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

He stared at the money and swallowed. 

“It’s always nice to meet good folks,” he finally said. 

He would have walked away but Kathy called him back to return his Canadian bill. “You might be able to use this somewhere else!”

He took it, nodded humbly, and departed.

The entire exchange lasted less than two minutes. I might as well have had a front row seat at the theater - I was amazed by what I’d just witnessed. Some kind of shorthand exists between Iva and Kathy. Without saying more than five words to each other, these close friends knew exactly how to minister to an old man who had no home but who craved a hot cup of coffee. 

Iva gave him money. Kathy gave him dignity.

I didn’t give him squat.

But how lucky am I to have a couple of friends like Kathy Boroff and Iva Bolling? They’ve been to hell and back, these wonderful girls. Still, they hold onto a life-saving faith in God and choose to be happy.

Every single time I’m with them, they renew, refresh and make everybody around them feel good. It’s a magnificent thing to watch their loving charity in action and to talk about our shared faith to our hearts’ content. 

And it’s always a bonus if Kathy drops the F word.

The John and Kathryn Rock Family

Kathryn and John Rock

 Just after John and I move into our tiny bungalow on Division Street, the doorbell rings. At the door is 14-year-old Monica Rohweder, one of our students at Central Catholic.

“A wedding present from my mom,” she smiles shyly and holds out a warm apple pie. “You’re supposed to keep the pie dish.”

We still have that pie dish. After 42 years it's stained and brown and cracked, but I love it because it reminds me of the way Sue Rohweder so lovingly made an apple pie for a newly married couple. To think of Sue always makes me happy.

The Rohweder family lives just around the corner on First Street in a comfortable, corner house with a big welcoming porch. John and I teach the Rohweder kids and many of their cousins - the Jareckes and Rocks and Werners. They’re a large, affable family, and rarely does a weekend pass that aunts, uncles and cousins don’t gather at the Rohweder home. We love all those kids and enjoy seeing them together in the neighborhood.

Our good neighbors Norm and Sue Rohweder could be a film star couple. Sue, like her sisters, is gorgeous and pleasant. She and Sharon and Rosie love to walk briskly together in the mornings and often pass our house.

The Beautiful Rock sisters, from left:
Sue, Sharon, Rosie, Jean

“Here come the beautiful Rock sisters!” I call out as they laugh together and always pause to say hello.

I am a little intimidated by Sue’s handsome husband Norm - tall and tanned with a chiseled jaw. But one Halloween just after our first son Kenny is born, Norm brings his niece Gabby trick or treating.

“Could we come in and see the baby?” Norm asks eagerly. I will never forget the way he leans over Kenny’s bassinet to stroke the soft fuzz of hair on my newborn’s tiny head.

“There’s nothing better,” Norm sighs, “then the smell of a brand new baby.”

I decide then and there that Norman Rohweder is the kindest man I’ve ever known.

It’s not until we’ve been neighbors for a long time that I learn the story of the Rock sisters - Sue, Sharon, Rosie and Jean - and their oldest brother Patrick. Before they all marry and become Rohweders and Jareckes and Werners, those beautiful girls and their brother are dealt a tragic blow.

All the Rock siblings, from left: Sharon,
Jean, 
Rosie, Sue, Patrick

John and Kathryn Rock, their parents, farm and raise their five children in St. Libory. On the first day of May in 1960, John and Kathryn - with their young daughters Rosie and Jean and two other relatives - take a Sunday drive to Wolbach. Out of the blue, a drunk driver crashes into them. Rosie and Jean and their uncle and cousin survive. John and Kathryn Rock, just 50-years-old, are both killed.

Before first responders arrive at the scene of the accident, severely injured John Rock, who’s been ejected from the crash and lies some yards away, discovers his wife Kathryn sprawled on the ground behind the car. He crawls to her and lies close to her lifeless body before he draws his last breath.

Sue, the oldest of her sisters, is 22. Her traumatized youngest sister Jean is only ten. 

Pat, their brother, is married with a baby and suddenly has the responsibility of running his father’s farm. Relatives and friends immediately volunteer to take in some of the younger siblings, but the sisters refuse to be separated.

The St. Libory Rock kids with
cousins

It’s Norm Rohweder, Sue’s 26-year-old boyfriend, who saves the day. Norm’s never met Sue’s parents and often brags that he’s in no hurry to marry and become a family man.

The day after the accident, however, he and Sue walk quietly along the lane behind the family farm in St. Libory.

"We’ll get married and raise the girls ourselves,” Norm says. And that’s that.

Together they purchase the modest home on West First Street and through the years modify, add to and renovate the house to accommodate their growing family. Norm and Sue become not only the guardians of Sue’s three young sisters but also shortly become parents to their own four children: Todd, Laurie, Mike and Monica. The young Rock sisters are infatuated with the babies, and young Rosie and Jean feel more like sisters than aunts to the Rohweder kids.

Eventually, the girls leave home to marry and raise families of their own. Brother Patrick and his wife Shirley live with their children Michelle, Denise, Paula and Carter on the family farm in St. Libory. Sharon, just shy of graduating from high school when her parents are killed, marries Jack Jarecke, and their brood includes Jay, Chris, Tony, Jamie, Jeremy and Jessica. Rosie marries Bill Werner and gives birth to Melissa, Johnna, Patrick and Gabby. Jean, the youngest, marries Gary Speck and has a daughter Marni.

Rosie, left with baby Johnna and Sharon
with baby Tony

The Rock siblings and their families grow exceptionally close during those years. They speak often of John and Kathryn to their children, and their devout faith sustains them. Believing that their parents still care for all of them from Heaven, none are surprised when on May 1st, 1968 - exactly eight years after the tragic accident - Sharon and Rosie give birth to their respective babies on the same day. Babies Tony Jarecke and Johnna Werner are a living reminder of their grandparents’ enduring love.

It’s a delight to teach the Rohweders and Jareckes and Werners and Rocks. The four Rohweder kids, like their parents, are tall and beautiful and good-humored. 

If the Rohweders are tall and elegant, the six good-looking Jarecke kids, except for Jeremy who towers above his siblings, are small and compact. Every single one of them is a big laugher with enormous charm and personality. 

The Werner kids, though, resemble their Rohweder cousins, and sometimes it’s difficult to remember they’re not siblings but cousins. Even their sweet, gentle mannerisms are alike.

John and I teach two of the Rock kids from St. Libory - Paula and Carter. Delightful Paula, like her girl cousins, plays basketball, and Carter is a small, quiet, bespectacled boy in my seventh grade English class.

Maybe it’s because we teach all those kids and because Norm and Sue love us and are so kind to our own two boys that John and I always feel close to John and Kathryn Rock’s children and grandchildren. Mike Rohweder, Norm and Sue’s younger son, even becomes the business manager at Central Catholic. Mike relishes “bleeding Crusader Blue” again as he did in high school, and John and I love working with that wonderful boy. He and his wife Sheila send their own children John and Kathryn - named after their lost great-grandparents - to Central Catholic and we manage to keep up with and stay close to all of John and Kathryn Rock’s gregarious descendants.

We laugh with them - and suffer, too.

It’s a gut punch to all of us when Rosie Werner, the second youngest Rock sister, is diagnosed with breast cancer. Dear Rosie braves her illness with characteristic good cheer but also touching vulnerability. Husband Bill, her children and all her sisters rally around her, but lovely Rosie loses her fight at the age of 48. 

At her funeral on a raw January morning at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Norm Rohweder pays his respects to the sister-in-law he raised. 

“Today,” he sobs, “I feel as if I know what it is to lose a child.”

As they march out of their sister’s funeral that day, he and Sue lean heavily on each other.

“This is why we depend on our faith,” Sue Rohweder tells me not long after that as we sit quietly in her living room. “We give up the people we love to God,” she sighs painfully, “and we hope for the day we’ll see them again.”

Fortunately, a long interlude of weddings and grandchildren and family gatherings follows Rosie’s death. 

But as the Rock siblings grow older, the losses become alarmingly more frequent. 

Our beloved Norm Rohweder passes in 2017. Tall, kind and handsome Norm, the joyful life of every gathering, begins to diminish before our eyes. His departure leaves a gaping hole not only among the members of his family, but also in our close-knit little neighborhood.

John and I adopt a small black kitten just after the death of our favorite neighbor, and to console myself I name him Norman.

When Shelly Rock, Patrick Rock’s oldest daughter, passes away the next year, her father is devastated. Shelly’s passing follows her mother’s death. The year after that, 42-year-old Carter Rock dies suddenly in his sleep. 

The resilience of the Rock family astonishes us. As the oldest sister in the family, Sue’s constantly been a steady source of strength. When her big brother Patrick passes and then Jean, her baby sister, Sue seems enormously weary. She and her surviving sister Sharon draw even closer. Sharon already is experiencing signs of dementia, and Sue - along with Sharon’s husband Jack and their devoted children - spends every available minute with her.

We’re saddened to think Sue may very well have to say goodbye to all her younger siblings before her own death. But it doesn’t happen that way. Sue abruptly becomes ill and is hospitalized.

At school her son Mike shares a photo of Sue in her hospital bed surrounded by all her kids and grandkids. She smiles radiantly at them, and I cannot comprehend how youthful she still appears even on - what will turn out to be - her deathbed.

The big white house on First Street sits empty now. With Sue and Norm’s passing, the heart and soul of that lovely home has been snuffed out.

Sharon, the last surviving Rock sibling, struggles with cancer and the terrible confusion of her memory decline.

“Where’s Sue?” she asks her husband Jack and her children day after day. Each time it must be explained again, and her grief is inconsolable.

Last year on May 10th, Sharon Jarecke, the last Rock sibling, passes peacefully. After 65 long years, Patrick, Sue, Sharon, Rosemary and Jean are finally reunited with their parents.

Today is May 1st, the 66th anniversary of the devastating car accident that claimed the lives of John and Kathryn Rock. It’s also the day that the Rohweder, Jarecke, Werner and Rock families have gathered at St. Libory Church to inurn the remains of Sue, Sharon and Jean. The day is bright and chilly and windy with big, scudding clouds. In the small church with almost all the descendants of the Rock family gathered, Father Sid Bruggeman stands before the three urns of the Rock sisters and reminds their children that their mothers are praying for all of them. All those children - a few of whom are now grandparents themselves - listen solemnly to the good priest. Of that marvelous generation of their parents, only Jack Jarecke and Bill Werner - the last patriarchs of the family - remain on this earth.

Outdoors in the adjacent cemetery, the sisters are tenderly laid to rest. Their siblings Patrick and Rosie are already there. Buried all throughout that small stretch of sacred ground are members of the Rock family dating back from the 1800’s. All the Rock siblings lie close to their parents, John and Kathryn.

One small grave belongs to infant Felicia Jarecke. Tony Jarecke, her brother, points out her gravestone not far away from where his own mother has just been laid to rest.

"I remember Mom telling me that Felicia was stillborn,” Tony weeps. “The nurses took her away, and Mom never got to hold her.”

It’s been a long emotional day for all the members of this family, and it’s not until I leave do I remember that today is also Tony’s birthday - and his cousin Johnna’s. I consider turning around, but it’s not necessary. 

Tony and all those dear cousins with their families will be gathering not to weep but to celebrate. Food and drink will be in abundance, birthdays will be acknowledged with enthusiastic singing, and the lives of John and Kathryn Rock and their five remarkable children will be remembered with stories long into the night.

Laughter will abound. There’s always laughter with this crowd. They’ll remember the huge family gatherings at Norm and Sue’s when all those cousins raised holy hell in the basement, the summer get-togethers at Johnson Lake, and the huge tumbleweeds Norm carefully decorated to hang on the Rohweder front porch every Christmas.

Mostly they’ll remember how their parents taught them to lean on each other - the way they themselves did all those years ago when they were five young orphaned people finding their way in the dark.

It’s not so dark, Norm Rohweder said to me once, when you’ve got family to lean on. 

"Family will get you through anything,” he said.

That from a guy who long ago crowed that he was a confirmed bachelor - except that he loved Sue Rock and her sisters too much.

I wonder what John and Kathryn Rock would think now of this enormous collection of grandchildren gathered for this monumental anniversary? 

The terrible event on this day 66 years ago somehow turned into this - a miraculous, faith-filled, life-giving, loving family who, no matter what life throws at them, understands how to laugh and hope.

And to stick together.

John and Kathryn Rock would be proud.

Some of John and Kathryn Rock's 
grandchildren on the 66th 
commemoration of their deaths
and the inurnment of Sue Rohweder, 
Jean Rock and Sharon Jarecke.

Archbishop James Golka

 For the boys and girls of GICC Elementary:

The Story of the Boy Who Would Become Archbishop

Boys and girls, even when Jimmy Golka was a boy, he wanted to be a priest.

This was not surprising at all. Jimmy belonged to a holy family. You wouldn’t think of them as holy if you saw all his brothers and sisters running through the yard with their many friends on Arthur Street. They shrieked and laughed and played ball and ran over the top of each other. Most days they fought over whose turn it was to sit by the window in the big station wagon or to empty the trash.

Jimmy in grade school

It was Jimmy’s small, red-haired mother - feisty and gentle and practical all at the same time - who showed her ten children how to be holy. Their tall, quiet father was holy as well even though he yelled very loudly at their school basketball games and sometimes embarrassed them. 

Every night Jimmy’s mother prayed with all her children. She sat with each of them on their beds and spoke directly to Jesus.

"Dear Lord, Jimmy’s worried about his math test,” she’d say as if Jesus stood close by Jimmy’s bed.

Jimmy marveled. 

“She really thinks Jesus is in this room,” he thought. “I guess He must be.”

No matter how busy his family was with their many school events, Jimmy’s mother and father made sure everybody went to Mass. They ate together, attended every school activity together, and prayed together. 

Jim in high school

As Jimmy grew, he read his children’s Bible from cover to cover. He learned all about Jesus and considered deeply that Jesus seemed to see something no one else did. He loved every single person - especially the people no one else loved. How could this be? Jimmy thought and thought. It was because, he concluded, Jesus was God. 

"I want to see the world the way Jesus sees it,” Jimmy thought with finality.

It wasn’t always easy. His first Confession made him anxious.

"What do I say to the priest?” he asked his mother.

“Johnny,” she called Jimmy’s older brother, “show Jimmy what he needs to do.”

With older brother patience, John related every one of his own sins to the imaginary priest beside him to show Jimmy how it was done. After that it was easy. Jimmy went to his First Reconciliation and confidently rattled off all his brother John’s sins to the good priest. He felt very satisfied with himself.

By the time he was in eighth grade at Central Catholic, the notion struck him that perhaps God was calling him to be a priest. He shared this thought with a school priest.

"You’re in the eighth grade,” the wise priest said. “Have fun, date a few girls, and pray.”

High school graduation
with mother and father-
Patty and Bob Golka

This was exactly what Jimmy did. All through high school he competed in every sport, attended school dances, and shot pool with his friends. Occasionally he stayed out later than he should have and helped sneak a friend out of the house. Still, he was always a good student and everyone liked him. He was voted the class president and class speaker. When he graduated from Central Catholic and was ready to start college, he felt the time had come to relax and to enjoy himself.

"I’m only going to college to make friends and not be involved in much,” he confided to his red-haired mother.

"We’ll see,” his mother smiled.

Instead, at Creighton he went every day to Mass, planned service trips to help those who were poor, and joined his campus ministry. He was still having a lot of fun, but the idea of joining the priesthood nagged him all the time.

After college, Jimmy decided to live on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a year. He drove a bus and tutored kids and coached. He loved the Lakota kids. When he was around them, he thought about the girl back in college he’d fallen in love with and wondered about having a big family. 

Just as Thanksgiving was coming that year on the Reservation, Jimmy felt God speak clearly to him for the very first time. He knew at last that he was going to be a priest.

Newly ordained Father
Jim Golka

And that’s what happened. Jimmy went to Minnesota to study, and his mom and dad and brothers and sisters and many of his good friends were with him the day he became a priest. No longer was Jimmy a Jimmy. Now he was Father Jim, and if he didn’t have a wife and lots of children like his good parents, he was a father instead to many, many of God’s children.

God sent Father Jim to serve good towns all across Nebraska. He grieved every time the Bishop sent him from one church to another. But every time, he loved his new parish as much as the old one. People loved Father Jim, too, because he was kind and humble and wise.

Visiting with flower girl,
little Charlotte Kilchriste

Everybody in Father Jim’s family was happy when he came back to his hometown to be the pastor of St. Mary’s Cathedral. At the big church in Grand Island,  Father Jim worked harder than he ever had before. There weren’t so many priests as when Father Jim had been a boy, and there were many more people to care for. Still, Father Jim loved his church. Every day he baptized babies and confirmed high schoolers and married couples and buried the dead. When the church needed money, he prayed, and God always came through. 

Then one year a terrible sickness shut down the church and the town and, indeed, the entire world. Many people died, and nobody could go to work or to school or to church. 

Father Jim processes through
Grand Island neighborhoods during
COVID. The Holy Spirit shines upon
His people.

People missed Jesus so much that Father Jim took Jesus to them. He wore his priestly robes and a mask  and a hat and marched to all the neighborhoods of Grand Island. Everybody crept from their homes like prisoners from behind bars and bowed before Jesus in Father Jim’s hands. 

One day a young woman rushed out of her house to beg Father Jim to pray for her father who was sick and dying in the hospital. It was very dangerous, and no one was allowed to visit the hospitals because of the sickness that was everywhere. Still, Father Jim wrapped himself from head to toe and went to visit the young woman’s father who lay close to death. Even though the father was asleep and would never wake up again, Father Jim anointed the man’s hands with oil and prayed for Jesus to heal him.

Later that day, the daughter called Father Jim to tell him that a miracle had occurred. 

"My father woke up!” the daughter cried.

When the good man could speak, he told Father Jim that he had been in a dark place of death but had suddenly known that Jesus was with him in the darkness to heal him.

“Jesus does it all,” Father Jim said to the happy man, and they cried together.

Father Jim happily would have stayed at St. Mary’s forever. God had other plans.

One day the phone rang, and the voice on the other end told Father Jim that Pope Francis was sending him to Colorado Springs to be a Bishop. 

Father Jim’s heart sank.

"Why me?” he said to God. In Father Jim’s eyes, he knew himself to be a shy, quiet man. How could God ask him to be a Bishop, of all things?

But God knew exactly what he was doing. 

Bishop Jim Golka of
the Diocese of
Colorado Springs

Father Jim was not a Father Jim any more. Now he was Bishop Jim. He was sure he had learned to trust Jesus. Now he had to learn to trust him all over again. But just the way it had always happened before when he was called from one place he loved to another, Bishop Jim discovered a great love for his big Colorado diocese. God knew things about Bishop Jim that even Bishop Jim didn’t know.

Although he was far away from home and family, Bishop Jim still came back to see all his Golka family and his St. Mary’s Cathedral church. He even came home to bless the brand new GICC Elementary School, boys and girls - this very school we’re in today.

One day, though, he came home for a very sad reason. His little sister Jean died. All her family was filled with sorrow, and Bishop Jim’s mother and father seemed to grow old overnight. They gave their precious daughter back to God, and Bishop Jim buried his little sister. 

The church was standing room only. Everybody cried at the sad funeral - the loss of a beautiful young woman was very difficult. But when Bishop Jim stood in front of the congregation and smiled at his family and prayed for his sister, every person in the church could see the faith shining from the Bishop’s face. In fact, all the Golkas radiated that faith. Even in their heartbreak, this holy family trusted God. 

It seemed Bishop Jim had barely been named Bishop when another bolt came from the blue. God called Bishop Jim to become the Archbishop of Denver. Again, Bishop Jim grieved. He had grown to think of Colorado Springs as home. Yet, here again God was calling him to a new challenge.

Bishop Jim was not a Bishop Jim any more. Now he was Archbishop Golka taking care of the great and wonderful city of Denver. All his family came to Denver to celebrate the big announcement - all except Bishop Golka’s feisty, kind little red-haired mother. Only two months before the announcement, she died in the arms of the good Lord with her big family all around her. 

With great gentleness, the new Archbishop of Denver embraced his frail father - who beamed upon his son with heartfelt pride. 

Bishop Golka blessed by his father.
His mother stands just to the right 
during his Colorado Springs
Installation as Bishop.

"When I was named Bishop of Colorado Springs,” Archbishop Golka told all the people assembled for the announcement, “my father put his hands above my head and blessed me.”

It was a special day to celebrate the new Archbishop of Denver. Sadly, however, just days later, Archbishop Golka’s father, the saintly man who roared at every athletic official in Nebraska, quietly died and joined his wife and daughter in Heaven.

People thought how very sad it was that his mother and father couldn’t be at the great ceremony in Denver to see their son become the new Archbishop.

But, of course they will be there. Heaven is not so far away that a mother and father and beloved little sister can’t be present for their much loved son and big brother. Heaven is much closer to Colorado than Nebraska is and much closer to Nebraska than Colorado is.

Rest assured, every member of the new Archbishop’s family will be there - even the ones from all those generations ago who will smile from Heaven at the man they’ve loved as a boy. They remember the way he searched for Jesus even when he was only Jimmy - not a Father Jim or a Bishop Jim or even an Archbishop - but just Jimmy.

They are very proud.

Nobody, however, is prouder than the three people who will beam from Heaven’s first row: the beautiful little sister, the quiet man who still bawls out Nebraska referees, and the feisty little red-haired woman.

She’s known who Jimmy would be from the day he was born.

Archbishop James Golka, she knows, is exactly where God needs him to be.

Steve Werkmeister and the GICC class of 1985

A poet, a Bishop and an artist.

If they walked into a bar, it'd be the beginning of a great joke.

Steve Werkmeister

It's no joke, though. The poet, the Bishop and the artist are all members of the Grand Island Central Catholic class of 1985. On this warm weekend in July, most of them are gathered to celebrate their 40th high school reunion.

On the eve of their festivities, however, poet Steve Werkmeister - now an English professor and award-winning writer in Kansas City - is giving a long awaited poetry reading in his hometown at the Grand Island City Library. My husband John introduces him and notes Steve's many high school achievements as a stellar track athlete and journalism student.

"I taught three types of students," John recalls. "There were those kids who colored inside the lines, the kids who colored outside the lines, and the kids who didn't see the lines - like Steve," he said. "Steve was always a seeker, and he still is - a seeker of truth, compassion, love and justice."

John and I loved teaching Steve and his classmates. In our many, many years as educators, the class of 1985 stands out. A class of talented, quirky, funny and determined kids, they were a delight to teach - in spite of the way they tested our patience at times. Steve, for instance, constantly pushed the boundaries in my journalism class. His writing was phenomenal, so much so that I knew in a moment I was out of my depth. Steve had a way of looking at things from a perspective that fascinated but completely eluded me - as if he hovered somewhere close to the ceiling and a little to the right - observing the world in an uncanny new way.

"Nerd Day" at GICC, 1984. From left: Gary Staab, Jon
Bartek, Debbie Buck, Steve Werkmeister, Sam Daly

"Oh, come ON!" he argued after he composed a brilliant new version of Poe's THE RAVEN liberally sprinkled with a dose of profanity. I removed the profanity, much to his disgust, but published in the school newspaper one of the most magnificent pieces of writing I'd ever seen by anybody - even by a professional poet. Steve Werkmeister was leagues beyond me.

Here at the City Library, he arrives with the beautiful women in his family - his mother, sister and wife - and his good looking son. Several classmates in attendance greet Steve with enthusiasm and nostalgia. Rick Gilroy, who was such a small kid in high school, is tall and impressive and comes with his also tall and lovely wife. Randy Lonowski, a state champion high school wrestler and the ornery, sweet wild child of the class, still flashes his mega-watt smile. And those darling girls - Michelle Prince, Debbie Buck, Susie Messing and Shelly White - have not changed an iota. When Steve mentions that they're all approaching 60, I literally gasp. Those four beautiful girls are still teenagers in my eyes.

I remember laughing all the way through their high school years. If there were dark moments, they seem forgotten now. Steve, however, brings back his high school years with abrupt and startling memory. If he occasionally rebelled against the rules, I now realize a new appreciation for the kid he was in high school. He'd acquired his name from his German father who abandoned the family. It was his loving Mexican mother who, with loving determination, raised Steve and his sister Susan and sent them to Catholic school.

"Where are you from?" Steve remembers an older girl in elementary school asking him when he was seven years old.

GICC class of '85 40th year reunion

The question confused him. "Here!" he said.

"No, no," she shook her head. "Where are you from?"

That was the day Steve realized his Mexican heritage branded with a German name was highly questionable in his small community.

"Are you a good Mexican or a bad Mexican?" the girl persisted.

Always Steve felt his "otherness" and the sense that he didn't quite belong.

He writes of a cop who stopped him in Texas. 

        "wondering what I thought of Shakespeare, 

         wondering if I dug the art of Basquiat, 

         wondering about my perspective on the collapse

         of Communism and the new world order,

         wondering if I considered the possibility 

         of life before death. I'm kidding, of course.

         The cop was wondering why I was walking

          in that particular neighborhood, two blocks

          from my aunt's house. The cop made the face

         I'd known from cashiers and girlsfriends' dads

Sculpture by Gary Staab
at Grand Island City
Library

         and airline agents and asked where did you get

         this name?, my Nebraska license not matching

         the panoply of possibilities my skin suggested.

         "Twas the swaddling clothes of my birth, said I,

          'twill be the winding sheets of my death.

          It was all my dad had to give me."

Mesmerized, we listen to Steve's life unfold through his poetry. He takes us to the scorching fields where, with a band of 12-year-olds, he detassels his way through suffocating rows of corn. To the hospital room during the birth of his first child. On a lonely road where, for a brief time, he ponders when and where he will end his life. Each poem is a thing of perfection and narrated in Steve's hauntingly almost matter-of-fact voice.

For a kid who often felt he was on the outside looking in, I think of his classmates who drink in every word. As he reads his last poem, Hell, Yeah, I Went to Catholic School, they smile. It's a four line poem in vintage Werkmeister style - rebellious, irreverent and a little shocking. As he reads the last line, he flashes the smile I remember from his youth, a smile that recognizes the glint of humor even in a tragic moment and invites you to experience it, too.

Gary Staab's "Megalodon", Smithsonian 
Institute

His classmates know Steve well. They grew up with him. Not one of them was ever asked where they came from or if they were good or bad. Still, they did not grow up unscathed. All at once I'm remembering the day Susie lost her good father. Shelly grew up with divorced parents. As a young woman, Debbie raised her baby daughter alone. They wrestled their own demons - every one of them. Yet, here they are. They've survived and thrived and are entering the "fifth act", as Steve likes to remind them. 

And they've arrived at the fifth act remarkably fit and happy. I have no doubt Randy Lonowski could still pin a 165 opponent. More than that, they are kind people. My husband and I like them very much.

Outside, I pause to say goodbye to Steve and his family. We stand next to the city library's pride and joy - an imposing sculpture of Nebraska's sandhill cranes created by our own Gary Staab, GICC class of '85. It's breathtaking, and I recall the day not long ago when my son Kenny texted me from Washington D.C. on a business trip.

Bishop Jim Golka

"Mom! Look!" Visiting the Smithsonian, he sends a photo of Gary's 52-foot long "Megalodon", his prehistoric shark hanging from the ceiling of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The Smithsonian, of all things.

Gary Staab, I remember, staring up at those gorgeous cranes at the library. His work is displayed all over the world. The innocent, lovable kid who could hardly remember what day it was let alone what period he was supposed to be in journalism class is an international wonder.

And then there's our Bishop. Jimmy Golka used to sneak out of the house at nights to hang out with his friends. Now he's the kind and wise shepherd for the Diocese of Colorado Springs.

I think all these thoughts as I say goodbye to Steve next to Gary's sculpture. It's a perfect moment.

Steve, John and me

"I'm so proud of you I could weep," I tell Steve.

But aren't we proud of all of them? Matt McGuire, in spite of heart issues and an ailing back, perseveres at farming his father's land. Heidi Newman nursed her sick mother before she died. Steve Wassinger is a gifted doctor. Patti Scripture survived breast cancer.

They are magnificent, this class of '85. 

And not just the poet, the Bishop and the artist.

Still, it'd be so cool to see them walk into a bar.

       

Janiece Liske Jones

 

Janiece Liske Jones

Janiece Liske - sweet, pleasant, cheerful - is that girl in school who everybody likes.

Life isn't complicated for a kid who's the oldest of five and regularly accused of being "too bossy" by her younger siblings. That's why teachers like her, too. In my sophomore English class, she's a dream student who hands in every assignment and never complains. High school drama is a foreign idea to Janiece Liske. 

The GICC 1981 state championship volleyball
team 40 years later. Front: Asst. coach Mary
Janky, head coach Sharon Zavala. Back from
left: Mary Curtis, Theresa Costello, Dorine 
Lucht, Mary Brown, Chris Jarecke,
Janiece Liske and Kate Stokman

Part of a close-knit little tribe of girls and boys from the Grand Island Central Catholic class of 1982, Janiece, in spite of her uncomplicated nature, surprises everyone with her steely determination. The fall of her senior year, she and her gritty teammates snare the Class C1 state volleyball championship - the first ever. My little sister Mary is on that team, as well as some funny and wonderful girls like Monica Kozisek, Chris Jarecke, Kate Stokman, Dorine Lucht, Mary Curtis, Karla Rork, and Theresa Costello. They've all been through stuff, big stuff, these girls. Some have lost family members - a parent, a brother, a sister. One suffers from juvenile diabetes. Maybe it's the adversity in their young lives that gives these kids the guts to spit in the wind and battle for a state championship. Whatever it is, the entire GICC faithful cheers in frenzied delight from the stands at Pershing Auditorium as our bold little girls receive their championship medals.

Pat and Janiece, 1981 GICC Homecoming

One of those fervent fans is Pat Jones, Janiece Liske's boyfriend. Pat and Janiece are inseparable - not in a spoony way, but in a "this is my very best pal" sort of way. Only one time in her life has Janiece ever really caused her parents grief.  It's the last night of her sophomore year when she talks to Pat for the first time at an end-of-the-year party and misses curfew. As far as Janiece is concerned, the wrath of her parents is entirely worth it. The next morning, however, when Pat shows up at the Liske doorstep, Janiece's mother takes one look at him and slams the door. It's Janiece's father Leo who saves the day.

"Oh, now, come on in," he opens the door and ushers Pat into the house. Pat sits awkwardly in the living room with Janiece's angry mother and prays with all his heart for Janiece to hurry up.

Thankfully, Maxine Liske warms to Pat in the weeks to come and will one day consider Pat to be another son. Indeed, that's exactly what he becomes. Almost immediately after high school graduation, Pat and Janiece marry in a simple wedding at their hometown church.

"I know it seems crazy for a couple of 18-year-olds to get married," Janiece says now, "but we just knew we belonged to each other."

Janiece, bottom left, with her parents and
siblings. Next to Janiece: her father Leo,
mother Maxine, sister Jill. Top from left, 
brothers Joe, Jim and Jarrod

Soon, babies are arriving. Jennifer is born first followed by her sister Jaci. Mike is the youngest. Life is full and happy for the young Joneses. Pat helps run the family business, the long established Ron's Music. Janiece joins him after Pat's mother becomes ill to take care of the books. As the kids grow, Pat coaches his daughters' softball teams, and he and Janiece send their kids to their beloved alma mater, Central Catholic.

 Always sweet and ornery in high school, Pat is a doting, fun and adventurous dad as well. One Fourth of July, he and Janiece host a party for their kids and their kids' friends who fill the front yard with their games and antics. Janiece slips across the street to visit a neighbor when she's suddenly aware of how empty her front yard has become.

Curious, she walks back searching for her husband and the gaggle of kids who are supposed to be under his watch. In the empty house, she climbs to the second floor just in time to see one of her son's friends standing outside the bedroom window on the roof. Below she hears a chorus of young voices.

"Jump! Jump!"

Alarmed, she pulls the boy back inside and demands to know what he's doing. 

"Mr. Jones moved the trampoline next to the house so we could all jump on it from the second floor," the boy sheepishly explains. "He said it's what he and friends used to do."

Janiece, steady and cautious, is sometimes bewildered by Pat's daring attitude.

"You only live once!" Pat always advises his kids and young friends. "Go do stuff! Don't wait!"

It's the way Pat approaches life - with zest, humor and compassion. At Christmas time he purchases gifts for disadvantaged kids. One boy requests a basketball, and Pat looks long and hard for THE best basketball. When he coaches softball, he buys uniforms and pitching machines with his own money. As well, Pat is an avid bear hunter and looks forward with all his heart to his yearly hunting trip.

Pat, two months before his death, with Janiece,
Jennifer and her husband Andy, Mike and Jaci.

Pat and Janiece are happy people enjoying life and the pursuits of their young family. 

Pat is just 44-years-old when he reports to the doctor for his routine checkup. His blood tests, the nurse tells him, reveal some concerns. Even though Pat is a young man, he's advised to have a colonoscopy. Pat and Janiece think nothing of it when Dr. Crouch asks them to stop in his office and are hardly prepared for the news. 

"Pat, there's no easy way to tell you this," Dr. Crouch says gently. "It's colon cancer."

Stunned, Pat and Janiece struggle to absorb the news but rally quickly. Pat is young and will surely beat this, they wholeheartedly believe.

After an operation to resect part of his colon, Pat immediately starts chemotherapy treatment. He schedules his yearly bear hunting trip in Canada and looks forward to having the entire messy cancer episode behind him. But when his condition doesn't improve, he and Janiece travel to Mayo Clinic for another operation. The cancer has spread aggressively, his doctor tells him after the surgery. Now, the goal is only to make Pat as comfortable as possible.

"I had to stay strong for the kids," Janiece remembers. She also had to keep the business going. Of those difficult days, Janiece remembers the tremendous support she and Pat receive from their Central Catholic community, family and friends.

In spite of his terminal diagnosis, Pat's determined to travel to Canada for his bear hunt. Janiece is very much against the idea until her younger sister Jill, wise beyond her years, tells Janiece to let him go.

"He needs to do this," she advises Janiece.

Three weeks after his surgery at Mayo's, Pat leaves for Canada and comes back with two bears, one with a record-setting skull size.

Janiece with kids Jaci, Mike and Jennifer.

When he is bedridden just before his death, Janiece and his kids are at his side. Pat depends on his son-in-law Andy, Jennifer's husband, to carry him back and forth. They are all with him as Pat takes his last breath.

"Our kids were unbelievable," Janiece says. "I couldn't have gotten through it without them."

The Grand Island Central Catholic community, friends and classmates of the Joneses are stunned by Pat's death. We wonder how Janiece, a young widow, will cope with the loss of her husband, a business to run on her own, and life as a single mother.

Janiece with her grandchildren

Janiece Liske Jones, however, refuses to have people coddle her. She's still that spunky high school kid who played volleyball like a little pit bull terrier. 

"I had a decision to make," she says now. "I could cry and feel sorry for myself, or I could put on my big girl panties and fake being happy until it was real."

She chooses the latter. In the years after Pat's death, she decides to foster cats without homes. Her growing children marry and produce grandchildren. Daughter Jennifer and husband Andy give Janiece her first two grandchildren, Bella and Ryder. Jaci marries Sam Puente, and they add son Boston and  daughter Harper to the growing family. Mike marries his Megan, and Megan gives birth to Nolan. All Janiece's grandsons are given the middle name Patrick by their parents.

One summer in 2011, she's asked by the now late Bob Sorenson to help with the ABCDD softball league. Janiece, thinking it will be good for her to be active during the summer, has no idea how involved she will become. Currently, she serves as commissioner for the league which serves 650 girls' softball players. In 2011, however, she's only hoping for something to do to fill her summers, and it's there that she meets Bill Leach, a long time umpire for girls' fastpitch softball. Bill, like Janiece, will become very involved and serve as the Nebraska District 5 Commissioner and UIC (Umpire in Charge). Then, however, he's just a single father working hard at his softball duties who thinks the new lady, Janiece Jones, is very nice.

Bill and Janiece

It never occurs to Janiece that she will fall in love again. Bill Leach is a good guy, she thinks, and she enjoys hanging out with him at the softball fields. Still, he's nothing like Pat. For one thing he smokes, a habit Janiece detests. For another he's not Catholic, a sticking point for Janiece. Lastly, he's between jobs.

"Strike three!" Janiece laughs now.

After softball season ends, though, she discovers herself missing Bill's easy banter. He misses her, too. In 2012 they seal the deal to become an official couple.

"It was nice to feel I had a best friend again," she says. They introduce their kids to each other.

"Bill's kids became my bonus kids," Janiece says about Bill's daughter BaiLeigh and son Brennin.

Life was "super great," Janiece says. She and Bill share their softball duties, love attending their grandkids' activities, and love each other - quirks and all.

Janiece with foster kitties

Bill finds it difficult to quit smoking - a habit he's promised Janiece he will conquer. She catches him one day standing innocently in the yard. Then she notices the curls of smoke rising from the grass where Bill has hurriedly tossed his cigarette as he hears Janiece approach.

Bill, for his part, is living with a woman who houses homeless cats and all other manner of critters. One day Janiece's little black foster cat hops without warning into their burning fireplace. Janiece screams, and Bill, rushing to the fireplace, orders her to leave the room. Somehow he manages to steer the traumatized cat out of the fire who, miraculously, suffers only a few singed whiskers. 

Janiece is beyond grateful to be living with a man as besotted by her many foster cats as she is.

She is not enamored, however, with a pair of doves who continuously coo at the top of their chimney. They drive Janiece to distraction, but Bill loves the sound of the birds singing their love language to each other. 

Janiece can hardly believe she's been lucky to find a best friend again in Bill - a man so different from Pat in every way but just as loved. As with Pat, she and Bill are inseparable. They manage the softball league together, bowl together, cheer the Huskers together. Their grandchildren are the pride and joy of their lives.

Then the unthinkable happens again.

On a Monday evening late in March, Bill comes home tired and crashes on the couch. Janiece thinks nothing of it until the next morning. Bill doesn't wake up, and Janiece can't rouse him. Frantic, she calls an ambulance, but it's too late. 

Bill Leach, only 54 years old, has died.

Once again it is Janiece's children who rally around their mother. Jaci comes every night to stay with her mother. Mike arrives to comfort her, and Jennifer, Janiece's oldest, deals with Bill's business colleagues. Bill's son and daughter, in spite of their terrible grief, do their best to support Janiece, too.

Her sister Jill flies in for the funeral all the way from Saipan to be with Janiece.

"I've been thinking," Jill says, "how lucky you were to be blessed twice in a lifetime." 

Bill and Janiece surrounded by their kids
and grandkids

Her little sister's words are a balm. Sitting in her living room one day after the funeral, Janiece notices that, oddly, only one dove remains at the top of the chimney cooing its lonely love song. With her furry companions and her single dove, Janiece forces herself again to enter the land of the living.

She's hardly caught her breath when, two months after Bill's death, another bolt from the blue shatters her existence. She receives a call in the middle of the day that her youngest brother Jarrod has been in motorcycle accident. Without a thought, she rushes to her car and drives to the site of the accident. It's then she realizes her single dove has darted down from the chimney and flies next to her car. Whatever she is about to find at the crash site, she tells herself, Bill is by her side.

Her brother Jarrod does not survive, and Janiece, with the help of her brother Jim, must inform her parents of their youngest son's death. Life has never seemed as bleak or as hopeless as it does now. 

It's been two years since the passing of both Bill and Jarrod. Though still fragile, Janiece has chosen once again to be happy. She cries, she laughs, she remembers, and she's grateful. Above all, she has no interest in being the lady everybody feels sorry for. Janiece Liske Jones will always choose to be happy. 

"I guess I've always taken it for granted that I'll see the people I love again," she says. "I believe we'll be reunited, and I'm not afraid of death. I get angry with God," she says, "but I know he can take it. I don't know exactly what his plan is, but I can be patient and wait to find out."

In the meantime, there are kids and grandkids and bowling and cats and softball leagues and Huskers to claim her attention. 

Janiece chooses, as she does every day, to enjoy the many blessings in her remarkable life.