Month: July 2021

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A Year now

I still sense your presence in our favourite places.

Dear Sid, It’s been a year now. I made it through. So much to share with you. I’ve spoken aloud to you and wept many a time as our dear little Bear and I walked through mist, snow, or welcome shade in our favourite dog forest. Your stick still awaits you there, up against the fence.Sid's favourite dog forest

I stopped walking there every day because it made me too sad. Besides, in spring we went more often to Sebastian Beach to be warmed by the gentle sun. So glad you requested your ashes to be sprinkled there, where Bear and I go often anyway because it’s so near and dogs can run free. The scenery amazes me every time. If there’s a place on earth both of us would like to be forever, it’s there.

In winter I walked the beach listening to the crashing waves and sobbing, pouring out my heart to you in starts and stops. Sometimes I sat in the car observing the tumultuous sea and sky and letting the driving rain on the windshield wash away my sorrows. As summer came on, when the tide was out I walked barefoot on the sand as Bear ran back and forth, and then when it got really hot, I swam and thought of all the times we swam there together. You dove right in, urging me to join you. I still make my way in ever so slowly. But once in, it’s sooo nice. I remember all the fun we had together frolicking in the water and I miss you.

Plenty of love and support

You had lots of friends. The church people showered us with kindness, sending cards, emails, and calling with love and support from when you got that first spinal tumour, through the year and a half of pancreatic cancer, and even now a year later. Friends and relatives from afar posted notes and prayers on Facebook. Your biker friends (especially Dwight) offered many times to help. Nathaniel and I so appreciated him rounding up the gang to bring trucks and deliver boxes and smaller items to our new home (It’s a comfort having my son around. He misses you too.). Dwight is keeping your memory alive with an annual motorcycle trip to Osoyoos. You guys loved that route. Lake Chelan is still a no-go because of covid-19. Good thing you took those trips to the States while you could.

Your Viking dream finally came true.

A year now. Your childhood dream was to explore the world and discover new places (Viking heritage!). Disappointment struck when you learned the entire world had already been discovered. But a year ago you embarked on the greatest journey of discovery–into the heavens. What is it really like, Sid? I thought I might see you zooming from cloud to cloud on your motorcycle, but all I see is airplane trails. I wonder what you zoom around on up there in that realm that we can’t see from here. Angels have wings, right? But ghosts don’t need them. And what kind of musical instruments have you learned to play? Do you still have the warm singing voice that I loved? So glad to have those videos I can watch any time–almost like having you here for a moment. Watch “Sid Fredericksen, Father of Love” on YouTube

I’ll join you before long. Love and tears, Pearl

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Sid Fredericksen’s Heartfelt Musical Legacy

Sid FredericksenSid Fredericksen’s musical legacy began at an early age. He had music in his heart. In primary school, whenever the class lagged, the teacher asked, “Who would like to sing us a song?”. Sid jumped up right away, glad to entertain.

At home, his oldest sister, Marilyn, played the piano while the family gathered around to sing Christmas carols. His sisters had a phonograph and collected popular songs of the 40s and 50s.

As a teen, Sid got himself a guitar, and asked a lady who played to teach him. After a few lessons he was off and away, teaching himself. Eventually he and a few friends formed a band and played at dances in their little Norwegian settlement of Hagensborg in the Bella Coola Valley off the West Coast of Canada. One of the other players, Danny Epp, became a life-long best friend.

Sid traded up his guitar from time to time, and owned several over his lifetime. It was through his guitar playing, in a round-about way, that he became a Christian as an adult. As a child he had accepted Jesus at Vacation Bible School, but had not continued in a Christian lifestyle until in his thirties he was asked to play his guitar for a small church that had no musicians. The pastor was a co-worker with Sid on a road crew in a small interior community. While he attended church to play his guitar, the sermons went straight to Sid’s heart. Soon both he and his first wife, Elsie, committed themselves to Jesus. Sid wrote a couple of songs expressing the joy of his Christian life.

Later in life he bought a ukulele, which he loved to play for passersby on the Nanaimo sea walk to accompany his singing, alternated with a kazoo. Coffee houses for songwriters were popular on Vancouver Island, and for a few years Sid regularly played and sang at several of them. Later he joined a small group of musicians to sing and play hymns and choruses at Senior homes.

At the age of 76, Sid was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. With the end in sight, it became important to Sid to leave his signature on the world in the form of the musical gift God bestowed on him. He continued to learn more guitar fingering and to perfect his songs until he finally faltered.

You can listen to some of Sid Fredericksen’s musical legacy on YouTube, under Sid Fredericksen. Watch the spelling of Fredericksen–three ‘e’s and no ‘o’s.

Here’s a link to one he wrote, with wishes from Sid that you may also come to know his Father of Love, our Creator: https://youtu.be/oRmbqWbt_lo.

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the Oak Leaves, by Maureen Lang, 2007, Tyndale

An unfortunate legacy in the family tree

the Oak Leaves

Her family tree yielded a legacy she never expected. An unfortunate genetic disorder called fragile X syndrome, manifested in her dear little son. Could this be true? Too scary to believe and accept.

This dual-timeline novel alternates chapters between Talie’s story in the recent past in the U.S.A., and Cosima’s story in the mid 1800s in Ireland and England. Talie inherits Cosima’s diary. What she finds in there shocks her. She wonders if she has inherited the fragile X syndrome as a carrier, and passed it on to her son.

The dreaded legacy becomes real

She begins to observe the differences between her son and other toddlers, and is increasingly horrified. Their family doctor assures them that his development is merely slower than some, and he will catch up. But she gets a blood test, and consults with experts. Gradually the truth comes out. Thankfully she has an amazingly supportive husband, whose strength she is able to lean on.

But what are the implications? What does this mean for her as yet unborn child? Will he or she inherit the same genetic flaw? What about Talie’s sister, who has just met a new love interest? Should she drop him because of the possibility that her children may not be normal?

Talie grapples with all these earth-shaking, life-altering, new challenges. She repeatedly returns to Cosima’s diary, afraid of learning more, but at the same time drawing strength from her godly example.

the Oak Leaves is written from the perspective of an author who herself has a son with fragile X syndrome. Her own family tree yielded a legacy she never expected. Maureen Lang’s son is like Royboy, the brother of Cosima. Fragile X is a mysterious and elusive genetic flaw that affects some more than others, and can skip several generations before it once again emerges in an unfortunate form.

Why did this unexpected disaster happen to me?

One wonders why God allows such curses. This is a theological issue that every one of us must wrestle with at some point. Is there some reason for tragedies? It’s the age-old question that plagued Job in the first book ever written. Simply put, some would remind us that the earth is still under Adam’s curse. Although Jesus came to redeem us, we are not yet made perfect. The Bible says that the whole world groans awaiting the day when our redemption is complete. Meanwhile our faith is developed and strengthened as we hang in there together, supporting and encouraging one another.

Visit www.tyndalefiction.com for updates on Maureen Lang’s books.

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