Our Children

From back left: Papa, Charly, Jeff, Trevor, Matt, Steve. Next row: Amanda, Strider, Jenna, Rosie, Joe. Next row forward: Lisa, Nana, Morgan, Lakin, Luke. Front: Rosabelle, Archer.

One thing we believe in most strongly at Easterhouse is the value of FAMILY. We’ve built ours on a culture we’ve grown from our earliest days. It is a culture that says family done intentionally according to God’s design is the hub of everything in this life, and that what we do and say and experience becomes the spokes stretching from that base. We try with all we’ve got to live it personally, and we’ve mentored it in family ministry for years. We believe in it, and we know it works beautifully.

Our son Jeff, who arrived the day after we moved into our first apartment of our own, is a born leader. In those early years his headstrong personality provided quite a challenge for our fledgling parenting skills. We bumbled around trying to be a good mom and dad, but thankfully he is also quite resilient. Every so often we extend what we refer to as the “guinea pig apology”, our ongoing “I’m sorry” for him having to be the one on whom we learned the ropes of parenting. He has always been an amazing dad to Morgan (b. 2000). He served on staff at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa for 19 years, and in July of 2014 he moved to Seattle to work for Microsoft’s 343 Industries. He continues to spend as much time as possible with his beloved Charly, who is working on a biology doctorate at USF.

Just shy of five years later Luke joined us, with a disposition about as calm and accommodating as Jeff was headstrong. His goal was to bring peace and make everyone happy, and he did. I caught myself worrying that he would grow up to be a pushover who couldn’t speak up for himself or stand strong on his beliefs. That thought makes me laugh now, seeing the courageous man of God he is. He married Lakin in 2007 and has since become a daddy to Rosabelle (2010) and Archer (2013). He is Senior Director for a local youth sports enrichment program, and a sports journalist for USA Today‘s Draft Wire.

We lost a baby we named Jamie to miscarriage in May of 1989. In April of 1990 our precious newborn daughter Heather lived ten hours before she died of a Beta Strep infection. I share more about these times of grief and God’s provision and comfort within the pages of this blog.

Trevor joined our family in March of 1991. With chipmunk cheeks and a ready smile, he filled our home with joy and brought healing where our hearts had been crushed with grief. In the sixth grade he announced that he felt led into worship ministry. He set to work immediately preparing for that calling, and throughout his life has continually shown us ways to walk more closely with God. He married Amanda in November of 2011, and is now a worship leader at Grace Family Church in Tampa.

Matt came in March of 1993 with big blue eyes and a head full of curls. He quickly developed a disarming wit that left people scratching their heads. His childhood was spent growing into a young man who strongly values honor and personal integrity, and who pours himself completely into every task at hand. All who know him love and respect him as an exemplary man of God. He married our music pastor’s daughter Jenna in June of 2013. Their son Strider was born in December of 2014, and their daughter is due in August 2017. Matt works as a CAD drafter for UC Synergetic.

When Rosie came in May of 1995, our whole world turned pink. We named her Rose after my mother, and she brought a completeness to our family none of us could have anticipated. She twirled before she could walk, and has continued to follow her lifelong passion for dance. She teaches dance at a local studio and is working on a business degree at St. Petersburg College. She dearly loves children and is a trusted sitter and childcare worker. She and her beloved Joe have been together since May of 2011.

Marriage made in Heaven

Steve and I had quite a beginning to our love story that you’ll want to read more about if you haven’t already, but here we’ll pick up where that part of our story left off.

Most folks would say we started off behind the eight-ball in our marriage. It’s hard to be deeply in love and not make unwise choices during a long engagement. We were grounded in our faith, and yet we still made some of those choices. We found out in June of 1980 that we were three, and on July 13 we walked the aisle in our tiny church in East Tampa and promised to love each other forever.

On our wedding day I was green with all-day sickness and Steve had the flu. We spent our three-day honeymoon unable to sleep too near each other, him burning up with fever and me with my face in a bucket. Thankfully we missed the memo that all these things were supposed to spell our doom as a couple. We loved each other, and we figured the “in sickness” part was just arriving a little early.

I was “Sixteen and Pregnant” before it was cool enough for a reality show. Truth is there was nothing cool about being a pregnant teenager. I watched my friends fall off like flies one by one, all but a tiny few who didn’t mind being seen with me. I resigned as band captain and left my beloved music program behind to finish the few classes I needed to finish school early. It was one of the loneliest times of my life with regard to friendship, but I will never forget how our parents and church family gathered around us and loved us through those early weeks and months.

Steve has always been my best friend. Because of that friendship rooted in our love for God, everything that has happened to us in life has happened to us, not between us. I really don’t know any other way to explain our relationship, or why we don’t argue, or why we don’t struggle in ways most people do. It isn’t that we never disagree; it’s that we approach everything as a matter of how we will work through it, not whether or not we will. We made a covenant on our wedding day that the D-word wasn’t even in our vocabulary, so we’ve simply lived our life together based in that safe place.

Our Love Story

On Friday, August 31, 1979 my friend Cheri and I were on our way home from the mall. At a stop-light I noticed a blue 1965 Mustang stopped next to us, and about the time I noticed the driver’s afro bopping to the Blue Oyster Cult song shrieking from his radio, he also noticed me. I blushed and grinned, and for a reason known only to the Lord, I waved. He waved back.

The light changed, and since we had to turn left at the next light we fell in behind the Mustang. After both cars made the same turn I joked to Cheri that they probably thought we were following them. She grinned and said, “Hey, we should!” So we did, through a couple of turns, until they got smart and turned into a church parking lot. Spooked, we took off as quickly as her dad’s Beetle would carry us.

We should have expected that they would come after us. They were quickly behind us, so Cheri tried to lose them in an empty Winn-Dixie parking lot. Don’t judge. We were teenagers. To this day I’m not sure what Cheri was thinking when she drove straight to the apartment where my mother and I lived alone and parked in front of our building. I asked her if she’d lost her mind, certain those creepy stalkers were going to murder us before we could escape.

I hid behind my algebra book and Cheri tried to look busy. The guys got out of their car and I remember thinking as they approached ours that I was really not fond of the idea of dying so young. I was about to scream at Cheri for rolling down her window when she pointed to the afro and said, “Hey, I know you!” Bless Jesus, we could live.

Cheri laughed and we both sighed our relief, then we got out of the car to chat with the no-longer-total-strangers. Turns out about a year before, Cheri and Steve had been briefly introduced at a Tampa Jam concert. Briefly was working for me, since it at least assured me of seeing the morning. We talked for a while and before they left Steve asked if he and his best friend Dave could hang out with us sometime, and mentioned a concert that was coming up. We said sure, thinking we’d never see them again.

We bailed on the concert, of course, but I felt a little guilty we didn’t go, so I asked them to meet us for pizza after our high school football game the following Friday night. Friday came, along with a massive rainstorm that combined with a huge loss for our team and drenched us body and spirit. Cheri was in no mood to go out at all, but I convinced her to at least come to the pizza place and hang out for a while.

When we arrived Steve naturally paired up with Cheri (I assumed since they had been introduced) and I sat with Dave. Steve and I sat across the table from each other goofing off and making silly conversation (I recognize it now as massive flirting), and as the evening wore on I felt a heart connection with the tall, skinny Italian rocker with the big hair. They took me home and I introduced them to my mother, and after they left she said, “I think Dave is terrific, but I honestly think Steve is more your type.” I hurried off to my room so she couldn’t see the pink in my cheeks.

The following week I called Steve’s house “looking for Dave”. Of course he wasn’t there, so Steve and I chatted for a little bit. He mentioned that he was going to the mall later to buy a present for a fraternity brother and asked if I wanted to come along. As casually as I could voice it, I said yes, then promptly hung up the phone and went dashing through the house to find my good jeans and the red button-down with the gold lame’ stripes.

As we arrived at the mall, Steve mentioned that “The Muppet Movie” was playing at the cinema and asked if I’d seen it. I said no, so he invited me to the movie. I was beginning to feel really comfortable with this guy, and I still marvel at how easily I fell for him since I had grown up watching my mother struggle in relationships, had seen her used and abused by men, and had fallen into a wreck of a relationship myself at the tender age of barely-fifteen and paid a high price for my misjudgment. Steve made me feel safe.

And so we come to the corniest part of our story, when Miss Piggy sees Kermit and her eyes twinkle in that love-at-first-sight way and Steve kissed me. After you stop gagging and laughing, I will tell you that it was the most perfect kiss on the planet, ever—even better than Westley and Buttercup at the end of “The Princess Bride”. It was gentle and sweet and it melted my heart into a puddle then and there.

A few weeks later as my feelings for Steve continued to grow, it hit me like a freight train that it was going to kill us both when we broke up. Everyone broke up. Broken relationship was all I’d ever known. I hadn’t uttered the word love in regard to Steve because there was still that part of me that fearfully withdrew at the thought of giving my heart to a man. It’s hard to describe the terror that overtook me when I realized I loved him. So I did the only thing I felt would save us both: I broke up with him.

I asked that he not contact me, knowing it would take nothing for my will to break. He honored my request, and I cried for the next two days straight. After a weekend of misery and a painful heaviness I can’t even describe, I finally called a friend, who called him for me and nudged him to call. I told him there was something important I wanted to tell him but it needed to be in person. He said he’d pick me up from band practice the next night.

The whole ride home after practice was quiet. Scared out of my mind, I couldn’t even make small talk. We stood outside the Mustang the way we had done many evenings before, him leaning against the driver’s door and me leaning on him with his arms around me. Every time I tried to find my voice nothing would come out. Finally he took my face in his hands and said, “I love you.” Tears came quickly as I said, “I love you, too.” I don’t think I hit four of the twenty steps up to our apartment that night. I felt I could fly.

A month later he asked my mother if he could propose to me. We would go on to joke for many years about me thinking if I hadn’t been in love with him she would have made me marry him. She gave him her own wedding rings, and on November 17, 1979, he asked me to marry him. At my choked out “Yes!” he put the engagement ring on my finger. It was my 16th birthday.

Trampled Roses

I was there the day it happened, and my heart was rent with grief

As my precious rose lay battered, crushed of petal, torn of leaf

And I cried for all my children who have drained that bitter cup

As their pleas for mercy echoed and their anguish floated up

Please believe me, dearest daughter, this was never my intent

For such pain to be made perfect my Son’s precious blood was spent

There is nothing where you’re standing that can wholly heal your heart

But believe me when I tell you we won’t always be apart

The memories and scents that haunt your dreams and cloud your days

Will one day dissipate and you will truly know my ways

But for now I have a gift for you that just your heart can see

It’s a picture I have drawn of two embracing, you and me

The image I will leave with you while you must walk your sod

And you will be my darling girl and I will be your God

So hold it close and don’t forget one truth that never died:

Evil will not always boast what Love has crucified