In Honor of Dr. Lisa Wipf

You’ve been gone more than two weeks now.

Your dad must have been there to welcome you. Have you met my son, Sammy, yet? Or my cousin, Kevin? How long was  the line to meet QEII?

Have you found out that I tricked you into giving me the Wordle answer that one day? Or that I watched Downton Abbey before you? Or that I secretly liked my sour dough bakery better than your sour dough bakery? Or that I did not read every tweet or listen to every podcast you sent my way?

I can see your eyes roll mocking me for going to that Christian concert. Yes I cried when Casting Crowns sang Scars in Heaven. But those were hot, don’t rush me tears. Don’t rush me through this sadness. Through this anger. It will be some time before I can turn over in bed, ignoring the 3am haunts of unspoken words and unprayed prayers. Joy will come, I suppose, with the mourning.

Did you hear my tongue lashing as you lie there, paint still wet on your fingers, cold, silent in that sterile ER room roughly tidied of its crash cart shrapnel. With all the miracles of modern medicine, you were too stubborn or too anti-establishment to let them bring you back.  

And I can picture you showing up at the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter checking his book, scratching his head, confused. “You are not on my list today. You were not due here for quite some time. We will have to put in a rush order for your room.” I see you yanking the clip board out of his hand, scribbling your name at the top, shoving it back into his chest, grabbing a hammer and some nails and going to work. “I’ll do it. How hard can it be?”

How hard can it be? You said that often and conquered whatever you put your mind to.

How hard can it be? To build your own dental practice and then to make your patients your friends. How hard can it be to develop a non-profit dental ministry and relieve a little human suffering. Dream it, raise funds for it by selling the paintings you painted and quilts you quilted,. Then gather your friends and go.

How hard can it be? You’d visit a local artisan, observe him at his craft, then try your hand at it, like stuffing sausage, or making cheese, or pasta or sour dough bread. You’d get the hang of one thing, then move on to the next. Fermenting pickles, sour kraut, kombucha, always inviting friends to learn alongside you. See one, do one, teach one.

How hard can it be to refurbish a rundown printing press you uncovered on an overnight to Ashland. The deceased owner’s now aging son had housed the dinosaur for years in an old barn just as dusty and dilapidated as the printing press was.  Junk to him was treasure to you. All the attention to detail seemed exhausting to me, but you evidently enjoyed painstakingly setting the blocks, and the ink, then sending the same card through, one, two, and three time to recreate nostalgic remnants of the past.

But then you liked old things and old ways of doing things, preferring a reverent liturgy with hyms and head coverings over a contemporary church service, or an old-fashioned high tea with scones and lemon curd over a chic cocktail party. You preferred supporting local businesses over buying from box stores. And never on a Sunday.

For all your love of tradition, though, you broke the rules. Once you mastered conventional quilting, you made it your own with free style piecing and free hand quilting on your very own long arm.  I marveled how you could see strips of fabric at random angles, yielding uneven sized pieces, eventually sewing them together to create beautiful tapestries that told a story.  

We were friends for a reason. You to sharpen me as iron sharpens iron. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” comforts Solomon.  You called me out like no one else could. I did not always appreciate the curt execution of your exhortations, like when you ripped the mask off my face as we entered that estate sale late August last year. You walked right past the sign, head held high with a clear conscience, completely resolute in your truth. You could not abide with my seeming inconsistency.

 “Be brave” your note read arriving by snail mail, supporting my nonconformist practice of medicine in this crazy mixed up world at this crazy mixed up time.

You know I forgave you when you got me in trouble at the grocery store. You thought you were so clever, strolling in nonchalantly, knowing you were going to create a scene, then standing on your soap box to deaf ears. It was my license plate they took a picture of; it was I who was accused of stealing. The smug look on your face, like the grin of a Cheshire cat. You could be exasperating at times.

But your yes was yes, and your no was no. You were willing to stand up for what mattered and tell others why. I respected that about you. The way you defended the rights of the unborn and the mothers of the unborn. And the widows. That’s true religion says James.

I must correct you on one thing, though. You once called me a sycophant. First of all, I had to look up what sycophant meant. You were always throwing out fifty cent words, trying to best my vocabulary. But I was not. A sycophant. When I gave Kristen Kimball that glass of water to soothe her dry throat, it was out of compassion.  I knew she was overly fatigued from farming, family, and unwanted fame, and had just flown cross country to give the keynote address for the OSU small farms conference. I could tell she had a head cold and was not feeling well. Yes, I got my book signed. Yes, I talked to her longer than anybody else in line, but my heart was genuine. Hopefully, you know that now.

And what was my role in your life? To soften you, perhaps.  You surrounded yourself with friends who softened you with their gentle ways and their kind hearts. Jeanette and Peggy and Shon and Shannon. Your sisters. Even Steven. And I did see a softening over these last several years as you honored your mother by moving in with her and caring for her. Where you once were impatient with tardiness, you gave grace. Where you once were annoyed when things did not go your way, you were more at peace. I was almost shocked at how immediately contrite you were when I scolded your rude interruption of an office visit gone overtime. And I could see you slowly letting go of your deepest held hurts.

You were determined to give your mother her heart’s desire, which was to live in her home of fifty years, where the majority of her old memories resided because her aging brain could not easily create new ones. You gave your mom more and more of your time, more time than you gave your friends and siblings in the end. Time was your love language. And we knew it.

“Don’t hate me” you texted, begging off our annual Coburg trek. Of course, I didn’t hate you.  I knew you were tired. Weary of well-doing, perhaps, not able to see more fruitful service. I saw it in your slow pace when we walked from my office to Bush Park to the art fair late July. You had to stop three times to catch your breath. “Heartburn,” you feigned. I knew it wasn’t heart burn. For your sake, I will resist my catholic, self-effacing tendency to kick myself for not insisting one more time you go to the ER. The fact is, I didn’t.  For whatever reason. Respect. Futility. Distraction. It wasn’t because I didn’t care.

And I saw it in again in your face at breakfast on Labor Day. The fatigue. The food wasn’t great but that’s not what kept you down cast. I could see you were tired. Tired of contending. You always wanted more. More common sense from your country. More cohesion from your church. More commitment from your friends. More consideration from your family. You even wanted more cooperation from God. Maybe that’s why you barged in ahead of schedule. You believed in prayer, but you wanted God to do more, and you had to get right in His face.

I don’t remember our entire conversation at that belated birthday breakfast. I am racking my brain to remember. I know we talked mostly about how my home office was going. You thought I wore my dog shirt to counter the cat cards you sent me three days in a row. I don’t know if the conversation turned to you with your customary, “now let’s talk about Lisa” line. Did I even ask you about your how you were feeling, if you had any more episodes. I’d like to think I did. But I have to accept that maybe I didn’t.

All of life is a competition, you’d say. You beat me in fast Scrabble. You beat me in Settlers. You were stronger, more talented, more stalwart. You prayed more than I did, and you prayed for me more than I prayed for you. I know it. You were the better friend.  And you beat me going home.

You were not afraid to die, and you proved it. “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” You believed it and so will l.

What I really want to know, though, is what was it like hearing Jesus say, “Well done. Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master!”

To live is Christ. To die is gain. You win, Lisa. You win.

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