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No matter how careful the nursing and housekeeping staffs, the smell of body fluids hung in the room. Tubes seemed to come everywhere from the patient's body. The blinds were pulled. An older woman and middle-aged woman sat in the shadows beside the bed. Stella Hosworth and her daughter Edna had nothing more to say. The doctor had just left after discussing the ending of life support. He was direct but gentle. The decision was obvious, everyone agreed. Still, although the decision was as much as made before anyone spoke, it was difficult.

The Reverend Henry Hosworth, seventy years and one month old, laid with legs slightly elevated beside his wife and stepdaughter. For six days he had made no response to touch, sight, or sound. Stella said, "It's like he's half been killed. There's no District Superintendent with less tact than Barry Barnes."

"I know," Edna said, "and placed her right hand on her mother's shoulder, her left hand on her stepfather's hand. The Reverend Henry Hosworth, unresponsive to touch, sound, or light for six days, felt his step-daughter's hand and heard her voice.

"Thank you, Edna. I can't mumble a sound or force a limb to move, but I hear you. Thank you for comforting your mother. I want you both to know it's all right. It's all right as never before. Console your mother for me and let her know it's all right."

* * *


I met your mother on the most horrible day of my life. I was 21 and preaching the first sermon in what was to be my church, my first church after I graduated from college. I was never more frightened, nor have I ever preached worse. Yet as I stood at the door of the church dripping with relief that the ordeal was over and greeting the worshipers, up stepped your mother to shake my hand. Here's this short young lady, very pretty, and very pregnant, and I know I have told you dozens of times, but I stretched out my hands and placed them on her stomach. Couldn't resist. All my life around women, five older sisters, and all of them married with children. I've never done it before or since, but I reached out and touched her tummy. You were in there. First time I knew of you and I did my best to touch you.

Stella smiled shyly and didn't seem to mind this stranger patting her. Next to her, and how I hadn't seem him before I don't know, was this giant -- red-haired, with teeny, round, thick glasses and a smiling face, one enormous hand wrapped around a miniature Bible and with the other hand he buried my right hand. He was the biggest, reddest, happiest man I have ever met: your father, Garret Swensen.

There was no one like Garret, all about him was joyful. Life fit him, and he fit life. Within a couple of months, for all the struggling I was doing toward a sermon every Sunday, Garret became my friend, as no one in my life had been. I was out to their farm almost every day. Your mother taught school till you were born. Garret said, "If you want to be a farmer, you need a wife with a good job."

I was learning how to farm, but every day was like my first day. I was raised in the city -- five older sisters, and my father died when I was seven. I was raised by six women. But working with your father made me a man. I'd be hooking up the horses and they'd never do what I wanted. I'd push and yell, then Garret would speak their names and touch them. He would give that thick-lipped smile and say, "It's all right, Henry."

Later that first year Garret bought a tractor, a used John Deere Model B. I'd spin the fly-wheel, then try to adjust the choke and flip off the petcock on the cylinder. I'd take half a dozen tries to get it started. Garret would say, "Take it easy, Henry. It's all right."

Your father never swore, never missed church or hurried. The nearest he came to hurrying was to go fishing. He loved fishing almost as much as he loved you and your mother. We'd finish milking the cows, then off to the stream -- I think you've been back there, a pretty good piece of water on Lawkton Creek. We'd fish and talk. I remember sitting there and asking him why he had such a small Bible when his sight was so poor. He said, "If you're going to read God's Word, why not concentrate real hard?"

I always said he asked me everything about the Bible from Aaron to Zion. He'd ask why you had to baptize people; about the different ways that churches celebrated the Lord's Supper; he wondered about people of non-Christian religions. I'd give my opinion. He'd ask, "Is that true, Henry?"

I'd say, "Sure is."

He'd say, "Have you talked to God about this, Henry?"

I'd answer, "Certainly." Then I'd ask his opinion. He'd explain his thinking to me. I'd ask him, "Is that a fact, Garret?"

He'd answer, "A fact."

I'd ask, "Have you discussed this with God?"

"Certainly."

Then we'd laugh and he'd come up with another subject. Your father was the brother I'd never had. When Garret was in worship, his huge face beaming with love for God and love for life, only then did I come near to preaching well. I'd be talking to him, trying to answer the questions I knew he was asking. I'd complain that I couldn't preach well and he'd say, "It's all right, Henry. You're doing all right."

I know you've heard this all your life, but it was that day fishing. We were sitting there -- early evening after three days of planting. We hadn't fished those days, so we nearly ran to the creek. We were talking about faith and life and your father's rod snapped with the bite of a whale. Garret sprang to his feet and I was beside him telling him I could see it and it was huge. A Dolly Varden, I think. Must have been eleven or twelve pounds. He fought it for ten minutes when the line snapped and he stood a second looking disappointed. He said, "I'm gonna' get 'im." And with two giant steps he leaped into the creek, feet first, overalls flapping. He was down and up, then down and up again, and I was standing on the bank not knowing what to think or do. Garret yelled, "Come on in, Henry, the water's just right." So I jumped in, and it was like diving into liquid ice. I came up gasping and Garret laughed until he choked and splashed me and I splashed back and we laughed so hard we almost drowned. We dragged ourselves onto the bank laughing ourselves silly. Then we took off across the field toward the house, hardly able to stand for our laughing, and we burst into the house and blubbered on to your mother, trying to tell her what happened.

That evening at dinner we'd look at one another and laugh. We laughed once a minute all evening. You didn't know what we were saying, but you and your mama laughed too. Every hour the next day I thought about Garret flying through the air in overalls and hitting the water with his long boots. Then on Sunday I had to stand up front and try to preach with this haystack-sized man, arms crossed, smiling at me from the second row.

I have probably fished forty times a year since then and every time I think of your father. No one was better than your father. No one more sincere or faithful. That's why he said he couldn't stand it any more. He signed up to serve in the army in January of 1944. He didn't have to, because of his eyes, plus being a farmer, but by then they were taking almost anyone. He gave up his deferment, and enlisted.

The day he left for the Pacific I went along to the train station. Your mother was holding you. I said my good-byes and left them to be alone. I'll always remember your father walking away, his huge body in uniform. I watched them go, my legs shaking and my intestines cramping. He turned and, with a big smile, waved good- bye, then walked on.

We wrote to him every day and his letters came with the words, "Passed By US Army Examiner." He alternated, addressing his letters to me and writing the letter, "To Henry and Stella," and then to your mother, "To Stella and Henry." But on June 12, 1945, a telegram was delivered, informing your mother that your father was killed 1 June, 1945, on Okinawa.

The next year was almost as hard for me as for your mother. She had to sell the farm, get a teaching job again, find sitters for you. I had to adjust to having no one smiling at me in the congregation, no one to farm with, fish with, talk with, or teach me how to be a man. I had no one to ask me questions about the Bible -- not like your father, anyway.

Your mother and I loved the same person, why couldn't we love each other? With the poorest of reasons to get married, we did, in January, 1946. You were three.

We kept Garret's photo on the piano, and talked about him often. We both grieved for him. On our piano he stayed eternally young. Without him I had my usual difficulties preaching. I never preached a good sermon in my life. Thus I was doomed to be pastor in the smallest churches, and never stay long in any church; and your mother had to substitute whenever a school phoned her.

Your mother and I tried hard to make a good marriage. But most difficult for me was when she slipped and called me "Garret." The times decreased across the years, but one night when you were about eight she rolled over in her sleep and said, "Garret." I tried to get back to sleep, but finally I went next door into the church building, held my head against a pillar and wept. Your father whom I so loved, I now also hated.

We also had problems because of my ministry. Every church I served complained about my preaching. The same complaints at every yearly performance review, but in a year or two those who could not abide my preaching had left, and the rest knew that no matter how I tried I could not improve, so they stopped talking about it.

Your mother could remain silent only so long, then her embarrassment would overtake her and she'd try to help. She'd say, "You did it again, got stuck and quoted John 3:16." She was right. I had a professor in college, the most arrogant, cruel teacher who ever instructed future pastors; but one day in class he answered a question by glancing at his Greek New Testament and rattling off this translation, "For God actually loved the world so much that he offered his unique son, that whoever would trust in him might not be wasted, but have boundless life." It's as though each of those words were written upon the chalkboard of my mind; and Stella was right. Every time I got flustered I'd quote it.

Once she said, "Say something funny some time."

"You say something funny and I'll quote you," I said. "I'm not funny. Garret should have been the preacher, not me. He could make anyone laugh." I looked at her wishing she would contradict me and tell me that, no, I was the one called to the ministry; but she said nothing, turned, and left the room.

Those were difficult years. I was fighting with my emotions at home and fighting with sermons at church. I tried sermon magazines, summer courses, books of religious poetry. Behind the pulpit every Sunday I'd look out on the courageously kind, the bored, and the sleeping. Yet Stella and I held together, because we had promised God, but also I think we had promised Garret. No matter what happened, one of us always tried again, and sometimes we laughed. Through those middle years we struggled to an understanding: I was not Garret for her, neither was she Garret for me. At first we struggled to a truce, but the truce grew into genuine peace.

You were the constant joy of our life. Somehow you grew up; and the day we returned from the hospital where we'd seen you hold our first grandchild I said to Stella, "How Garret would have loved to see his grandchild."

"Yes, he would," Stella said. We both glanced toward the piano, but Garret's photograph was gone. I looked wide-eyed to Stella, but she said nothing, turned, and left the room.

These last years we have worried about retirement. I stayed in the ministry because we would only receive a small pension and Social Security. We had no savings. I continued to work after 65, but when my seventieth birthday approached our toothy District Superintendent, Barry Barnes, came to inform me that seventy was mandatory retirement age. I told him I couldn't afford to retire, but he said, "I know, Henry, you're 'just a poor, country preacher.' Well, I agree, I've heard you preach." And he laughed in my face.

I tried to convince the Administrative Board to petition the Bishop's permission allowing me to serve longer, but a week later a member of the Board came to tell me they were planning a retirement party for me, inviting parishioners from all my former parishes.

That last Sunday was awful -- all those people coming because of Stella and me, and I had to preach. I felt I should summarize half a century of ministry. I was humiliated, shaking worse than usual, stuttering, the words on the manuscript blurring. I pretty well quit half way through and said that a dear professor in college translated a phrase of the Bible that well summarized the Christian faith: "For God actually loved the world so much that he offered his unique son, that whoever would trust in him might not be wasted, but have boundless life." Then I quit, and we had a fine party after worship.


* * *


A month later here I am. Yet there's a towering red-haired young man with a ruddy face beaming with glory. He says, "Take it easy, Henry," and he assures me that everything is all right. He says, "God actually loves you so much that he offered his unique son, that if you trust in him you might not be wasted, but have boundless life." He says, "Come on, Henry, let's talk to God about it"; and he smiles and walks away, beckoning me to follow. And it is all right. Please tell your mother. It is finally all right.



Discussion Questions

Text: John 3:16

1. What immediate responses do you have to the story?


2. If you could have a conversation with one of the characters in this story which would you speak with and what would you ask or say?


3. Do you identify with any character in the story?


4. Have you quoted a Bible text to others, only to realize later that you had not accepted it yourself?


5. Have you had a friend whose presence made life and faith easier?


6. Has a friend's death greatly affected your life?


7. In that Christ rewrites our lives, what from this story would you like to have happen in your life?