Wendell Noteboom (1944-2024)
wendell-way.jpg
It may be illusionary, but parents--especially grandparents--have an air of immortality around them. After all, they have been there forever, and it's natural, though inaccurate, to assume that this will always continue. So, when reality does shatter this illusion, it hurts, no matter how prepared you may think you are for it.
A couple of weeks ago my father-in-law Wendell Noteboom passed away. While it wasn't unexpected, it was still fast, and we had to work hard to ensure that Erin was able to go down to Fresno to be with her father at the end.
I've told you about my mother-in-law Rosemarie, and how you got on her bad side at your peril. Wendell was, in some ways, the opposite of that. He always struck me as a friendly and affable man, slow to raise his voice or confront. That affability, however, masked a sharp intellect and a passionate core that bent but never broke. Just as I was proud to have earned Rosemarie's respect, I was also proud to earn Wendell's respect because he didn't just give it away. And he was, after all, someone raised in a Dutch Calvinist household who married a Catholic. Part of that comes from being affable enough to set aside differences and focus on commonalities, but part of that is also knowing what you want and committing to that, regardless of the obstacles.
Wendell and Rosemarie divorced when Erin was in her late teens. Both would go on to remarry (Judy and Michael, respectively, who stayed with them until their dying days), but they remained on good terms with each other and fiercely loved their daughter, Erin, and their grandkids. Though it meant a lot of trekking, especially around Christmas, it was still a blessing to have three sets of grandparents to watch their grandkids grow.
But time marches on, and Wendell was living on borrowed time, born as he was with a congenital heart defect. The story I heard was that, when he was five, his mother was told that he wouldn't live to see the age of twenty. Because of his damaged heart, there was nothing they could do. It was just something he was going to live with. But this was just after the Second World War. The technology improved, and he received surgery to give him more years of life. When he was in his twenties and he and Rosemarie were courting, they were told that he would pass away before their kids were in their late teens. They married anyway, and had two kids. But this was the seventies, and the technology improved, and he received surgery that gave him even more years of life. Soon after the turn of the millennium, Erin and I gathered with the rest of the family as he went to the Mayo Clinic to have a groundbreaking surgical procedure that finally closed the hole in his heart, giving him another twenty years of grace.
Finally, soon after he turned seventy-five, he was told that his heart and the technology inside him that was supporting it was wearing out, and there was little anybody could do. But why should they apologize, he asked. Wasn't this what they said seventy years ago? Successive interventions had borrowed enough time for Wendell to have a full life, with kids and grandkids. Who could ask for anything more?
It's one thing to think you're prepared for the end, but it's another to encounter it. Erin is doing as well as can be expected, and I know that the kids and I will miss Wendell fiercely. We know that his wife Judy will miss him, as will her kids, who got to call him Dad, and the grandkids. I am grateful for the times I spent with Wendell, especially so knowing how hard fought they were won.
https://bowjamesbow.ca/2024/09/01/wendell-noteboo.shtml