The Terror Trap (Department Z Book 7)
Copyright © 2016 Ward Tanneberg
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture references are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2011.
This work is a memoir which details the journey the author and his wife took through her illness. The author is not a doctor and medical information in this book is to illustrate their journey and should not be construed as medical advice.
Quotation from Dr. JoAnn Dahlkoetter used with permission.
Cover Photo: Dixie at Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona, West Coast of Scotland
Dedicated
to all who knew her as
~ Dixie, Dix, Mom, Gramma, GG ~
Her life became her message.
Looking for her Father
she took us with her on her journey.
Dixie Lee Tanneberg 1935–2015
What people are saying about Sacred Journey:
Some love stories just need to be told—even the final pages of that story. Maybe especially those final pages. In the beautiful memoir, Sacred Journey, author Ward Tanneberg writes with a poignant tenderness about the life journey he and his beloved wife, Dixie, walked together. The path was not always easy, but in their story, we find hope for ours.
Dr. Jodi Detrick, Speaker,
former columnist for The Seattle Times
Author of The Jesus-Hearted Woman
Poignant, heartwarming and incredibly uplifting. In Sacred Journey, Ward tells the story of Dixie’s well-lived life, from meager beginnings, to touching and impacting thousands of lives. You will laugh, cry and be forever changed. If you read one book this year—read Sacred Journey.
Dr. Chuck Stecker, President
A Chosen Generation.
An unwanted child. An angry mother. An abusive and absent father. An unpromising start in what life is meant to be. Sacred Journey is Dixie Tanneberg’s true story of perseverance and faith in God; of dreams lost and love unexpected by the toss of a coin; of a woman’s strength and courage in her final determination not to waste her cancer. Her story challenges and reaches out to us through each thoughtful word and page.
Wes Wick, Director
YES! Young Enough to Serve
Occasionally, I care for a patient that moves me to reflection, tenderness, and admiration. Dixie was that kind of person. A woman I was blessed to know. A direct gaze. No nonsense. A woman of love, with devoted daughter and husband by her side. She is ready to be well, but this cancer will not cooperate. Hard times come with precious ones. Who is this strong, amazing woman?
Lucille Marchand, MD, BSN, FAAHPM, Professor
Stuart J Farber, MD and Annalu Farber Endowed Faculty Fellow in Palliative Care Education
Department of Family Medicine, Section Chief of Palliative Care
Director Palliative Care Program—UW Medical Center
University of Washington School of Medicine
For more of what people are saying, please turn to that section in the back of the book.
Acknowledgements
There are many people who are part of this true story. The list is far too long to be recited here. You know who you are. Thank you so much for being in her life and in mine. Thank you to the church families we have served and that have been there for us in return; to our many friends, neighbors, and those of you we have yet to meet in person, who prayed for us, shared simple acts of kindness, and offered words of encouragement during the final months of Dixie’s sacred journey.
A special thanks to our children Michele and Stephen, and their spouses, Mark and Nancy, who joined with Susan Harper and Dr. Lucille Marchand as readers and consultants, helping to ensure accuracy and clarity of content. Your corrections and suggestions were so valuable to this writer. Thanks to Robert Burger and Michele Peterson for creating the Sacred Journey Discussion Guide, thus enabling the reader’s personal review, as well as couples, book clubs and small groups; turning thoughtful interactive discussion toward our own sacred journeys.
A shout out to my good friend, literary agent and president of Hartline Literary Agency, Joyce Hart, who keeps on being my writing advocate and encourager; and to Elizabeth-Anne Kim at Hartline, who has faithfully guided this project to completion. I told you you were really going to like working with me, Elizabeth. And you were courageous enough to believe it. So the next time I’m in Pittsburgh, dinner is on me.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Photographs
Forward
Introduction
1 Calm before Storm
2 Valentine’s Day
3 Options Are Good
4 Looking for Signposts
5 Song Sparrows and Hummingbirds
6 The Warmest Room
7 Regrets . . . There Are a Few
8 Looking for My Father
9 The Numbers Game
10 Waiting and Watching
11 Love Unexpected
12 A New Normal
13 Yielding
14 Questioning
15 The “What if” Question
16 The Restless Years
17 Success and Sadness
18 Full Circle
19 Farewell for Awhile
20 Any Port in a Storm
21 Always a Bride
22 Why Do You Think You’re Here?
23 Where Help Comes From
24 Left Alone
25 Satisfied . . . Not Settling
26 Seeing with the Eyes of God
27 Against the Wind
28 Lifting Weary Hands
29 Ring That Bell!
30 Selah
31 Perspective
32 When Setbacks Come
33 Uncharted Territory
34 Midcourse Check
35 My Journey Through the Valley of Shadows
36 Road Trips
37 The Bad Week
38 The Thousand-Year Day
39 Doctors Treat . . . Jesus Heals
40 Merry Christmas!
41 The Greatest Small Gift
42 When Rights Are Not Always Right
43 It’s Not Over ‘til It’s Over
44 The Thing Between God and Us
45 Happy Valentine’s Day
46 Our Family in Christ
47 Don’t Breathe
48 It Takes a Village!
49 “Beam Me up, Scotty”
50 Traits of the Long Distance Runner
51 More Traits . . .
52 Chemotherapy Round 4
53 Icons of Aging
54 Attitude and Tenacity
55 The Tipping Point
56 What I Learned from Dixie
57 The Most Important Thing
58 The Journey Ends
A Postscript for Dixie
The Beginning
Life is meant to be a
Sacred Journey
Questions
More of What People Are Saying About Sacred Journey
About the Author
Photographs
Dixie Lee Tanneberg 1935–2015
1 Desert
2 Barbee family ~ Sam and Edna Barbee; Don, Dixie, Darvin
3 Dixie’s childhood home in Claremore, OK
4 Fun and faithful: Nancy (behind), L-R Bev, Carolyn, Dixie
5 Dixie went fishing once - the only fish she
ever caught - 11
5 lbs!
6 Mom and Michele were never far apart.
7 The wedding - L-R Wanda, Dixie, Ward, Clyde
8 Dixie wears her wedding dress on her 50th anniversary.
9 Dixie teaching Women’s Bible Study
10 Dixie rings the bell.
11 The radiation team joins in celebration
12 Michele with step granddaughters: Karen,
Amy, Jody, Becky and Dixie
13 Our son, Stephen, Nancy and Jesse
14 Our granddaughter, Jessica
15 Our daughter, Michele, and Mark
16 (L-R) Our Granddaughter, Katy, Finnigan, Geoff, and Corbin
17 The SR520 Lake Washington Floating Bridge
18 Dixie finds still waters.
19 Dixie waits for the plane at Budapest Ferenc Liszt
International Airport
20 GG and great-grandson, Corbin
21 Dixie stays warm while waiting for treatment to
get underway.
22 A proton therapy treatment bay
23 Dixie with the Charles River and Boston in background
24 Dixie’s mountain
25 Postscript to a love story
26 Song sparrow
27 Hummingbird
Forward
I didn’t want Ward to write this book. Not this book. I wanted him to write an inspiring story of Dixie’s amazing triumph against the Enemy Cancer. A story that ends with Dixie and Ward strolling hand-in-hand on a beach with their boodle of grandkids and great-grands laughing up ahead.
Like so many others who knew and loved Dixie, I desperately wanted her cancer to be annihilated. Zapped. Totally obliterated. I wished for the next high-tech treatment to work when the last one didn’t. I repeatedly asked God for an out-of-the-ballpark miracle, a Red Sea moment in her wilderness experience. But that miracle did not come.
When I first met Dixie some years ago, I was immediately drawn to her engaging smile and the lyrical way she carried herself, both confident and gentle. We were in southern California for a leadership conference hosted by CASA—Christian Association Serving Adults. Since I have a special affinity for older adults who are growing frail, I was asked to speak on how to help the oldest old discover a renewed sense of purpose even as they age.
Over the years, mature saints have taught me many things, but most importantly, they have encouraged me not to gloss over the hard realities of aging in a flimsy attempt to be positive and upbeat. From them I have learned the power of trust and hope amid the trials that often accompany this season of change and loss.
Following my session that day, Dixie took my hand in hers, looked deep into my eyes, and quietly said something that is etched in my mind. “You are a true gift for older adults,” she said. “We need your message of enduring hope and perseverance in difficult times, even when it’s hard to hear.”
Dixie seemed to understand how some adults, particularly Boomers, shy away from talking about the tough challenges of aging. They don’t want to think about physical decline or loss of independence. Her generous words of affirmation that day made me feel as though I had known her for decades instead of hours. Then a couple of years later, we had the opportunity to share fellowship and conversation at another conference, affirming what I already knew. Dixie was the real deal. An authentic, humble servant of God. It wasn’t until recently that I even wondered if there was a story about how this gracious woman from Washington State had been given a southern name like Dixie.
My heart ached when I first learned of Dixie’s diagnosis. I anxiously awaited Ward’s weekly posts with updates on her journey. I read about the ups and downs of her treatments and celebrated the moments of unexpected grace. Each week I discovered a palpable hope woven into the texture of Ward’s words, a hope that only comes from unwavering trust in an almighty God. Even friends of mine who had never met Ward and Dixie began to follow along on their intimate yet sacred journey.
Reading about the medical procedures, trial programs and medications brought to mind an image of Dixie’s beloved Pacific Northwest where I had visited just a few years earlier. I pictured the rugged coastline where frigid waves pound the rocky shore, causing white spray to explode like fireworks. I knew there had to be days when Dixie felt like those boulders, sustaining the brunt force of the sea. Yet, like the huge rocks, she remained steadfast in faith.
I thought, too, about how the ocean waves are much like aging. There is no stopping the white-capped waves. They are relentless, constantly pushing their way upon the shore, just as God designed them to do. Yet when I stood before this scene of nature, I was moved in an inexplicable way by the stunning spectacle of perseverance and power before me. Like Dixie’s life, a majestic, awe-inspiring beauty that is best understood in the spiritual realm.
I am grateful that Ward resisted the urge to gloss over the tough realities of Dixie’s journey. There are moments we may be tempted to close our eyes to the pain and suffering, but without them, the significance of her obedience, courage and hope are diminished. Ward tenderly invites us into the darkness so we can fully experience the fragrance of grace and the light of hope, giving witness to a mature faith.
I have had the honor of holding the timeworn hands of many older adults in their last days on earth. Their lives have been like glimmering gold threads stitched into my life, making me stronger for having witnessed their faith. And as I look back, I can see their golden threads trailing behind their earthly lives. A lasting legacy for others to see.
I thank God for the golden thread of Dixie Tanneberg who so unselfishly stitched into countless lives over the years, making each of us stronger by her faithful witness. This is the book that needed to be written. It is Dixie’s message of enduring hope and perseverance in difficult times, even when it’s hard to hear.
Missy Buchanan
Author of Voices of Aging and other books
www.missybuchanan.com.
My self is given to me far more than it is formed by me.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
The now is only a thin slice of who I am; isolated from the rich deposits of before, it cannot be understood.
The before is the root system of the visible now.
~ Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses
Introduction
IN THE BEGINNING
The world was in trouble the year I was born, as was the family of my birth. It was the middle of the Great Depression; the economic world was in shambles and unemployment rampant. The turmoil within my family was intensified by persistent, prevailing winds sweeping clean the soil that produced the food they ate; and more bad news, another baby was on the way. My birth was not a joyous occasion. I was the only girl in a family of boys, but I was not welcomed. I was another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, another strain on an already emotionally depleted marriage. ~ DLT, diary, 2015
AT THE ENDING
79 years and 39 weeks later.
When news of her death is posted on the Internet, word spreads quickly. Thousands visit the announcement to see her picture, to grieve over the loss of one who has left her mark in one way or another on each of them and on a world that at first had not welcomed her coming, but in the end was a better place for her having been here. What drew so many men and women to her during her lifetime?
An ordinary child, born on 5 November 1935, into a poor farmer’s family in Carnegie, Oklahoma, she grew to womanhood in the city. Her first paying job was dressing windows in a Tulsa Oklahoma department store. She never went to college, never did the things that usually precede greatness. Never followed youthful dreams of singing in the opera. Married young. Had two children. Was not wealthy. She was a working mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother. Never wrote a book. Never had a Facebook or LinkedIn or Pinterest account and never once Tweeted.
In her favorite Bible are two blank pages now filled with handwritten quotes from Eugene Peterson, a Protestant pastor, theologian, author; Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest
, professor and writer; and Irenaeus, a disciple of the Apostle John. Following these quotes, on a page by itself, are these words, audacious and bold, brave, almost defiant, written by the same feminine hand, “My limitations do not keep God from doing His work through me.”
A private woman, she lived a public life. Not by choice, but by calling. She read broadly and deeply. She challenged others to be the best they could be. Those who knew her described her as a role model, mentor and friend, kind and warm. These and other such descriptors were meant to encourage her, to acknowledge her worth and value, but were hard for her to accept. Affirming words are difficult to acknowledge as true if not heard while growing up at home.
There is one descriptor often used by those who knew her best. It is the word “extra.” She refused to let this adjective linger as something well deserved, but passed it on to others whom she touched and believed in, especially those struggling with destructive feelings of unworthiness or the crippling lack of being valued by those important to their wellbeing. She was certain that extra could happen for them as it had for her, as each person comes to understand how God intends their ordinary, everyday life to become an extraordinary sacred journey, with the amazing pursuit of knowing God as its highest endeavor.
Had she realized so many would stop what they were doing to view her picture and mention her name or shed tears of sadness at the end, she would have said, “Whoa, this is way too much exposure!” She was not comfortable in front of large groups or crowds, though she often taught or was a guest speaker. She was more at home listening to and encouraging people one-to-one on their sacred journeys. In the end, her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and thousands more loved her for that very reason.
Sacred Journey is a true love story, framed in the final eighteen months of her life. Simple, vulnerable and transparent, written as a reminder to older men and women with lines of experience carved into their countenance; as a legacy to adult children and their children who dream of attaching lasting meaning to their lives; as a thank you note to those who knew and loved her on her journey; and as an invitation to the reader who would like to know someone who believes God’s intention is for extra to belong to every ordinary human soul. A story of two people in love, filled with dreams and disappointments, hope and hopelessness, emotional pain and physical suffering, and a Light in a valley of dark shadows. A story you can identify with, in many ways as being very much your own.