Kristin's Eulogy of Dad

My beautiful daughter shared the following words at the "Homegoing" yesterday for Stanley Jay Vander Klay.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?

8 

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 

even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

I was being homeschooled and I’d been left at my grandparents’ house for the day when my mom ran errands. It was Grandpa’s job to help me memorize my Bible verse, psalm 139 that week. I can still remember him and I sitting by the window in the living room, him patiently reading me the psalm over and over again, or more reciting than reading, because, as I believed, Grandpa had the entire Bible memorized. He didn’t move, wasn’t distracted, until I had memorized the entire psalm to his liking. On the way home, Mom told me “Grandpa said you picked that psalm up fast. You must have gotten your mind from him.” And at that moment, my seven-year-old heart swelled with pride, because what greater compliment could I get than that I could be like him in any way.

I couldn’t have asked for a better grandfather growing up. I have countless memories of him coming sledding with us, building a snowman, sliding down the children’s slide at Fairwoods, and most of all reading. Every grandchild spent countless hours on Grandpa’s lap, listening, attention arrested as his voice resonated deep into our hearts and memories. It didn’t matter what he was reading, only that he was reading with us. His voice, used to commanding the attention of the church, made every story magic. When I did have to read to myself, however, I tried to do it in my grandpa’s study. In my mind, Grandpa and Jesus were best friends, and the study is where the two of them would visit with each other. To me, there was no more soothing room in the house. When I would stay with my grandparents and sleep in the study, I never feared nightmares, because how could bad dreams come to a room where God practically lived?

As I grew up, I began to appreciate new things about him. I listened as he punned his way through so many family conversations, and watched in awe as he showed slideshows of his time in Paterson, every photo the story of a new person whose life he had been a part of. I giggled when he told me funny stories about messing up the lyrics to church songs or reminisced about his childhood. And most of all I cherished those times when I would get my grandfather all to myself, when he would sit down with me and discuss the Bible, my religion classes, and his own Bible studies and work at the church. Other times he would bring me up to his study and show me photos of his most recent trips, naming every new person he had met. One of the last times I visited with him, I remember thinking, “I am so excited to be getting to the point in my life when I can enjoy my grandpa as much for his brain as I already do for his heart.”

But that was my grandfather. A man who was beautiful inside and out for the love he showed other people, the faith with which he walked with God, and the way that he adored his family. Psalm 139 is all about how well God knows us, how we cannot escape his love for us. But right now, verses 7-10 mostly remind me of my grandfather. He isn’t really gone. He lives in all of us, in our memories, and in the way he touched all of our lives, and I am so grateful to God for giving me the time that I had with him.

Dad

Below is the eulogy that my brother spoke of my father at his "Homegoing" yesterday.

http://paulvanderklay.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/eulogy-for-my-father-stan-vander-klay/

This was my father. Stanley Jay Vander Klay born in May on Mother's Day... in Vesper Wisconsin 77 years ago. Born the first born son of a preacher and an amazing intelligent mother, Stanley was always extremely smart and yet almost too Savant for his own common sense.

His mother, aptly named Grace would become extremely frustrated with his antics. Things like leaving dirty socks on the piano or the time that he climbed into her pantry where she had a card table set up for the woman's tea and he climbed under the card table, stood up and broke her whole tea set.

He never knew his own strength. A very strong boy and man indeed. He sent his sister flying across the room once, by accident. Broke our stuck zippers on our clothing and even a few years back stretched his dad's exercise rubber so hard it broke and he broke the light as his arm railed into it. He was the most surprised of all but his 82 year old mother just knew it was coming.

He was a gentle man. A sweet man. A quiet man. But a man given to great fun and humor. He was real and authentic.

As a pastor himself he loved God more than anything in his life. His days consisted of reading and memorizing the Bible. He had a good part of it committed to memory and was still working at it daily. He prayed long hours so that the room he worked in, his study, was always anointed with the presence of God. Colicky grandchildren slept well in his room and good dreams were blessed to the sleepers in the room.

He was a holy man. He lived with complete integrity. He was beautiful. God lived through him.

He didn't carry much money around because he would give it all away and he didn't have a lot of it to start with. 

He cared about people... bottom line. Helping them grow in God. That was his mission in life and he did it with grace and love. He did not judge. He prompted people to look at God's word.

His preaching was powerful and effective. He bridged the gap of both young and old.

Later in life he worked as an interim pastor. He could go into a church situation that was in conflict and bring grace and resolution into the situation. Great grace was in him.

He loved young pastors and loved mentoring them, because he had so much to give them. So much to teach them. 

I just stand here as his daughter and say, no, he wasn't perfect - but I don't know HOW he wasn't perfect. I never saw that man sin.... ever.... He always took the high road.... always took the road of love. He was the real deal and I will always thank him for the testimony he left me.

Grief

It's too painful... this loss to fresh.

The loss of my dear father... the man that gave me life and sustained me...

The man who taught me to drive, taught me about God, taught me to be a servant,

He was the man who passed on his gifts to me... preaching, pastoring, teaching, loving...

Yes, my part Jewish father loved the Lord with all his heart and soul and dedicated
his life to service in the christian church.

He never skipped a beat. From the inner city of Paterson, NJ, to the farmlands in upstate New York and finally culminating with the New England crowd serving two churches as interim pastor and enjoying every minute of it.

My dad, full of grace and love, to his family and all others. A beautiful man... one of a kind.

Suddenly, out of the blue, after getting a clean bill of health, my dad passed on yesterday.

A healthy, athletic man... dropped dead in the early part of his elder years.

There was no time for final goodbyes -

There was no "you were the best dad and I love you soooo much" .... time

There were no "thank you for all you've done for me" and " I will miss you greatly" time

But I took the time throughout the years daily to tell him I love him.

There was always a kiss and a hug greeting me on my arrival.

I did stop by and chat with him when time allowed. When he smiled at me, I knew it was all going to be alright for he had a direct line to God. This Godly man was taken from the earth before there was TIME.

I want MORE time. I want more time - just a little more to tell my dad... thank you.

Thank you for you were a great blessing from God and I treasure all that you have passed on to me.

Thank you for being my hero and showing me that there are good men out there.

Thank you for your great faith in God.

Thank you for teaching me to love and serve and believe the best of people.

I want more hugs and kisses - they made my day... filled me with life.

I want MORE time for he and my mom to just hang out and do their thing. Being the stable couple that they always were. 52 years plus as a team and a unit. The stable factor in my life. Two very different people coming together to bring complete unity and love to our family and to the world.

I did let him know a few days ago that I was glad God spared him and that I wasn't ready for him to go yet. He reassured me that he would be around a long time.... I guess that wasn't his to reassure.

No one knows the time that you will be called away.

My dad was my number one faithful blog reader. He was my strength, my security, my grace, my love.

He stood tall above other men, not just in stature but in spirit.

He thrived on adventure.... and loved all people great and small.

He was love personified and it has been more than a few that have said to me that if they could see Jesus today, it would have been him.

He fought for the side of good in the race wars, bringing people to unity in Christ.

He planted a church.

He built Habitat houses through out the city of Paterson.

He was instrumental in starting an addicts rehabilitation center.

He was used to start an alternative school.

He led multiple people to the Lord AND buried them. He helped people off of drugs, poverty, despair, and brought more food to people than I've probably every seen. He loved all and served all in whatever way was needed. He was never too great.

Yes, he held a PhD but never used the title. Humble to a fault.

Yes, this beautiful, godly man has been taken so suddenly from the earth that none of us had a second to pause and release.

We believe he is in a better place - filled with family and friends. He was always ready to go, never afraid of death and still believing he'd live on into his late 80's at the very least. He died at age 77.

The world is now without a full picture of grace. Churches are without their spare pastor. Groups of young preachers are without their older and wiser mentor who knew so much and shared so greatly.

A woman is without her husband. Grown children are without their father and grandchildren have lost their grandpa. The world will never be the same for us. I've lost my dog sitter, my errand man, but mostly my spark.

Stories now come out of the woodwork about how my father has touched others lives. In 55 years of active ministry, done to the fullest, of course that would be the case.

My father had integrity. He walked the talk. He kept the faith. He fought the good fight.

He was one of a kind. A man with a broad smile and sparkly eyes that brought love into the room and into the hearts of those he spoke with. He was a jewel of the most beautiful kind.

So here I am.... going through the motions. I'm living a form of life, without the essence of life. It will take time.....

My life and the lives of others were forever changed by Stanley Jay Vander Klay born in May on Mother's Day. He was a great gift to us all in his time. and now his memory will live on in my heart and  the hearts of others forever.

Authenticity

Is who you are inside apparent to the outside world.

Yes, we all have masks and facades that hide our real jewel. It's easy to want to please people so we present something other than who we really are or our true feelings about a matter. We say yes when we want to say no and then end up feeling used, while we continue to smile and act as if it's okay.

When who you are on the inside does not match who you are on the outside, you experience anxiety. When your deep inner goals and reality do not come to the surface, unrest is formed. When you say yes when you mean no, resentment builds. When you smile when you are crying inside, your spirit hurts.

Throughout life, little by little we can steer away from our true essence if we are not careful. Sometimes people end up on the wrong road, leading a life that doesn't reflect their interests or express their hearts.

I get it. Sickness, hatred, cheating, death, decay, lying and all manner of bad things get in the way of our desire to experience wholeness. We often say to someone who can't reconcile the bad things in their lives "well what do you want - Heaven on earth" as if it's so wrong to long for the beauty that we were created for. The life that our souls want to lead.

I can't tell you how to wipe away all problems. That will come in time. However, I can tell you that right now, in very simple ways you can start to live your life with more authenticity - with a more real expression of who you are on the inside and have your outsides match.

The very first thing you need to do is determine that you WANT to do it. You may make some people angry (when you say no). You may not "fit in" where you have been trying to hard to belong. You may have to let a few areas of comfort and security go by the wayside and live a life with higher risk. These are the choices that you must weigh if you are going to live with a more authentic expression.
It's not for the feeble or faint of heart!

If you can pass go - you can collect the $200! State your intention. "I am ready to practice what I preach". "I am ready to live by my true desires." "I am ready to show myself to the world!"

Ok, good start. Now look inside and find out some areas that you are NOT living authentically.

Do you hate your job? Does it stand for everything you stand against? (Hard one - I know, you have to eat and pay the bills). Are there any changes that you can make that will support your highest good - your true self - your purpose? Can you go back to school? Can you make a lateral move into a new position? Can you accept less money but find more joy in what you do? Think about it.

Do you know the good you should do and NOT do it? Diet and exercise is a good example. Most people know exactly what to do to be healthy, but it's SO HARD to go against the forces of society and stand up for what you believe in and treat your body like the temple that it is. (For more on that read over my other entries for the past few months, in my battle to reclaim my health and my body).

Do you say yes when you want to say no? It's time to examine your people-pleasing ways. REALLY. Don't you owe it to your true self to live the truth. You help no one by giving in! Do the inner work that you need to do to deal with this issue. Get still and quiet and look deep within to see what your spirit is whispering to you about these things.

Your integrity is everything you know. People sense right away if you are really who you appear to be. You are fooling no one, especially yourself.

You have one life on this earth, in this body and you need to decide if you are going to let that little light shine in your, or are you going to let other people turn down the switch and dim your light.

Live with authenticity today... it's good for the soul!

On a more personal note - you will be glad to know that yesterday I took a day off and "unplugged"... that too is good for the soul!

Are you losing the rat race?

It's 2 AM and the rest of the house has been sleeping for many hours. And yet I am up - my mind spinning, as if sleep is something that I haven't earned.

Do you ever feel that no matter how hard you run - you just can't catch up. Catch up to what? My own life.... somewhere along the line it ran away from me and no matter how hard I scramble, I just can't seem to find it!

Sometimes I have a hard time gaging my days or how well I spent my time. I will tell you the truth, I don't waste time. I don't sit in front of the TV. I don't chat on the phone to people. I multi-task my entire day away. I cook and work on the computer at the same time (usually with disastrous consequences to both my dinner and the bottom of my pans). When I work on something on the computer, I am always listening to a podcast or training. At a given time I have at least 7 windows open on my computer so that I can jump from site to site if one is taking too long to open.

Today I jumped out of bed in the morning to run to the bank to deposit a check for my daughter and then ran to my bank 5 miles up the road to deposit a check for me. On the way home, I got gas in the truck. I raced back into the house, quickly made a fruit smoothie, grabbed a bag of almonds and sequestered myself into my bedroom (which is my office in the winter). Even though it was Saturday, a family day to putz around the house, take care of small errands or cleaning and visit with my family, I had only one thing on my mind this morning - to get my pictures back up on a website.

For the past few weeks I've been living on a learning curve, designing Wordpress sites with all kinds of plug ins and sub-domains, squeeze pages and automated contact forms. In the middle of this madness, I've been studying HTML in a highly excelerated speed course AND learning how to paint a live model! If this wasn't enough, while I was designing my friend's course, I decided to revamp my own website and show off my fine art work. That was all fine and dandy, but then I realized that all my portrait customers would have no way to see my work anymore, so I had to design not one, but two other sites for that. However, my web design teacher mentioned that even though HTML is a great thing, and Wordpress is impressive, the real websites are now going to Drupal. So, me being the competitive, over-achieving first born that I am, decided that I needed to design my next site as a Drupal site. So today.... I brought my family and senior portraits over to a few new sites and linked everything all together. (You can see my handiwork by clicking on the link on the right for my site - then clicking on the portrait window.)

So, having been on the computer all day in a state of learning and frenzy, I decided to quit at about 10:30 when the sites were done. But did I feel like a job well done - NO. I felt like there was so much more I should do. There are after all never enough tags and feeds and feelers. Doing one thing reminds me of the 20 things that I haven't done on my internet presence and leads me down days of rabbit trails. To make matters worse, I actually experience guilt for not doing due diligence to my online reputation management! Who can keep up with all the tweeting, linked in stuff, FB feeds, google plus not to mention the 12 other art sites that I joined and haven't posted on in months. And of course there is the obvious guilt that I can't post daily on this blog... thus the 2 AM epiphany!

Unfortunately this little electronic glimpse into my day probably reflects more on my life than I would like. If it wasn't the computer, it would be something else that was catching my attention. There is always more work than time to do it in and usually it's the family that gets the leftovers.

Does this sound familiar to you? Are you racing from project to project without an end in sight? Do you even know what the end would look like? How many of us take time to breathe? Do you get to the end of a day of frantic busyness but wonder what on earth it was that you actually accomplished??

I have a nice little tool for those of you who think that despite all they do in the day, they don't get anything done. Go to this site  idonethis.com. Hunt around a little for the free personal sign up. Every day you can type in what exactly you did and it will be recorded on the calendar. You will then KNOW that you did indeed accomplish something! Hopefully this can set your mind a little at rest and you can learn to pace yourself better. At the very least, you will have a complete record of your activities and can have some sense of pride in some things well done.


This week I have a list of to do's yeah long and then... a trip to Vegas which promises to be much more relaxing as I catch up on the lives of friends and listen to some great speakers at WPPI. Hopefully I can rent a car and go breathe the red rock air and bask in the sunlight.

But at any rate - life is too short to run, run, run. We all do eventually stumble, or burn out. I'm preaching to myself when I say. Take time to breathe... enjoy your loved ones... putz a little and waste a little time. We were created to live life to the fullest! It's good for the soul!

Green Juice - Against the advice of my family...I'm posting

Against the advice of my husband and teenage daughter, I'm posting this video. Yep... here it is - positive, proof that I really don't care what people think about me!!! First of all - it's me, in my yoga pants, no makeup, hair unkempt and horrible flat lighting on my face. Now you all know that I KNOW how to make myself and others look great on camera - hazard of the trade - but this time, I just wanted to be real - very real.

I had just gotten done watching one of the videos that I posted yesterday "Foodmatters". In it they talked about the importance of eating organic food and they said that 51% of our daily intake of food should be raw. I figure that I'm about at the 39% mark, maybe 40% but thought it would be a good idea to tip the scales in the favor of nutrition. After all, if I'm going to live without sugar and all animal products I might as well get the most bang for my buck. I'm not only going for a slim body - I want my health back! Yep - all of it!!!

I want to say no to chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that have been dogging me for 25 years - DONE - no more...  I don't want to deal with any excess pounds and I don't want to live with the effects of a toxic system... So to do that - time to get a bit more serious about my diet.

And here's your treat - I'm posting it for all of you to see! I know... it's hysterical. My husband almost wet his pants when he saw it yesterday. I heard him hooting and hollering downstairs. He came up with a huge grin on his face. He said "maybe you should rehearse it a few times before you publish it." I could do that in a "vitametavegimin" Lucille Ball sort of way - but I'd rather give you the plane truth. It's just not easy and delightful at first to follow these dietary practices - which is why most people will never do it! I get it - I'm as human as the rest of you! But I'm doing it and for your viewing pleasure - here is my proof....

I realize that this video will probably dissuade you from ever making and drinking your own green juice - but I'm not doing it because it tastes good  - I'm doing it because it's good for me. Yes, a shamrock shake is as green as I like to get - shoot - I shouldn't have thought about that - hmmm. 

Whether you are joining me on this healthful journey or just listening to it for fun...  it's all good for the soul! Bottoms up!