Marine

I met Nate Walker in the summer of 2008 at Lake Waubesa Bible Camp. He was simultaneously one of the most serious people I have ever met, his heart set on joining the Marines and serving his country, and one of the biggest goofballs who has ever walked into my life. If you look at pictures of him, I feel like you basically see those two extremes and not much in between. 

We worked together at camp for two summers, and in that time became best friends. We spent countless hours sitting by the lake, by day or by night, discussing every issue under the sun, laughing about a good deal of it and crying sometimes too. We upheld one another in prayer and wrote letters when he was in basic training and deployed to Afghanistan. We liked each other at different times--never the same time--and that was okay because our friendship was exactly what we needed it to be. 

Seven years ago, I consciously stepped out of his life to make space for someone else. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made, but I always assumed someday the time would come to step back in again. 

I did my best to prepare myself to lose him when he joined the Marines. I wrote Part I of the following poems as an assignment for English class shortly after he enlisted. I was scared he would not come back, or that he would come back a different man than the one I knew. "When You Go" details some of the different ways I imagined I would hear about his death, even before he left the country.

I wrote Part II yesterday as a way to process what had actually happened to him. On the one hand, Nate has not been an active part of my life for several years. I lost him long ago; I just didn't expect it to be forever. On the other hand, letting go of the hope and expectation that my best friend of seven years would one day be a close friend again is proving difficult. 

My heart goes out to his wife, who has lost her best friend in an infinitely bigger way than I have. To his children, who are so young they will grow up without a single memory of their loving and goofball father, never knowing the man he was. To his parents, who are some of the most caring and faithful people I have had the privilege to know, and who were incredibly proud of him. To his sister, who looked up to him and cheered him on. And to the countless others whose lives he touched--and saved, given the nature of his work and life. 

Nate... this is for you.

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MARINE, PART I  (2009)

PROMISE ME 

The dock is shaking. Splinters 

needle their way into my shoulders, 

but if I sit up I won’t be able to see 

the lightning. Not that it’s visible 

anyway with you dancing over me

like that. You with that goofy smile, 

crooked as it may be. Distant thunder 

plays the bass drum for your midnight 

dance, announcing the end of training 

for camp. Only June, but time needs

to slow down already. Soon you’ll be 

at another training, the one where they 

cut your hair, hand you guns, and name you 

“Recruit.” That is who you’ll be 

in two months, but I like you now, 

even if you are blocking the summer 

storm. Back and forth, back and forth, 

your hands are upside-down pendulums. 

“This is my windshield wiper dance!” 

You goof. The Marine Corps necklace 

bounces off your chest with every step, 

in rhythm with my head resonating 

against the dock. It’s jumping with you. 

Ka-plu-clunk. Ka-plu-clunk. Promise 

me something. Promise me that when 

you come back, you will still 

do the windshield wiper dance.

CONNECTIONS

As I step out of the shower, 

your necklace (my necklace?) 

is cold on my bare chest. The dull 

silver an accent mark on my pale skin, 

surrounded by goosebumps. It looks 

bigger on me than it did on you. 

You’re on the phone, returned 

from a week in the field,

sweaty, hungry, exhausted. 

They built you fake 

cities, gave you blank 

ammunition, bandaged your counterfeit 

wounds, all for a twelve-hour battle 

in the California desert. 

Private First Class Walker, 

bullet-proof vest and buzz cut, 

ready for action. Of course 

you were grinning the whole time. 

This real life video game is 

what you love. 

You had tanks, you had enemies. 

The dust stuck to your face paint 

and your pants caught on barbed wire. 

It was like Black Hawk Down, 

you say. Have you seen it? 

Yes, I’ve seen it, I say. 

People died. 

I don’t say that. 

The string has been on my wrist 

for a year now. Please 

tell me you are 

                invincible 

like string. 

I protect it like I wish 

I could protect you. 

You tied a good knot.

WHEN YOU GO

I was standing by the mailboxes 

in Harstad. Now I’m crumbling. 

Mail is supposed to be fun, but this letter 

is heavy, sinking into the carpet 

like I am. It fell before I could obliterate 

it, drown it, make a paper grenade 

and pull the pin. It screams white, 

but instead of surrender it slays 

me. Huddled against the wall, the mailboxes 

carve into my head, but I’m motionless. 

In one sentence, I was paralyzed. I want 

to fold the paper up, place it neatly 

into its envelope and send it back, demand 

a return, this letter for your life.

I’m walking by the pond, on the path 

with the two cracks that have met 

and made love and then multiplied 

into crevasses in the concrete. My body 

shudders like your mom’s voice 

on the phone. Why, why would you

ever make her say this? Color 

drains from the world around me, or maybe 

it drains from my face. I am numb, hard 

like the pavement. I want to jump inside 

the crevasse, bury my head and let my tears 

water the earth that has lost its color. 

I am in my room. No phone, no letter, but 

I can feel it. I know. Emptiness is tangible 

as the autumn air sneaking past the cracked 

window. It tickles the hairs on my arms 

and whirlpools around my soggy face. 

Every once in awhile, my heart pretends 

to try. Thump, sniffle, thump, thump, gasp. 

When I know you’re not breathing, sometimes 

I forget too. Absence suffocates me.

Funny thing is, you haven’t even left yet.

-------------------------------------------------

MARINE, PART II  (2022)

Where 

is the box? 

I rummage through 

my overcrowded, cluttered 

mind, knowing I tucked it away 

somewhere—somewhere safe, to retrieve 

at a moment’s notice, only the moment never came. 

The box full of experiences, laughter, conversations, 

tears, arguments, dances, smiles, games, jokes, 

forgiveness, memories. So many things I 

knew about you, I had hidden in the 

box for safekeeping, only now 

the box is nowhere

to be found, 

just like

you.

My eyes sting, and my heart aches

because I can’t remember your 

windshield wiper dance. 

I can imagine it, but I can’t remember it.

Which dock was it?

What were you saying? 

Was I scared you were going to

jump on my head? 

My eyes sting, and my heart aches

because I can’t remember the

moment you tied the string on my wrist. 

Where did the string come from? 

Why did you tie it on me? 

What were you saying? 

Did I consider removing it? 

Did I give you one too? 

The string that had been on my wrist

for more than a year 

came off. 

It was not invincible. 

Neither were you.

When you came back from war

I thought your battles were over. 

I didn’t know they were only beginning.

Slowly walking along the dock, 

listening to the water kiss the shore

and tickle the pier’s legs stretching 

down into the gentle waves, 

I do not hear you. 

(You are a sniper, after all.)

I see your toes first, and they

surprise me. Panning up, as

in a movie, I take in more

and more of you, standing 

three feet in front of me, until 

my eyes land on your goofy smile

way up there in the atmosphere

laughing, incredulous that I had 

not heard you coming; did not know

you were there.

You were always there. 

You would always be there. 

For years, that was the truth.

But then you weren’t. 

And neither was I. 

We are both to blame. 

I always assumed one day, one time

you would resurface in my life. 

Real best friends do that, do they not? 

It was never a question of if, 

only when, where, and how old we 

would both be when that time came. 

And now? 

You are the one who cannot resurface,

but we are the ones who cannot breathe.

I had almost forgotten

you were the one who chopped

down a tree while I was 

still in it. 

Who will laugh about that with me now?

An email washed up after

some deep-sea diving in my archives

from me to you, seven years ago. 

We never imagined this would be one

of our last conversations. 

“I’m scared of losing you,” I said.

“I love you, and I love our friendship

and I am so, so tired of things

changing and of having to say goodbye

to the people I love.”

To one of the best friends

who has ever walked unexpectedly 

into—and out of—my life, 

thank you and

(dare I say it?)

goodbye. 

Nate and I praying together before
he left for basic training in 2009.

Quarantine with Kids

On Monday morning, Christian and I sat down to pray together, as we (try to) do everyday. 

“How can I pray for you?” he asked. 

“I feel overwhelmed,” I said. “I am behind in everything and have extra things to do this week. I want to do them, but now my group is leading Sunday school praise and worship so we need to practice for that, the Webale group is leading praise and worship on Friday so we have three days of practice for that, the aunties are leading praise and worship on Sunday so that also means practice Thursday afternoon. I haven’t given reading lessons in weeks because I was waiting until I could get special needs cleaned up but that hasn’t happened yet because other things keep coming up. We need to write our newsletter and plan assemblies and… I’m just tired. I want a break.” 

We prayed for rest. 

On Monday afternoon, my head felt the slightest bit funny. I took my temperature and had a low fever, and a faint headache soon followed. Thinking it was possibly malaria, I told myself if it felt worse by the next day I would go to the clinic. We were scheduled to have a group of 12 teenagers come to our house that night, though, so just to be safe I took a Covid self-test. Not expecting it to amount to anything, I even planned on taking the test and then picking up Elliot from daycare during the 15 minute wait to see the results. However, I didn’t even make it out of the bedroom, let alone the house, before two dark lines showed up on that stick. This was something new. 

I called the doctor to find out what the protocol on the compound is concerning quarantine because it has changed so many times in the last two years. Five days home with the whole household, then test again at the end of the week. We tested the rest of the family and somehow the girls both managed to test positive and the boys were able to avoid it. They must not give us enough hugs and kisses. 

To some extent, my first reaction was relief. I could be done with organized activities for the rest of the day. For the next several days. I imagine some other people feel the same way when faced with forced downtime, even when it is the result of “sickness” (I put that in quotes because neither Patricia nor I feel more than a slight cold, so I don’t count us as actually sick). 

God had answered our prayer and given us rest. 

Sort of. 

We live in a 527-square-foot house with two toddlers. 

Can you see where I am going with this? 

On Monday evening, as Christian and I were calling Patricia’s teacher, his office workers, my librarian, and anyone else who needed to know of our absence this week, we half-jokingly said things like, “Well, we needed to write our newsletter this week anyway. Now we have plenty of time for that!” and “This will be a great time to finally clean out my inbox.” 

I know those of you with young children are shaking your heads and wondering how we could be so naive. In the back of my mind, I also knew we were being too optimistic, but in those moments I chose to let optimism win. 

That lasted about 12 hours. 

Because the children were sleeping. 

We didn’t set any alarms on Tuesday, opting instead to sleep in for good health. Remember, we are “sick”! Tuesday morning felt like a Saturday, the only day of the week we are not rushing to either school or Sunday school as soon as everyone is dressed and at least 50 percent of us have brushed our teeth. When the mid-morning sun poured over our verandah we borrowed the neighbor’s swimming pool and hauled 20 buckets of water from the bathroom to fill it ten inches. Patricia and Elliot were in heaven! It gave them a chance to be outside without running away from the house and gave Christian and I a chance to sit at the table with our laptops in front of us and a good view of our swimsuit-clad kids out the front door. 

Two sentences into whatever I was doing: “Mooooooommy! We want more water!” 

“Okay, just give me two minutes and then I will get you some more.” 

Ten seconds later, this time from child number two: “Mommy, mo’ water!” 

“Hold on, just a minute.” 

Eight seconds later: “Mommy, we want toys!” 

I fetched them some bath toys and several more buckets of water. They squealed in delight and shock when I poured the cold water as a waterfall on their backs. Patricia wriggled in her butterfly swimsuit and Elliot’s eyes grew wide as he decided whether to laugh or cry. 

I sat back down at the table. 

I should have known better. 

“Mommy, Elliot is beating me with the cup!” 

“Elliot, did you beat Patricia with the cup?” 

He nodded and said yes. At least the kid is honest. I told him to apologize, which he did in the adoring manner in which he always does, and they went back to playing and pouring and making the whole verandah wet. 

I typed another sentence. 

“Mommy, may we wash your shoes?” 

“Yes, it’s okay.” 

“Then we need soap.” 

I gave them soap. 

“Where are the scrubbers?” 

I gave them each a scrub brush and then sat down to work. Half a sentence later I heard a scream and crying from outside. Patricia had soap in her eye. 

You get the idea. 

I read once that being a parent is a lot of getting up when you have just sat down. That is one of the most accurate descriptions of parenting I have ever heard. 

Nap time… well, that was an adventure all of its own. Patricia was going to try sleeping on the top bunk for the first time, which meant Elliot wanted to sleep in her bed on the bottom bunk. I didn’t realize until the fourth time he climbed out of bed and asked me to sleep with him that he had probably seen me lie down with Patricia so many times in her bed that he assumed that was a given every time someone slept there. As I lay next to Elliot, watching him suck his thumb and drift off to sleep, Patricia’s voice floated every thirty seconds from above: “Mommy, please sleep with me?” When I told her I would do it another time, I had to force myself out of the room as she slumped over the railing, arms crossed, brows furrowed and lips pursed. I wasn’t sure if an hour or two of sleep would be enough to make her forget and forgive. 

When the children finally fell asleep, Christian and I got in two hours of work. 

It was a fun day, but by 10:00 that night the kitchen counter was piled with dirty dishes and I was exhausted. “I was home literally the WHOLE day,” I told my mom. “How could I not find time to do the dishes?” 

On Wednesday morning, I asked Christian what I could do for him that day. “I would appreciate if you could give me an hour or two do some work on my laptop,” he said. So to keep the kids busy I painted Patricia’s toenails and fingernails, and to keep her still I found We Sing in Sillyville on YouTube and half-watched nostalgically. 

After 15 minutes, they wanted to do something else. We tried swimming again. That also lasted 15 minutes. Elliot beat Patricia so many times on the head that she wanted to get out pretty quickly. He seemed content to play in the water by himself, until he pinched his finger in the handle of a bucket. I rescued him and kissed his finger. 

That happened four more times. 

In the afternoon there were no other kids in the neighborhood, so I told my own they could finally do somersaults in the grass. I grabbed my laptop to sit on the verandah and purge my inbox for the first time in two years while keeping an eye on the kids. 

I opened one email. That’s as far as I got. 

Elliot rushed to my side. “Mommy, sit on my lap?” (He gets possessives mixed up.) We argued for a couple of minutes. He won. I closed the laptop and before I had even laid it aside, his cute little butt was on my lap and he had snuggled into my chest. It was sweet, but it was a problem for his sister. 

“Mommy, I sit your lap?” she asked in her best imitation of Elliot’s voice. 

“No, you can sit next to me,” I said. 

“But I want to sit on your lap also.” 

“Okay, but then you sit on my knees behind Elliot.” She did that. Her brother squirmed and protested. Sometimes there is no winning. 

I still have 516 messages in my inbox. 

Last night I lay beside Patricia as she was going to sleep. Well, as she was trying to go to sleep. Let me rephrase that—as I was trying to get her to try to go to sleep. Elliot lay in his own bed, calling for me, reciting his favorite book, and babbling about this and that. Patricia’s eyes sprung open. “Mommy, Elliot is making noise for me,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, “Elliot, it is time for sleeping!” 

“No!” 

Again, at least it’s easy to tell what he wants. 

Since I can’t leave the house to run, I am using this week to catch up on some yoga. I started a 30-day yoga program in January… of 2021. Today I did day eight. Just as it is taking me a year-and-a-half to finish a month’s worth of yoga, it took two-and-a-half hours to do a half-hour session. Blocks went flying from one room to another while I closed my eyes and tried to hear what the instructor was saying, let alone do what she was telling me to do. 

“I want you to think about—“ Boom!

I will never know what she wanted me to think about because my one-year-old fell on the floor because he thought that was a good moment to try to climb to the top bunk for the first time. 

Then he decided to join me. Elliot sat on my back while I touched my toes and screamed when I sat up and he fell down. He lounged on my legs with my feet as a backrest. He and Patricia tried following the video themselves. After a few fights over the second yoga mat, I made a masking tape line down the middle to make it two. (Patricia wanted to cut it in half.)

Relaxation at its finest. 

Today Christian told me he would attend to the kids so I could get some work done. I couldn’t help but think it was unfair that when it was his turn to respond to every cry and need, one child fell asleep on my lap and the other one sat quietly on the couch looking at pictures. He must be magic. 

As I was doing my devotions this morning while the birds and the family were still dozing, I tried harder than usual to sit and listen to anything God had to say to me. I knew it would be the only quiet moment of the day. “I want you to experience my love for you today,” he said. “I want you to be filled by it. I will love you through your children—through their smiles, laughter, hugs and affection. Their love for you is my love for you.” 

I love being loved by my children. But the reminder that being loved by them is being loved by God… this has become a blessed day indeed. 

Two notes about this post: 

1. Christian is an amazing husband and father and has done so much for and with us. To illustrate that fact, this morning he got up and cleaned the refrigerator before breakfast. Yes, I am bragging. I do not do this parenting thing alone. 

1. I write all of this not to make our experience sound more difficult than that of anyone else. I am sure it isn’t. On the contrary, I expect that most parents, especially parents of young children, can relate on some level and probably have dozens—or hundreds—of such stories to tell. 

I Don't Know Much

Despite what many at Noah’s Ark may think—or possibly even many around the world who know me—I don’t know much about dance, ballet or otherwise. After nine years of ballet training as a girl, I know my toes and knees and hips are supposed to point out and I know my hands are supposed to stay loose and I know how to walk with perfectly pointed toes, but I have forgotten at least half of the positions and moves I have ever learned and more than that number of French names for those moves. A classical ballet dancer, and probably also my former ballet teacher, would shudder at my form as my hands cross the center line of my body and my knees occasionally point forward instead of sideways. Beyond ballet, my—can I even call it hip hop?—training has consisted of a one-week after school program in junior high, a few YouTube tutorials and lots of moves borrowed from my mom’s exercise videos. Oh yes, I am inspired. 

I certainly don’t know much about step, as evidenced by the fact that here at Noah’s Ark, due to my mistake six years ago, we call it stomp. I admired the step team at PLU. I even saw them perform once. 

And I one hundred percent don’t know much about leading a  choir. I have never even been in a choir. My high school didn’t have one. My church didn’t have one. When I was in college and visiting my grandparents for Christmas, their church allowed anyone to join the choir for Christmas Eve. Several of us in the family thought it would be fun to try, and before we left for practice my grandma asked me, “So, do you sing alto, tenor or soprano?” 

“What’s  the difference?” I asked innocently. 

Skepticism was written all over her face. “Hmm,” she said, “maybe you shouldn’t come with us after all.” 

I still went. I think I was a soprano, but I’m not sure. Perhaps she had a point.

So, with my boatloads of inexperience, what made me think it was a good idea to throw 43 teenagers together onstage and try to whip up a concoction of ballet, step/stomp, keyboard and five-part choir? To be honest, whether or not it was a good idea never crossed my mind. Probably for the best. 

I can’t remember the last time I had to actually look for a song to dance to. What normally happens is that I hear a song somewhere, and in the course of hearing it the first time—or the tenth or twentieth time, if I become obsessed right away—I see part of a dance. It might be one specific move, or the position of different groups of people onstage, or sometimes one specific person the song reminds me of who I hope can take the lead role. But that one thing takes hold, and then it grows. Before I have my first dancers, at least half of the dance is choreographed. And before we have performed, my mind is already planning the next one to begin. It is a huge lesson in patience, as I currently have a backlog of five different songs that have taken root in my mind and know that between upcoming Easter productions and school holidays I need to wait until May to get my next group together. Oh, the agony! 

For the past three weeks, I have been meeting with three separate groups—ballet, stomp, and choir—to prepare a song to present together in church. This is the first time we have sung a song live (and very likely the last). Our practices would have been more efficient if we had spent the full 60 minutes after taking attendance only practicing exactly what they were going to do onstage. Maybe that’s how the professionals do it—I would’t know. But before presenting a song to the rest of the church, I wanted to make sure all three groups had a handle on the essence of the song. What exactly were they communicating? What message were they trying to share, and were they also receiving that message for themselves? 

The first practice, I gave them a copy of the song lyrics and written homework about the perspective and content of the song itself. How can they present something to the congregation that they themselves do not understand? Through their answers we started getting to the heart of the issue. 

Assignment: Describe the struggle the writer of God Only Knows is going through. 

Answers (I will spare you some time and not give you all 43): 

“They are trying to heal from something which won’t just heal overnight and they are learning how to trust in God’s unconditional love.” 

“The writer has struggles and problems that never leave her mind even when sleeping… Nobody knows how much she’s struggling to pass through every challenge except God and she even wonders what kind of love God has for her to never give up on her.” 

“I think the writer of God Only Knows has a deep fear in their heart and they have troubles and hard feelings that they would want to share with others around them but the writer fears and has worry that nobody can understand, believe or even help. Through the story of hardship the writer is going through, he still has hope and encourages the people receiving the message that only God knows everything that is going on everywhere, anywhere, no matter what, He is there to help.” 

That was just our beginning. 

The homework from our second practice was my favorite: Write about a time in your life when this song could have described you. You can tell about what you were going through, what was so difficult, how God was there for you, if you doubted God, how you still knew God was an awesome God who loved you, or what you learned about God. Tell your story. 

I asked them to tell their stories. And they did. 

Anyone who has had me as a leader in any capacity can tell you I am a stickler for timekeeping and discipline. In my dances, that means being ready in time, to the minute. For every minute you are late, you owe me one push-up. Of course this ends up meaning that the boys can afford to be more late than the girls because a boy can crank out 20 push-ups in the time a girl struggles through 3 (this is not me being sexist; this is me communicating direct observations from my practices), but the principle is the same: Don’t be late. In addition, I only count someone as present once they have handed me their completed homework. If they still need to finish it, they sit to the side and write, and the moment they had it to me I tell them how many push-ups to do before joining practice. (I’m sure some of these students wish they had an African dance teacher who operates on African time.)

A few minutes into one practice, one of my dancers approached me and apologized for being late. When I asked for her paper, she said she didn’t have it. I raised my eyebrows. She explained: “Auntie Katie, I have started it, and I am working on it. But every time I start writing, I start crying. It has been very difficult to finish. Please let me do it after practice and I will bring it to you tonight.” 

It was three days before I saw the paper. Upon reading it, I came to understand that those were an important three days of healing for her. After taking three times the amount of space I had given the students to write their stories, hers ended with this: “I really appreciate God for giving me this opportunity to share this pain because it was eating me up emotionally. I now feel that I am somehow okay. But I hope I will be fully fine. Thank you!!” 

There is a scene in the movie Freedom Writers where a teacher had given a similar journaling assignment to her high school class, and then sits to read their personal stories one by one. The students flash through the screen, narrating their own stories of struggle as the teacher begins to understand the burdens each of her students carries around with them every single day. 

I was brought to tears as I sat in the library reading through story after story of hardship, praying no one would come to borrow a book so I wouldn’t be interrupted and have to show them my tear-and-mascara-stained mask. An auntie who abused with a stick and with her words… a family preparing for the death of a beloved with cancer… a seven-year-old who was forced to mop a dormitory with poop as a punishment… someone locked in a room for three days fearing to go to jail… siblings who were in an accident together and only one survived… a stepmother insulting the biological mother in the children’s presence… a father beating his child for asking to go to church… the list goes on. 

I would never have guessed, based on the smiles and goofiness and normal teenage behavior that showed up for practice every day, that these kinds of stories lay underneath the surface.

Throughout the course of the three weeks, everyone shared their testimony with the group. The testimonies began with the painful stories they had written, but always concluded with how God had used that time to prove himself faithful to them or to show them his love for them. Through every single story, we heard how God used it for good. The pain, the struggle, the loneliness, the abuse. By the end of each one, every single student was keenly aware of his presence and power in their lives. 

Again, I won’t share all 43, but here is a sample of the goodness of God we heard from one another: 

“I don’t know much, but this much I do: At times I felt that God was not with me. Now I see that I was wrong. God has never left me behind. He saved my brother’s life. I thank God for what he did to us and my family.” 

“I don’t know much, but this much I do: In times of temptation, when the devil tries to control you to do evil, just know God is able to forgive you and take you back to be his son or daughter.” 

“I don’t know much, but this much I do: When I was young I was always sad and miserable, but now I thank God that I am always happy and I enjoy the presence of God since I joined his family.” 

“I don’t know much, but this much I do: He never forgets his people, even when they tend to forget all about him and his deeds… He will run to you like he ran to me.” 

I don’t know much about these teenagers—these teenagers who have gone through fire and have come out the other side resilient, faithful, and joyful. I don’t know much about their pasts or even their presents. I certainly don’t know much about their futures. I am often reminded that in the grand scheme of things I don’t even know much about God. But a few years ago, God spoke to me specifically about the teenagers in this organization: “Don’t underestimate the power of my Spirit in them.” 

I don’t know much, but this much I do: God’s Spirit is powerful in them.