In Memoriam
Lorrie Menninga: Composer, God Wrestler, Friend
Less than a week before her death Lorrie was in our living room for our biweekly small group meeting. We asked her to tell us how we could help her, and she said she eventually would need transportation to the hospital once a week for her chemo treatments. She wanted someone to be with her, to be another pair of ears, during these appointments. I remember thinking I would mow her lawn for her.
She recalled tearfully that when she had cancer four years ago there was a point when she wanted people around her but didn’t necessarily want to talk to them the whole time. She mentioned board games might be a good way to facilitate this quiet companionship. She said she wasn’t at that point yet this time around, but in the future she could be.
Our small group has been going through Richard Foster’s and Emilie Griffin’s Spiritual Classics, and we were on the John Milton chapter at our last meeting. The chapter includes two of Milton’s famous sonnets, one on his disappointment with what he had accomplished by age twenty-three and one on his blindness. Looking at the first sonnet, we talked about yearning as the combination of disappointment and hope. Roger said it was too bad Milton was so hard on himself.
We were running out of time, so I asked if we could move along to the next sonnet, “because I really like this sonnet,” I said. Lorrie said she did too and could we wait until next time to discuss it to give it the time it deserves, and we all agreed that was a good idea. Because of scheduling conflicts we decided to meet the very next Sunday instead of waiting our customary two weeks.
Lorrie died the following Friday morning at 3:30. Father Chuck said some of her family was around her at the time of death.
But here is the cruelty of death: an undiscussed sonnet, a scheduled conversation that will not be, a life broken.
Lorrie will not be at our small group this Sunday, tomorrow. But I find myself asking, Is she still here, this composer of hymns, this wrestler of God? Is she with me now as I write this? Is she looking over my shoulder, maybe, touched by my little tribute to her? I hope so, and yet I do not know. I simply do not know.
Lorrie Menninga. She was a person it would not have been natural for me to befriend. We did not have much in common. But over this past year we in our small group came to know her as a wise and sincere person, a person devoted to working out inner turmoil, a faithful servant to her Almighty. She was not a superficial person. She was melancholy. That’s just who she was. She was serious, but I still remember her smile too. She became known among us for the elaborate snacks she sometimes brought to our meetings; I especially liked her cheese balls flecked with parsley.
She was a good friend, a good person with whom to be on the journey of faith. And now she’s gone. I’m still trying to grasp this reality. I suppose I will be for some time.
Less than a week before her death Lorrie was in our living room for our biweekly small group meeting. We asked her to tell us how we could help her, and she said she eventually would need transportation to the hospital once a week for her chemo treatments. She wanted someone to be with her, to be another pair of ears, during these appointments. I remember thinking I would mow her lawn for her.
She recalled tearfully that when she had cancer four years ago there was a point when she wanted people around her but didn’t necessarily want to talk to them the whole time. She mentioned board games might be a good way to facilitate this quiet companionship. She said she wasn’t at that point yet this time around, but in the future she could be.
Our small group has been going through Richard Foster’s and Emilie Griffin’s Spiritual Classics, and we were on the John Milton chapter at our last meeting. The chapter includes two of Milton’s famous sonnets, one on his disappointment with what he had accomplished by age twenty-three and one on his blindness. Looking at the first sonnet, we talked about yearning as the combination of disappointment and hope. Roger said it was too bad Milton was so hard on himself.
We were running out of time, so I asked if we could move along to the next sonnet, “because I really like this sonnet,” I said. Lorrie said she did too and could we wait until next time to discuss it to give it the time it deserves, and we all agreed that was a good idea. Because of scheduling conflicts we decided to meet the very next Sunday instead of waiting our customary two weeks.
Lorrie died the following Friday morning at 3:30. Father Chuck said some of her family was around her at the time of death.
But here is the cruelty of death: an undiscussed sonnet, a scheduled conversation that will not be, a life broken.
Lorrie will not be at our small group this Sunday, tomorrow. But I find myself asking, Is she still here, this composer of hymns, this wrestler of God? Is she with me now as I write this? Is she looking over my shoulder, maybe, touched by my little tribute to her? I hope so, and yet I do not know. I simply do not know.
Lorrie Menninga. She was a person it would not have been natural for me to befriend. We did not have much in common. But over this past year we in our small group came to know her as a wise and sincere person, a person devoted to working out inner turmoil, a faithful servant to her Almighty. She was not a superficial person. She was melancholy. That’s just who she was. She was serious, but I still remember her smile too. She became known among us for the elaborate snacks she sometimes brought to our meetings; I especially liked her cheese balls flecked with parsley.
She was a good friend, a good person with whom to be on the journey of faith. And now she’s gone. I’m still trying to grasp this reality. I suppose I will be for some time.
posted by ChadRAllen @ 7:57 AM
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