A Quiver Full of Munchkins
I just wanted, and perhaps needed to take advantage of my privilege here on Banned of writing when and what I wish and honor Karen Diehl at this difficult time for her. Karen has been diagnosed with Fourth Stage Glioblastoma and is in hospice care at my son's home. Grateful that he works teaching Culinary School out of his home and that his wife is a nurse so Karen is well watched over and cared for. For their kindness and compassion for their mom, I thank both my boys and their beautiful families.
I honor her here because of her life associated with the Worldwide Church of God and ultimately the ministry back in our days together. She grew up in the Church from a child and her family was old stock WCG in Texas.
She and I met, of course, at AC and gladly went with me into all the World as a "minister's wife." I and the Church dragged her from Minneapolis to Chicago to Findlay and Mansfield Ohio to London, Somerset and Middlesboro, Kentucky to Binghamton and Corning, NY to Greenville, South Carolina where it all ended for both of us. It was a hell of journey and she never complained.
Karen was the perfect host and could not do enough for those in need in the Church. She was and is loved by many for her hospitality and loving support in whatever you needed. I thank her and honor her for decades of living a "ministerial life" that so often was drama, trauma, scandal and upheaval compliments of the Armstrongs, Wacko Ministers in adjacent church areas and the Tkaches. Ok, and me.
Karen is unable to talk much now and her reading skills are gone. She can't think of the right words and when I was with her a few weeks back we had a good laugh when I asked her if she wanted lunch and she said, "Yes, a nice salad maybe with kitchen cabinets" She looked at me and said, "That wasn't right was it?" and we laughed. I sent her flowers last week and my son said she was puzzled because it was not the Night to Be Much Remembered. Since last week she has is fast losing her mobility. I sense that it won't be long before she does not recognize us.
In our time together sitting alone and talking in her backyard, she told me she was sorry that my original reason for coming to Portland didn't work out. I didn't know she knew that. She said that she hoped I would find someone in life again. I just looked at her with tears in my eyes wondering just how difficult that was for her to say that and just how much water had gone under our shared bridge. It's just how she is. Of late she speaks to me as if we are still married and she uses the same terms of endearment with me that she always did.
All this to say thank you to a fine woman who put up with so much, not only in the ministry of the Wildworld Church of God but in her youth growing up in it. I suppose I should honor her as well for putting up with me and how I handled my own disillusionment with not only the WCG and the Ministry but also with all of religion and my own personal issues that come up in life. She maintains a deep faith still and yet I know she is scared and anxious about all of this as anyone would be, faith not withstanding.
And I wish to honor and thank my two sons for also moving on in their lives successfully, after so pretty scary times, with beautiful families and their ongoing love and support of mom as this illness moves on to it's conclusion.
So thank you Karen for who you are and for all we put you through as "minister's wife." I honor you for all you are and ever have been. You made my life better while the church went out of its way to make our life worse. You are loved by many for the love you showed through the years. The good thing is that had we not been sent last to South Carolina, not one of those beautiful kids would exist to carry on …
Thanks Gary for letting me participate in Banned to where I can write freely about that which actually reflects my experiences , observations and outcomes of my own journey in the Worldwide Church of God as student, member and pastor .
LIVE, LAUGH and LOVE
Life is short
Thanks for listening
