Uncle Ken

Last Friday morning at 5:30 AM, my phone rang. It was my mom, who had just flown to South Carolina for a wedding. My stomach dropped. She told us that her oldest brother, my Uncle Ken, had passed away suddenly from a heart attack. We were all completely shocked...only 63 years old, Uncle Ken had just retired and was so excited to spend the next chapter of his life relaxing and playing with his grandkids. It just didn't really seem real.

I have been thinking about writing this post since last Friday morning, but wasn't quite sure how to go about it. It's been a long, sad, and exhausting week. The memorial service was Wednesday. Everyone who loved Ken was there and got to share the things they loved most about him. Beautiful and heart breaking all at once.

Two things have really struck me this week...

1) During the service, the pastor talked about the question why. Why do some people get 99 years and others get 63? Why do some people get 10 chances and others get none? I appreciated that his answer was we don't know why. And because we don't know why things like this happen, we have to shift our focus to the quality of our years, not the quantity. We have to embrace our family and friends because we just never know what might happen.

Uncle Ken was given 63 years. Not as many as we would have liked, but he certainly made the most of each and every one. Here are some of my favorite memories...

Tractor rides at the cabin...Uncle Ken spent HOURS driving up and down the road giving tractor rides to all of the kids. Karen, his daughter, actually said that she wished we could just drive the tractor right down the aisle at the memorial service because that pretty much summed Ken up. Here is Payton (crazy hair huh?) on her first 4th of July tractor ride in 2004. She was only about a month old.
And here is Brady's first ride on his first 4th in 2007. He is about 3 months old, and could have used some of his sister's hair!
The 4th of July Parade. Uncle Ken decked out his truck every year so that all the kids could ride in the parade. They rode the first two miles of the parade and threw out all of their candy. Then they would pull off the to the side and hop out, collecting all of their lost candy back from the rest of the parade behind them :)

Uncle Ken and his fireworks show. Indian Hills puts on a large fireworks show every year. It's awesome to hear the booms echo through the mountains. Sometimes, however, they run into some glitches and there are large pauses between rounds of explosions. Uncle Ken remedied this problem each year by putting on his own mini-shows. He always pulled the hose out and watered down all of the grass nearby. He always laid out three square boards in the road so the fireworks could be set down with balance. And he always missed most of the big show because he was setting up the little show so he was ready for the pauses. This was exactly the kind of man Uncle Ken was. Willing to do all the little things behind the scenes to make sure everyone else enjoyed themselves.

Uncle Ken and his bikes. Josh and Jake, Ken's grandsons, said that one of their favorite memories of their Opa was that he always gave them their bikes. As they grew, they got new and upgraded models. This past summer, Uncle Ken took one of the original bikes and gave it a tune up. It looks brand new (another one of Uncle Ken's most well known traits...he was super clean, organized and absolutely meticulous). He passed the bike down to Brady, who absolutely LOVES it.
I'm so glad that we have these pictures and memories. We will miss Uncle Ken greatly. But, we will look back at his life as one lived with quality. He was kind, caring, and a servant.

2) The second thing that struck me this week, and the way I will end this post, were the lyrics to Amy Grant's song called Better Than A Hallelujah. You can go here for the whole song.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah.