The fun stories from the farm give way to, of all things, death. Ironically, the termination of life integrates directly into life itself. We are all affected by it. One generation comes, and another goes (Ecc. 1:4). Yet, however macabre that sounds, there is a glimmer of God’s glory in every story. And so we must not neglect to remember the ending of life for those who have gone before (their burial places with engraved stone memorials are located in the distant, cold north, and most of my downline will never visit there). Most important to me are the endings of my father and mother. Here is a snapshot of my father leading up to the end.

My brother called in December 1999, a year after the death and funeral of my grandfather (Jack, Sr.). My dad (Jack, Jr.) had died suddenly. The discovery was made when a neighbor had found my mother wandering aimlessly in the neighborhood in the middle of the night (she had Alzheimer’s disease, dreaded at the time and often hidden out of embarrassment). Dad’s lifeless body lay at the foot of the bed.

What a shock! He had had triple heart bypass surgery six years earlier (at age 65) but had fully recovered. He had moved back to northern Minnesota and carried on somewhat normally with life, doing odd projects around the house. We had several family reunions up there, where we three brothers would drag our pop-up tent trailers from Canada, Oregon, and Minneapolis to camp out in our parents’ backyard. They were glorious days of reconnecting with family. Beth, our sister, lived in California and joined us for the last one before Dad died.

But now, Dad was gone. He was our direct connection with the Gianotti ancestral line; now, a strange sensation came over me of feeling like an orphan. I felt strangely unconnected to those who had gone before, who are above me in the genealogical tree that extends back through generations. I was now the oldest living ancestor in my own personal downline of descendants that includes my children, my grandchildren, and their offspring for the next one thousand years, or when Christ returns (whichever comes first)! The dividing line in my family chart between the living and the dead moved down one level from above my father to just above me. Suffice it to say his passing became an existential experience for me.

He had been a good father and taught me respect, good manners, and chivalry (I was never allowed to hit my older sister because she was a girl, but it was OK for my brother Mike and me to duke it out). Dad taught me the value of hard work, supported me in my high school basketball career, bought me my first (and only) surfboard, took me fishing, taught me how to work with wood and do projects around the house, and the list goes on. He passed on the importance of education and even helped pay for some of my college expenses. We had a good relationship, that is, until I went through a life-changing transformation and became a committed follower of Jesus Christ.

When I trusted the Lord in 1972, just out of college, one of the first things I did was call my parents long distance (I lived in New York, they in Hawaii). I was so excited about God’s forgiveness and His giving me purpose in life (after four years of a rather decadent life in college). They listened quietly as I went on about my newfound faith, Jesus Christ and the cross, the reality that we don’t need to confine our relationship with God to the four walls of a church building, the fact that God doesn’t care about denominations, and on and on. I genuinely thought they would be excited for me and want to know more about how they could experience God the same as I did. But no, the coldness on the other end of the line began to emerge and then quickly burst into an emotional reaction I wasn’t expecting.

My mother thought I had joined a cult, and to say she was adamant and harsh in her response would be a serious understatement. They interpreted what I was saying as a criticism of them and the Roman Catholic church. When Mom finished, Dad calmly said, “Son, you have your religion, we have ours. Don’t ever talk to us about this again.” And that was it.

It took years to smooth things over; efforts to communicate with them were usually met with reserved, icy reactions. Then, in 1975, I announced to them that I was engaged to be married. But since the young lady I was marrying was not Catholic, and it was clear we would not be having a Catholic wedding, they were quite reserved. They did not attend the wedding (though admittedly, cost of airfare in those days was a contributing factor) and instead sent a gift.

Three years later, we wrote to them about our plans to relocate from Buffalo, New York, to Texas so that I could attend Dallas Theological Seminary. Dad’s concern was that I was throwing away my undergraduate college education and career. They both saw this as a further rejection of the Catholic church, and to make matters worse, in their eyes, I was studying to become a “cult” pastor and promote teaching against the Catholic church.

To give them some leeway in their reactions, the 1970s did see a rise of so-called “Christian” cults and strange “religious” behaviors, and I got lumped in with all of that, even though nothing could be further from the truth. However, my parents believed that to leave the Catholic church meant leaving the truth of God. It didn’t matter what religion or denomination; every denomination that was not Catholic was, well, not Catholic!

All that began to change when, during our first year at the seminary, we asked my parents if we could visit them in Florida (where they had recently moved). Our first child, their one-year-old grandson, was the drawing card, and to our surprise, they agreed. Miraculously, the Lord provided us with the airfare (I was a full-time student working part-time to support the family, so we had little money). From two different sources, we were given enough for our family of three to fly to Florida! God was at work, and this trip was the turning point.

(To be continued.)