Chapter 22 - Fractional Jubilance

Zachary and I drive north to honeymoon a few days at a resort on Big Sandy Lake. The snowstorm has made a winter wonderland! After sleeping in blissfully we trudge through drifts and fir trees by the frozen lake. Later we sit by a roaring fire and eat delicious meals in the rustic dining room.

We make it back to St. Paul in time to spend Christmas with family, then drive to Scottsdale, Arizona where Zach’s parents host a large reception at their church. I wear a sparkly dress trimmed with fur, and feel so special. More gifts, more great food, more love. We drive back to Minnesota laden with boxes of blankets, towels, houseware, and a rectangular box of delectable homemade Christmas cookies.

We set up housekeeping in a two-roomed apartment up the stairs on 8th street in Minneapolis, near the hospital. It’s close to Elliot Park, across the street from a mission for homeless people, where rent is cheap. Grandma and Grandpa Hofer have helped us clean and paint…even put new linoleum on the old kitchen countertop.

I hang curtains, arrange our few pieces of furniture, with a wall divider to separate the tiny living room space from the bedroom. The kitchen is the second room, with a bathroom attached. After putting our new dishes and pots and pans away in the cupboards, I cover our little kitchen table with a dark green cloth, and look around. Our two roomed nest is cozy!

I celebrate by having Miss Linnerooth, dean of the school of nursing over for dinner one night. She is neat, erect, polite—her white hair wreathing lively eyes. I am nervous about serving her, but all goes well. “You’re managing well, Marti,” she says at the end. “I’m sure God will guide you all into your missions work.”

During this last year of nursing I enjoy the obstetric and surgery rotations. Each delivery of a tiny human is an enormous miracle to witness! And surgery is a field electric to me—precise in preparation, procedure, closure. A sterile field with ingenious tools to dissect, excise, suture. I love viewing the insides of people. How amazing is the God-designed body where organs fit together, energized by warm blood.

One day I am scrubbed and gloved to assist with an abdominal surgery on a very large patient. At a certain point another tech and I are told to pull on large deavers to help widen the surgeons’ view. My deaver curls over the thick layer of abdominal fat, and I pull hard.

“Harder!”

The tech and I pull opposite ways, opening the abdomen as far as we can. I feel sorry for the surgeon, sorry for the patient. He will be in so much pain after waking! Viewing the inches of white fat I determine to watch my weight carefully. Heavy people struggle in so many ways.

As June and graduation approach I begin studying intently for state boards. We have to pass minimum state scores in each area of nursing before we can be hired. Zach studies his classes, and we each work part time. Romaine is nearby in student housing, a freshman in nursing.

Mom and Dad, Danny and David fly in from Irian Jaya just in time for my graduation. Dan is now 13, tall and articulate. Dave is quieter, muscular with playing sports. Dad has a beard like an Amish preacher, all around his chin, and still looks handsome. And Mom is lively, happy, her honey-colored hair short and curled.

Everyone loves Zach’s easy going humor…they meet the Smiths who have come to town, and Grandma and Grandpa Hofer. We are one big family at my Swedish Hospital graduation, loved ones beaming as I receive the nursing diploma. The circle of my life is complete that night.

It’s only later that I realize the hidden losses of being apart from my family for four years. My brothers are grown up, with teenage interests now. I try to catch up, get closer to them when together. I’m a young married woman—independent, yet insecure in some ways. My parents, older and wiser, have made enormous sacrifices with two children in boarding school and the two oldest around the world in the U.S.

In some quiet moments I visit with Mom, give her momento's from my wedding—a program, and some monogrammed napkins. She has already been sent wedding pictures.

She holds them, begins to weep. I am stunned, then a little angry. I hold Mom’s hand and consider. I was left for four years…how long could I have waited to get married? It was so hard to be apart from them—so many birthdays, celebrations, Christmases, and summers separate. So long! And such a cost for the gospel to be planted in my Dani tribe. Why is the missionary life sometimes so painful for the whole family? I feel rich, yet also malnourished, like a tree that didn’t get enough nutrients.

“I’m sorry it’s been so hard, Mom. I missed you at the wedding. I didn’t know how to wait longer. I don’t know why there has to be such separations and loss in family life to do missions.”

Mom wipes her eyes. “It’s ok, Marlene. God will make it up, somehow. We love you, and are glad you’re happy and we’re together now.” We hug, I kiss her on the cheek.