Week 58--This chapter closes

Elder and Sister Clasen with Susan and John Cobb

After a wonderful breakfast and visit with the Cobbs, our friends and former missionaries in the Salt Lake 2^nd Branch, Larry and Barb Clasen, drove down from Baltimore to go with us to lunch at China Gourmet before driving us by Brookside apartments to try to find a friend of ours, now serving at the temple.

  

Dinner at China Gourmet--good food and good friends.

Twila Halbom is from Bucks County, where for many years she worked—actually ran—the family history center. She kindly opened her home to me when I went there to do research on John’s 2^nd great-grandfather’s book I was writing. She is now 81 and still truckin’ after losing her husband a number of years ago.

Joh, Twila Halbom, Sue

 As we pulled into the parking lot I asked a missionary where Twila’s apartment was then ran up to knock on her door. Meanwhile, with Clasens’ Washington state license plates, they and John were being mobbed by missionaries coming out to welcome them and move them in! It was pretty funny but certainly a glimpse into what a wonderful community of friendly, serving people anyone who shows up would find. Twila joined us in the parking lot to give John a hug and together we visited with the multiple missionary couples who had come to move the Clasens in.

Carlsons with John. Missionaries gathering behind.

Among them were the Carlsons, who, when they learned we were returning from a mission in the Freiberg Temple, asked if we knew the Huszes. Sis. Carlson is the sister of Elder Spencer J. Condie with whom Pres. Husz had served in various capacities; the Carlsons had stayed in their home in Deutsch Wagrum just a week or so before Pres. and Sis. Husz left there in November 2011 to take up their new assignment in our temple. What a small world the Church is!

Washington DC Temple--a reminder of an earlier era.

We bade farewell to all our old, and new, friends and drove with Clasens up to see the temple before driving over to Bethesda and NIH. Going through security was a first for Clasens and we had intended just being dropped off at the gate. They insisted on driving us right to Saffra Lodge so we could continue our visiting and so we wouldn’t need to walk. We admired Clasens’ wonderful friendliness to all the security folks, and everyone else we encountered while with them. They exude joy in the gospel and have love for everyone. We love them for it and their kindness to us.

They are a remarkable couple who joined the Church a few years back and determined that they would “tithe” their lives with missions. Barbara arrives at that achievement this month and Larry, who is a little older, in January. What a great idea!

We enjoyed showing Clasens the beauty of the lodge and then visited for a couple of hours in our room before they left to return to their mission responsibilities.

Leaving all our gear in our room we walked down to the gate to wait for Izumi and Tom Tamanaha to arrive to pick us up for our annual dinner together when we come to NIH. It is always a delight to be able to get caught up a bit and enjoy a good Asian dinner together.

John and Sue with Tom and Izumi Tamanha

Izumi is amazing in her determination to savor every day. She talks of her life as being chapters in a book, many of which have now closed. The current chapter is music! For the last ten years she has been studying a Japanese instrument called Koto. She is performing now, semi professionally, with her teacher. Izumi is a woman who since before she was a young mother has been nearly blind due to macular degeneration but who is a mother of six, holds a black belt in Karate, used to run 6-10 miles a day, then before her husband had a series of strokes that disabled him was prompted to study and become a massage therapist (I often served happily as her guinea pig while she trained). After graduating, she secured a wonderful position at the very posh Oriental Hotel in the district; she has also faced great financial difficulty, which she has shouldered cheerfully, saying she now has only 3½ years more to climb out of that hole—these are all chapters that she has completed in her life. Her determination to find joy in the face of hardship humbles me.

We returned to beautiful Safra Lodge and our room and climbed into bed, grateful for the blessing of so many wonderful friends who have enriched our lives with their goodness. Tomorrow we begin what we came here to do—John’s medical appointments at NIH. 

John getting blood work and other labs

Tuesday morning we made our usual rounds at phlebotomy for blood work and labs before heading to Clinic 11 for our appointment with Dr. Bennett, John’s doctor whom he has seen at least once a year since 1996. He wrote John’s protocol and has directed everything done for him during the years since. He is an important part of the miracles of our life, which are many.

Dr Bennett given John the work over!

Dr. Bennett, following his own careful exam, arranged for John to see a neurologist, who happened to be a young woman from around Stuttgart, Germany. The conclusion both came to is that John’s mobility problems likely originate from his syrinx, which they feel has not “disappeared” but which may be filling again despite the shunting done in 2009. All the symptoms seem to point to that and we will need to see John’s neurosurgeon in Salt Lake when we get home to see what, if anything, he recommends doing.  The good thing for John is just having some kind of an explanation to what he is going through. Somehow this new information is helpful.

John with the neurologist and her student.

Dr. Bennett was very pleased that we have made such an effort to walk every day and told John that without this effort he would be in a wheelchair—so told him to keep at it.  We intend to. In fact one of the recommendations is that we have him see a physical therapist to give him some gait direction and to assess what is best for him to use—his trusty Nordic sticks, a cane, or something different.

Dinner with Ed and Lois Scholz

When we finished we walked out to the gate again to meet Ed and Lois Scholz, our former temple president and matron at DC, with whom we have enjoyed an ongoing friendship since the time John retired. We visited with them over a yummy dinner at their favorite deli before they drove us back to Safra—braving security as Clasens had done. Though Ed’s Pentagon and military ID didn’t keep him from having to go through the usual checks, his car didn’t have to be searched as others do.

When we got back to the room John phoned Karoll Cortez, who wanted to come visit us while we were in DC.  In 1996, when John first came to NIH, Karoll was Dr. Bennett’s research fellow. We became fast friends and were there at her daughter’s 1^st birthday party. Sita came with Karoll to see us (she is now 10 and very cute). Amazing how fast time flies by! Karoll has been through some serious health and emotional challenges and has been helped greatly by Sylvia, after we suggested she call her. Recently Syl had suggested that Karoll might want to seek a priesthood blessing from John while we were in DC. We had the opportunity to tell her a little about what the priesthood is before John did provide that desired gift. Afterwards, we talked about the Book of Mormon and ended up leaving her with the soft-side triple we had had with us in China and Germany. It is pretty marked up with my notes but she was thrilled to get it and promised to read it. We pray that she will find the peace the gospel can give. It will be interesting to see where that goes. Her husband is from India and a wonderful man—a pretty important doctor in the area of hepatitis and aids research. He had just returned from a trip to Boston and was under the weather, so did not come with her but sent his love to us.

John and Karoll Cortez

 After hugging Karoll and Sita goodbye we were glad to climb into bed. Tomorrow means an early morning MRI and then a quick trip to the airport in order to hopefully be on time to catch our flight to Salt Lake City.

leaving Safra Lodge for MRI and then the airport

Wednesday morning we got to the hospital early after turning in our keys at the lodge and dropping our luggage at the travel office at NIH. John took the Valium pill we had gotten from the pharmacy to make it possible for his legs not to jerk while they did the scan. That is always a big problem because it blurs the images so they can’t be read. We hate to have him take pills but it was vital to get a clear scan, so he did. We got there 45 minutes early hoping he could be fit him in before his 8:00 am appointment. They did, the Valium worked, and because he didn’t have contrast both scans were completed in less than 1½ hours. After he was done, I put him in a wheelchair and wheeled him out to the travel desk, where a taxi was waiting for us and we headed for BWI arriving there in good time to get our flight to Denver—the next leg of our journey home.

We have been greatly blessed to have everything work out so perfectly. We will need to phone Dr. Bennett to get the results but it was nice not to have to change our flights. NIH even picked up the tab on the taxi. We got a wheelchair for John at the airport, in case he was still a little tipsy from the Valium and to avoid the long walk for him. John was in fine form and gave out pass along cards all along the way, telling everyone to bring their loved ones to the temple Visitors’ Center to see the lights and learn more about forever families.

I called Kathy from BWI airport to let her know that we were on target for our scheduled arrival and sat down to relax, catch up my journal, and wait. We feel very blessed and we are grateful. We arrived in Denver safely, grabbed some dinner, and then caught our flight to Salt Lake, our last leg of our long journey home. 

Arriving in Salt Lake City--We are home at last!

Kathy and Brent met us and took us by a grocery store on our way home before driving to Trevi. Goodness it is strange to be home, where we found everything in order, except for a thin layer of black dust over everything, due to our bathroom remodel that is ongoing. Hopefully we will see it done by Thanksgiving.

Pres. Stan Fitts with us as we came to be released

At 9:30 pm we dressed up and then went down to meet with the stake president to be officially released from our mission. We spent an hour with him reporting on some of our choicest memories of this year. When we left he asked us to come Sunday morning to report on our last two years to the high council. We got home and gratefully crawled into bed looking forward to starting to clean our apartment tomorrow.

Thursday morning John awoke to find an email from his cousin Rick Laing telling us that his sweetheart, JoAnn, had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We were heartbroken to think of their upcoming challenges. John wrote to them and Friday morning we had the chance to talk with both of them and be uplifted by their wonderful attitude and assurance that all is well. They are facing the future with faith. Our prayers and love are with them. (Rick and JoAnn had lived in our condo, serving their second mission, this time in Family and Church History, while we were in China. Through them we lined up the wonderful missionary couple who has been in our condo for this past year.)

We have been so grateful that our home was wonderfully cared for while we were away, but we have found that no one puts things in the same places we do and are thus finding ourselves rather disoriented in trying to locate everything so we spent Thursday and Friday cleaning our master bathroom and bedroom and going shopping to buy more groceries among other things. Kathy and Brent kindly had us to dinner each night—a very good thing since I had yet to figure out how to cook anything other than our daily granola, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast. Saturday I began on the kitchen, both cleaning and cooking—it is my way of beginning to feel at home. I made granola, nut bars, and homemade yogurt. What is it about cooking that helps my world come right side up again? In the late afternoon, we even went to line up our cell phone and to look at a car we might be interested in purchasing—getting something that will work for us is a high priority on our list of to-dos.

Sunday morning we went at 7:30 am to give our report to the high council then walked down to the Tabernacle for Music and the Spoken Word before coming home for John to have a nap before our 1:00 meeting block. It was pleasant to see many familiar faces and to be welcomed back into our home ward.

Removed name tags. Sigh.

Having been formally released, removed our nametags, and reported on our mission we recognize that this choice chapter of our lives has drawn to a close. We are grateful for having had this marvelous experience together and now look forward to whatever new adventures are ahead; whatever they are, we are content to put our trust in the Lord’s orchestration of our curriculum and look forward to closer interaction with family and friends.