Time stands still as the garment of our lives is torn beyond repair.

As time races by, remembrance keeps it standing still. In just a few hours I will remember how I came home from teaching all day on Monday, and in the late afternoon saw the message light blinking on my phone. I had a sick feeling already, and when I listened to the message, "This is the nurses' station, please call us as soon as possible," I started shaking all over. I have never known that kind of fear in my life. I knew I would be on a plane to Texas the next morning, but I had no idea what was about to happen. Within two hours I was speaking my last words to my mother via phone as my brother was at her side with many other friends, and my cousin and aunt were racing to the hospital.

I will never forget my last words to my mother. Somehow I kept my composure and made a quick summary of our life together and how we would continue it after a few years of separation now, and that when we see each other again we will never be separated again for all eternity. I said I envied her, that she was about to be back together with all our other family members forever and catch them up on everything we've been doing all these years.

This hope is stonger that a year ago, yet the fabric of our lives has been torn beyond repair in this life - a huge central section of the garment of my life has been ripped out, and my life testifies to this unrighteousness as it looks forward to setting right all of these wrongs.

Until then I hope this short slide show can do some honour to my dear mother. The choir is singing Psalm 130 of the Penitential Psalms from the late medieval German composer Orlando de Lasso. This is an excerpt of the choir in which I sung here in this city in Germany. As we sing of the depths from which we call to God to hear our voice, we know we all face this someday at death, when travel through the shadowy valley to be in that existence called "paradise".

Our mother always modeled God's unconditional love to her family. She was faithful and dedicated; nothing was too much for her when it concerned her family. As well as I knew her, I know she waits and waits now with our father and our grandparents for the garment of our lives to be finally repaired.

Please join me in thankful loving remembrance of a faithful loving Christian lady, wife, and mother whose smile always made the day brighter.

de profundis clamavi ad te Domine Domine exaudi vocem meam

Reconciliation fulfilled by the perfect death and then resurrection - the alter of the church in Bad Schandau
Spring flowers remind us of the gift of life

The last week has begun. One year ago in this week my mother's condition began deteriorating rapidly. When the pulmonary physician said to her, "I don't like your condition at all; you are too weak to take care of yourself. You have to go to a nursing home so others can take this burden off of you." She was crushed, and I was scrambling trying to figure out how to arrange admission to a reliable nursing home in her area. Even brushing her teeth wore her out, and when home health care noticed she was stumbling through the house and falling asleep at the table, they called the doctor to arrange her immediate admission to the hospital for tests. And so she walked out of her house she had lived in since 1964, not knowing she would never see it again.

I loved (and still do) to climb trees. When I was three I was in the back yard one morning climbing and went too far - so far that I couldn't go back out of fear, so I though I would drop down on the ground. I was hanging there by my fingers when I looked down and realized it was too far to drop, so I started yelling for my mother to come. Quickly she ran out - dressed for work in her smart skirt, hose, high heels, etc., and there I was saying she had to catch me when I let go. After some discussion I finally let go and she caught me, but she never let me know how scared she was during that whole event. But that was more than my mother standing there catching me. Jesus' words on the cross were the same: "into your hands I commend my spirit." These were his words to his father, our father, who never lets us down. She'll catch me again when I see her next time.

in loving memory of another grandfather

On this day in 1977 my paternal grandfather passed away. He had been virtually bed-ridden since a major stroke paralysed his right side in 1969, I believe. My grandmother and my father, with his two brothers, always helped take care of him at their home in Hearne in Texas. Since he was born in 1891, he was quite old and always seemed to already be halfway out of this life for me. Since I was so young, I never had the chance to get to know him as well as my other grandparents.

Before the Great Depression he had been a rich cotton buyer and had been a reporter for the Houston Chronicle in his youth. He was thin, handsome, and very energetic. True to his 100% Irish heritage, he was 100% whiskey-drinking Irish Catholic with quite a temper. I have seen the "fighting Irish." His official name was Bernard Glenney, but we all called him "Hada", which was Irish for "grandpa."

For me, his death was the first time in my life I experienced the loss of someone I saw regularly; the thought of going to the house in Hearne and not seeing him, of my grandmother being a widow, was something completely new in my life. Little did I know that one year later my grandmother would join her husband suddenly, and within 13 years all my grandparents and my father would leave this life.

Someone who reads my blog here in Leipzig seemed concerned that my entries about the deaths in my family could indicate a problem with depression. Quite the contrary. I feel very at ease talking and writing about my loved ones I am temporarily separated from. I mentioned my faith as an important part of my thinking, and this person insisted that that was not what it was about - quite an interesting notion, to think that religion and death are not connected.
A careful reading of the New Testament - and a careful consideration of earliest Christian art and writings - shows a confident hope and expectation that someday the Christ (or Jesus, as many know him) will return, and with him all creation - and all people - will be restored to the way life was meant to be. Until that time, after death humans are in paradise (a word originally meaning a lush garden) awaiting the restoration of all things. That, at least, is an extremely truncated version of the course of things.
It is sad that so much Enlightenment, Existentialism, and modern scepticism have tempted the masses to cursorily dismiss religious faith as something for the uninformed or the weak. It is even sadder that so many seem to have found no really satisfactory way to confront death. I don't know if I do a good job, but I certainly feel strengthened, and my hope and anticipation of seeing all of these people again who taught me to love and care has only grown in the past years.

We often get jaded as we grow, realizing that we can't reach for the stars anymore, and that we will all die anyway, so what is the point of life? Just enjoy it while you can? Or just wallow in despair, realizing that the bitter end is coming someday?
For me, I know there is a big surprise coming, a reality so much more real than what we experience now, and when I have seen that, I will never want to come back to this existence again. And the best thing about that reality is that all my grandparents and parents and many others are there now wondering when my brother and I, and the rest of us, will join them. We all want to complete the circle, and it will happen - what goes around comes around.

So join me in fond loving memory of my Hada and your loved ones as we never forget that the story only begins when we close our eyes the last time.

a weekend in the Saxon Switzerland

Moses underneath the chancel in the church in Bad Schandau
Spring is coming - crocuses in the church flower garden.
A cafe in Bad Schandau - a fitting place for a rest after long walks.
And we wait patiently for our food after a long walk.
one of the train tracks in the Dresden main train station
the old city centre in Dresden - at the entrance to the Frauenkirche
The Frauenkirche - the Church of our Lady. Notice how small the people are up close to the building. After being almost leveled in the bombings, this church was rebuilt only with voluntary contributions.
One of my favorite places in Dresden - the bar and café Gänsedieb - Goose Thief.
Inside Gänsedieb - lots of warm wood and colors.

Here at mid-March I took a weekend to visit my friends in Pirna, just south of Dresden. I had a few hours late Friday afternoon in Dresden, so I took in the attractions of the things I like most in Dresden. Then on Saturday we went to the Czech Republic for shopping and then to Bad Schandau, a health resort, for some walking and resting in restaurants and cafés. It actually remained dry the whole day Saturday, so we spent the whole afternoon out walking and looking at things, as some of these photos attest.
I hope you had a good weekend filled with people and activities you like.

More Loving Memories

In this photo you see my great uncle "Willie" with my mother. I took this picture in September 2002, while my mother was visiting me in Austin. Willie was living in Austin in the North Loop area with his third wife (He outlived the first two.). He was about 96 years old at this time and probably the last member of our family from that generation still alive. He reminded us about the stories of his father, how Fritz Tesmer got on a ship in East Prussia when he was 18 to leave the old world and start a new life in Texas. My mother was so happy to see her uncle after so many years.
During my visit to Texas in December 2006 to January 2007, my mother and I drove down to Taylor to visit the cemetary where many on that side of the family are buried. We wondered if Willie was still alive. I found a new grave with his head stone, so we answered our question - he had died in March 2006, and with him a generation passed out of this life. And two years later my mother rejoined him. Within two years we experienced almost two complete generations passing out of this life.
With all of these events, suddenly 18 year old Fritz Tesmer's decision to board the ship to Texas in 1883 no longer seems so far in the past. Soon we turn around, and our children's children will stand at our graves, hopefully taking photos and blogging, documenting the past as we all learn to be thankful for each other.

In Loving Memory

27 years ago on this day my maternal grandfather passed away. He had always been a physically strong man, having worked on the railroad all his life. I was always close to him. He and my grandmother helped me learn German, since they were bilingual. With him I learned to fish, grow a garden, speak some German, and enjoy the ethnic central Texas culture. He and my grandmother only had one child, my mother, so my middle name comes from his first name. He was Edward Fredrick Tesmer.

True to his East Prussian heritage, he kept a spotless house, an immaculate yard, and everything always worked right at his house. He lived frugally, was a no frills man, and left my mother with investments to be built upon - these I continue to take care of as I try to be a good steward of this bequethed heritage.

Once in a convenience store in their small town the shopkeeper claimed all young people were dishonest and would steal in a shop if they had the chance. My grandfather immediately said his grandson Mark would never do that. The shopkeeper objected, so my grandfather told him it would be a long time before he ever bought anything there again.

His funeral was the first time I saw my mother and grandmother in true grief, but it is great comfort to know their grief has come to an end.
Since my life with him was a while back, I have no digital photos to upload. I still have to look for old ones to scan. But these words are an attempt to do justice to a grandfather whose strictness was tempered with a desire to share, all of which was surrounded by faithful love.