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 has been ejected from the crash and lies some yards away. Upon seeing 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 life and soul 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 Rock siblings astonish 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.

Jim Rea

 We've been friends for almost half a century, the five of us. 

Jim Rea

"The Splendor Vendors" we call ourselves - like the name of a club that 12-year-old kids make up. Really, though, the quirky name was from a writing class we took back in 1980. Never mind how the name came about. You only have to know it stuck for 45 years.

The class was offered to teachers for college credit through UNL, and the 30 or so of us enrolled were from Central Catholic, Northwest, Walnut and Barr Middle Schools and Grand Island Senior High. Bill Goa, Kermit McCue, Ken Bassett, Julie Kayl, Wilma Stevenson and an assortment of great educators from every school in the city were registered.

We were mostly seated that first night of class when a handsome, auburn-haired young man entered the classroom in a sedate and dignified manner - a little like royalty, I thought.

"There's a serious fellow," I remember thinking. I didn't suppose we'd have much to talk about.

I was wrong. Jim Rea was far from serious. It took all of three class sessions to drop our polite facades, and by the end of the semester we were having so much fun writing, reading and laughing that none of us wanted the class to end. 

Some of us, as a matter of fact, elected to keep the Splendor Vendors going. Each month for years and years we met at each others' homes. As usually happens, though, enthusiasm waned, and eventually only Jim, Kenny Bassett, Julie Kayl and I remained. Connie Allen, Jim's good friend and English teacher at Walnut, joined us. Then Jim dropped his bombshell.

"Arlene and I are moving to Lincoln," he announced one evening. Heavily involved in the Nebraska State Education Association (NSEA), he would be able to better serve the organization in Lincoln, he said. Eventually, he was elected the NSEA president. 

To say we were crushed was an understatement. On that very day, the Splendor Vendors ceased to exist. How could we go on without Jim, the life of the party? Jim, however, with Connie's help, refused to let our friendships with each other die. We committed ourselves to meeting as often as we could. Even if it was only once or twice a year, we continued to remain in each others' lives. Jim would come to Grand Island, we would drive to Lincoln, but most often we met in the middle at our favorite restaurant in York, Chances R.

The wonderful Rea family from left: Jim, Kevin,
Aaron and Arlene

You can't walk away from a 45-year-friendship. During those Splendor Vendor meetings through the long years, we learned everything about each other. Jim and his wife Arlene were advocates for Nebraska education, and we couldn't wait to hear about their boys - Aaron and Kevin. Once upon a time, they were small boys, then grown men, then husbands and fathers. We'd marvel at our conversations through the years. Our talk and laughter as young people in our 20's revolved around the funny stories of our young families and our students. By our 60's and 70's, discussions focused on grandchildren and good Medicare supplements. Always, though, we laughed. We'd linger at the table over those long yearly lunches, and Jim was genuinely fascinated and interested in our lives. Where was Ken's art work featured? Was Connie any closer to retiring as a school principal? What did Julie hear from her son in the military and her daughter in Las Vegas? How were my very tall husband and even taller sons faring? Jim wasn't being polite. He was truly curious.

During one of those delightful lunches at Chances R a couple of years ago, Jim asked us a favor. He and Arlene had been discussing funeral preparations - for that vague and unknowable time in the future. 

"I want an Irish wake when I die," he said, "and I want you four to promise me you'll tell stories about our crazy friendship as members of the Splendor Vendors."

We hardly knew how to respond. None of us wanted to talk about death. Weren't we having the most wonderful time laughing and remembering the good old days? Did we have to spoil it with talk of funerals?

Nevertheless, we promised we'd be ready to share stories of Jim. 

Death, as it turned out, was not so far away. Last summer at Chances R, Jim seemed distracted. Still, he regained his good humor. Just a couple of months later, however, he messaged us. He'd been diagnosed with a rare cancer, he said, and was starting chemo treatments. 

"How's the chemo going?" I texted him at the end of September.

"Cancer has a mind of its own," he replied. "Four rounds of chemo nearly did me in, but I managed to come out on the other side. Positive shrinkage of tumors."

Connie, Ken, Julie and I drove to Lincoln the next month to see him hoping he'd have good news to share. Arlene, as devoted a caregiver as there ever was, met us at the door before quietly leaving us alone with Jim to run her errands.

Our hopes about Jim's health dimmed as soon as we saw him. Thin and gaunt, our once engaging friend greeted us with subdued hugs. Gone was the Jim Rea who snickered and snorted when he laughed and put us so abruptly in our places with his wonderful, snarky comments. Instead, before us was a tired, heartbroken version of the man we loved. He wasn't sure he wanted to opt for more treatment, he said, and only really desired time with his family

We left soon afterward. Later at home, though, I texted him.

"Don't leave us yet, Jim!" I pleaded. "It isn't any fun without you!"

He didn't reply to many of our texts or phone calls after that. One letter arrived after the new year in which he thanked all his friends and family for their support. Otherwise, there was hardly a response at all. Respectfully, we backed away to allow him time with Arlene and his boys and family.

The word came just this last week. Jim lost his battle with cancer. The Irish wake Jim had planned so long ago will be this weekend at the Lincoln Haymarket. Hundreds of family and friends will gather to celebrate the life of the sardonic, sarcastic, loving, funny and wicked Jim Rea.

The Splendor Vendors won't be there. 

In the cruel way that life twists and turns, previous family commitments and illness will keep us away. Connie, Kenny, Julie and I are wrestling with a particular anguish. Jim asked us for this special favor. It was the only thing he ever asked from us, and we're letting him down.

Jim, wherever you are - and we'd like to think it's in a Heavenly pub cracking your evil jokes - we want to share our stories now. 

Connie remembers how you'd sneakily pay the bill at Chances R and that, in spite of your snarkiness, you were the glue that cemented our little group together. We shared confidences that would never leave the walls of the Splendor Vendor camp grounds.

"You've been missed recently," she said, "and now you will be missed through the rest of our times."

Did you know that Julie credits you with the success of her son? All those years ago when he was an eight-year-old struggling in school, you said to Julie, "I wonder if he has attention deficit disorder?"

It was a spot-on diagnosis. That struggling young boy is now a brilliant, productive man with an accomplished career and family.

"Your laughter at all our gatherings was contagious," Julie says. "You made us feel so happy and important, and I know you will make your presence and warmth felt by your family even though you can't be with them physically now."

Ken loved the way your face would turn red when you were really tickled and the way you would so masterfully tell a story as you built a hushed suspense. He remembers having lunch at your house when you made a chocolate pecan pie from scratch for us. Ken begged you for the recipe, which you happily furnished, and which Ken still has. He's never made that wonderful pie, but by God, he's going to soon.

Dear Jim, we will meet again. I can't wait to see your face - once more brimming with evil glee. I fully expect you to say something wicked. You ALWAYS were wicked.

"You don't look bad for your 80 years," you messaged on my 56th birthday.

Splendor Vendors from left: Connie Allen, Julie
Kayl, Cathy Howard, Kenny Bassett and Jim Rea

"Aren't you dead yet?" you wrote on my 65th birthday.

That was our Jim - the life of the party and the kindest tease I've ever known.

Ken, the truest poet among us, is facing his own health challenges these days. In fact, the day of our last gathering at your house, I remember the way you and Ken looked at each other with sympathy and the unutterable knowing of your common suffering. When we heard of your death, Ken shared this poem with us.

He is not dead, our friend, not dead;

But on these paths we mortals tread

He got some few trifling steps ahead

And nearer to the end.

So that when we come around the bend

We'll see him there,

Our friend whom we thought was dead.

"I didn't write it," sweet Ken wrote, "but I turn to it for comfort when death comes."

I'm keeping it forever, because it gives me comfort, too.

Goodbye for now, dear Jim. 

Please remain as wicked in Heaven as you were on Earth. God needs a good laugh, too.

Ellen May

Ellen May

Her entire name is Ellen Frances Warner. 

"Oh, FRANCES!" I tease her in the kitchen of the Kearney State cafeteria where we both sling hash for our fellow college students.

It's 1973, and Ellen and I are brand new freshmen working hard for our humble educations. Standing side by side over hot food warmers, we immediately hit if off and discover we share unusual similarities.

She's from Greeley, she tells me, and the youngest of ten children.

"I'm the oldest of ten!" I crow in amazement.

We discover that our birthdays are in April and that we've both grown up in big, devout Catholic families where memorizing the Act of Contrition and the mysteries of the Rosary is mandatory.

Breezy Ellen is beautiful, kind and fun and makes those long hours at Slaters Cafeteria pass quickly.

After college graduation, armed with our hard-earned teaching degrees, I'm delighted to learn that Ellen has secured a job at Northwest High School to teach special education. In the weird way our lives seem to run on parallel tracks, I'm teaching English across town at Central Catholic. Occasionally, we face each other down as the junior varsity volleyball coaches of our respective schools. The rivalry is friendly but intense. 

From left: Ellen, Cathy Betz and me

One day out of the blue, Ellen calls and asks if I'd be interested in renting a house together along with her bestie Cathy Betz - an English teacher at Northwest. I accept, and the three of us move in together. Betzie mows the lawn, Ellen cooks, and I take an occasional swipe at cleaning. One summer we fly to Reno together to play slot machines, take in some shows and even drive up to Lake Tahoe to tour the set of "Bonanza", our favorite TV show from the 60's.

"SEE THE USA IN A CHEVROLET!" we bellow and sing loudly as we drive up the mountain to the "Bonanza" house. It's the old familiar jingle that always introduced Ben Cartright and the boys. We giggle and feel like ten-year-olds.

Eventually Ellen decides to marry her boyfriend Chris May, and I am at the same time planning my wedding to John Howard. Our lives as single girls are ending. One afternoon, for whatever reason, Ellen and I reflect on the new chapters of our lives. How the discussion turns to faith, I cannot recall. What I have never forgotten, though, is Ellen's explanation of her prayer life.

"I only pray that I'll always have the strength to endure," she says quietly.

Me, left, and Ellen

Speechless, I feel both moved and ashamed. My own prayer life has essentially amounted to a grocery list: Please God, get me all the things I want. Here was my young friend Ellen Warner, however, asking only that God give her the strength to navigate the struggles of life.

That summer of 1984, Ellen and I celebrate our respective weddings a month apart. Two years later we're dumbfounded to discover both of us are pregnant and due at the same time. My son Kenny Howard is born September 23rd, and Amanda May arrives two days later on the 25th.

At Saint Francis Hospital, a nurse informs me that Ellen's room is just a few doors away. In my socks and hospital gown, I first pad down the hall to the nursery to check on the new additions. My Kenny thrusts a long arm up as if to acknowledge me through the glass window of the nursery. His poor head is noticeably oblong due to his tight descent down the birth canal. He doesn't have a single spear of hair, but to me he's the most beautiful human in the world. Tiny Amanda, a row away in the busy nursery, is perfect with her sweet round head, dark hair and rosebud mouth. She's a miniature of her lovely mother, and I can hardly wait to see Ellen.

"Do you have to copy every single thing I do?" I burst into her hospital room and reach down to hug her.

Ellen, left, and Cathy Betz

She laughs. "Why should you get all the attention?"

Our joy is incredibly short-lived. Just 15 days later, Ellen's little Amanda will die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Ellen discovers tiny Amanda lifeless in her crib and begins desperately to revive her. It is too late. 

All of us who know Ellen and Chris are devastated. Stunned, I hold Kenny close to me. Only two weeks old, he is absolutely essential to John and me. We love him beyond reason, and I cannot imagine life without him. 

When I knock on Ellen's door the very next day, I am hardly a bastion of support for my beautiful, grieving friend. Instead, as is typical, Ellen is the strong one. We clutch each other and weep. Eventually she shows me Amanda's little room with the rocking chair, the changing table, and the empty crib. The small, hollow room is gutted with sorrow.

"Oh Ellen," I sob, "I'm so sorry."

"No," she smiles through tears. "This room comforts me. I feel close to her."

A few days later, my giant of a father will accompany me to little Amanda May's funeral. Dad loves Ellen, too. At Northwest High School she's my youngest brother Jeff's Special Ed teacher and successfully coaxes him to rise to the difficult challenges of his life.

"Jeff's doing fine, Mr. Brown! Don't worry!" At parent-teacher conferences, Ellen constantly assures my dad - an overwhelmed widowed father of ten trying to do his best for Jeff. 

Ellen and Chris, center, with kids from left: Andy,
Nick and Andrea

Dad and I, at the rear of the funeral home, see Ellen and Chris bend over their beautiful but lifeless little Amanda in her tiny coffin. Their heartbreak pierces us, and my huge father snuffles loudly, desperately attempting to contain his tears.

This, I think, has always been the essence of my friend Ellen's most fervent prayer - possessing God's terrible strength to endure the impossible.

Two months later as Christmas approaches, I know with certainty that Ellen is enduring the impossible when I see Christmas lights strung around the roof of their house on Canon Road. I breathe a prayer of thanks for Ellen's faith and hope.

Ellen, top right, with seven of her nine 
siblings in 2014

Amanda's little room doesn't remain empty for long. In the years that follow her baby's death, Ellen gives birth to first Andy and then two more small siblings - Andrea and Nick. Like their parents they possess beauty, intelligence and athleticism. The three little Mays grow and flourish. My friend Ellen is a happy woman. We speak occasionally of Amanda, and I send a card most years. Ellen is not a girl for dwelling on unhappiness. She seems to have made her peace with Amanda's death and is once again her usual, serene self.

We're both busy parents, and while we don't see much of each other, I always look forward with glee to Ellen's Christmas letter with her own unique poem about family life at the Mays'. In addition Ellen's sisters Ann and Nancy send their children to Central Catholic. Eventually, we teach Nancy's grandchildren, too. Those Wieck and Dvorak kids are some of the best we've ever taught.

Ellen and Chris - center - with kids
and grandkids

Ellen's older son Andy - one of the finest boys and young men John and I have ever known - now has three children of his own with his beautiful wife Amy. Amy is our young fellow teacher at Grand Island Central Catholic. She and Andy have become like children to us through the years, and John and I love them both.

It's the same old story - Ellen's life seems to overlap with mine and mine with hers. Even when we don't see each other for months and months at a time, the people I love and who Ellen loves are constantly intertwined with us and each other.

The truth is, I think of Ellen almost every day. On the familiar route I've walked these many years through the Grand Island cemetery, I always pause at one special tree-shadowed corner. It's the grave of Ellen's little Amanda. Though I have never come upon Ellen at her little daughter's resting place, I observe the fruits of her labor over the changing seasons. The gaily wrapped Christmas package that lay close to Amanda's stone during these long winter months is now replaced by soft, spring finery. 

"Hello, Amanda!" I call out as I pass every day. Always I say a prayer. Next year it will be 40 years since Amanda's death. I can hardly believe it and often wonder what the adult Amanda would look like - very much like Ellen, I'm certain.

I'm especially remembering Amanda because tomorrow her own beautiful mother is celebrating 70 years on this earth. Everybody tells you the years pass quickly in old age, but I simply reject the fact that it's been more than 50 years ago since Ellen and I were scooping mashed potatoes together at the Kearney State College cafeteria. Her children are planning festivities and a family gathering for the big day tomorrow.

Ellen May is still beautiful and fitter than ever. She golfs, runs around like a kid with her grandchildren, and still radiates a serenity that comes from a life-time of faith and surrender. We are the same age - sweet Ellen and me - but she is a superior model of faith. I want to be just like my friend Ellen Frances Warner.  

Happy birthday, Ellie May. May you be surrounded by three generations of family who love you, and may you feel the closeness of Amanda - tomorrow and every day!