(Originally published on my old website on July 15, 2019.)
She even looked like my mom.
Blonde hair. Tanned skin. The kind of beauty for which she didnât have to try â but she did anyway, because fashion is fun, and why not wear red lipstick if youâve got the smile to show it off?
Like my mother, Tiffany Wendt was an absolute knockout, both in body and in spirit. And like my mother, she was called home too soon.
On a Sunday night in mid-July, Tiffany passed from this earth into eternity after a battle with cancer that began in late 2016. Surrounded by family, worship music filling the air, she couldnât speak â couldnât move â but summoned the strength of the Holy Spirit to lift her hands one last time.
Tiffany entered heaven praising her Savior.
She was one of my husbandâs six cousins. Her husband, Jeff, married us; their son Finn was our ring bearer. Together, Tiff and Jeff â founders and pastors of Canvas Church in Northfield, Minnesota â led our premarital counseling. Troy and I would drive from Sioux Falls to sit on their porch or deck, eating cookies and talking about the joys and realities of marriage. We agreed we wanted a relationship like theirs.
Tiffany leaves behind five children, ranging in age from fourteen to four: Jack, Noah, Finn, Sally, and Bo.
My mom left behind four. I was twelve â the same age, the same curly hair and sweet, silly spirit, as Noah.
Since Tiffanyâs passing, Iâve been hit by dozens of memories of the days after my mother died. The weeping of family. The dressing up for the funeral. The clinging to Dad while, somewhere behind us, people I didnât know sang through their tears.
Yet the aftermath of Tiffanyâs death has been different. Tiffany was different.
I credit Tiffany with my initiation into the Klongerbo family.
Shortly after we got engaged, Troy brought me to his family reunion near Fargo, where an impromptu talent show was hosted the very first evening. Not one to claim the spotlight â but also not one to cower when called on â I accepted Tiffanyâs invitation to cook something up with a few other women.
What followed was a barely practiced âsynchronized swimming routine,â in which the six of us scurried and dove and flopped around in front of the small crowd, Tiffany barking directions at us to âFollow along!â It was hilarious and humiliating and exactly what I needed to feel at ease among these people whom I hardly knew, but who would soon become my family.
Tiffany had a knack for making people feel like family.
Apparently, Iâm not the only one who thinks so. Hundreds of tributes have flooded her Facebook page. At her celebration of life ceremony, 1,700 people joined â high heels and all â to honor her legacy. Thousands more have watched the two-hour service online, including many who had never heard her name before last week. (Postscript: The video is now private, I think because of copyright issues.)
Around eighty people welcomed Jesus Christ into their hearts during her memorial.
The day we learned she had passed, Troy and I walked from our downtown offices to Falls Park, eyes heavy, legs a bit numb. He challenged God. âDoesnât he know how dumb this makes him look?â he asked. âHe could have saved her. How many more lives could have been changed if she had lived to tell the story?â
Through his grief, Troyâs faith never wavered. Yet he was asking the same questions I â and most others who have endured loss â have asked of God. Though my mom died suddenly, with no time to pray for a miracle, her death didnât âmake sense.â No death does.
But, as Jeff impressed upon us so poignantly during the service:
I donât know why it went the way it did. I donât know why the miracle of Tiffanyâs healing â or her healed body â happened in heaven. But hereâs the reality. If I allowed them to, these questions would haunt me for the rest of my life, causing me to not only have lost my wife, but also my faith. . . .
Maybe even today youâre wondering, âHow on earth do I move forward with God?â . . . Well, I want to give you the same advice I gave Jack on Monday morning, twelve hours after Mom had passed, when he told me he was struggling with God.
I said, âJack, I am too. And thatâs okay.â
Itâs okay if youâre struggling. Itâs okay if youâre angry at him. Heâs big enough to take it.
I said, âPour out your frustration to him. But in the process, please â please â do not let your heart become hard towards him.â
In too many moments like this, when crisis hits and we try to rack our human brain to understand, saying, âGod, why would you do this?â we end up pushing God away, rather than pressing in. And if thereâs ever a moment to press into God, it is right now. . . .
Because even though hard things happen in life, it doesnât mean that God is not good.
Eighty people came to Christ at Tiffanyâs memorial.
In the fifteen years since my mom passed away, Iâve heard countless accounts of the mark she made on others. Julie Schock wasnât a pastor, but she was a wife, mother, teacher, friend. Iâm one of many, many people whose lives are forever changed because of the captivatingly beautiful spirit of my mother and, now, Tiffany Wendt.
“Pour out your frustration to him. But in the process, please â please â do not let your heart become hard towards him.”
â Jeff Wendt
You hear about funerals that are more celebratory than somber. But Iâd never been to one until Tiffanyâs.
There was color. Laughter. Joy, even.
Because Tiffany had, as pastor IV Marsh declared during the service, âa no-matter-what faith.â
I couldnât help but compare her memorial service to my motherâs. She died on Christmas Eve in 2003, and the days afterward were cold and dark. Everyone wore black. Family hugged; acquaintances knelt to say they were sorry. My motherâs face haunted me everywhere. For days, I skirted around the spot in the kitchen where my sister found her.
If I forgot about Mom for even a minute, I felt guilty.
No one taught me this solemnity. I figure there were many factors at play: the winter season, the unexpectedness of her death, my own introversion. It seems that funerals are becoming less dismal, too, as people realize how their loved ones would have actually wanted them to remember their lives.
And who knows â perhaps Iâm misremembering.
But what I pray is that Tiffanyâs children, like my siblings and I, never forget how loved and protected they were during this time, particularly by their father. Especially given the words those kids shared, and the words their father shared with them, I believe they wonât.
Troy has been tender with me this past week as Iâve sorted through the layers of these two deaths. He asked if I would say anything to the children at the service. I didnât, ultimately, as they were busy with their friends and Chick-fil-A, and Iâll be darned if I stole any ounce of fun just so someone they barely know could say her peace.
But if I had, it would have been something like this: You will be okay.
Jack, you will be kind and mature and insightful beyond your years. At that family reunion, when you must have been ten, you grabbed my suitcase and declared, âLadies shouldnât carry things.â If I didnât know then that youâd one day make a world-class husband and father, I certainly do now.
Sally, you will be the belle of the ball. As if you werenât already your daddyâs princess, youâll now have him (and everyone else) wrapped around your finger. Youâll learn some girly things from your aunts and figure out others on your own, and that will make you strong. Youâll be mostly like your mom, and she would love all the ways youâre not, too. Embrace them.
All of you, you will find your way. It wonât always be easy, but if you stay close with your family â if you have fun with them, if you tell them how youâre feeling, if you keep sharing stories of your mom (even the imperfect ones) â youâll get through this.
And life will be good.
Watching the Wendt kids chase each other around the church, blonde hair flying, I felt the peace that comes with knowing how the story ends. They will be okay. They will grow to touch the lives of others with their stories, their inexplicable wisdom and strength.
But that got me thinking. Am I touching the lives of others? Am I honoring the life of my mother, the work that the Lord has done through her and through the rest of us, now that the wounds are no longer fresh?
While I never really forget that my mom is gone, the world does. And that makes it easy to slip into a pattern of normalcy, to simply âmove on.â
I believe, ultimately, this is by design. God doesnât want us to dwell in sorrow.
âHow long did Jesus weep?â Troy wondered that afternoon at Falls Park. Iâd guess not long. He had a purpose to fulfill.
So what is my purpose? What is yours?
Shortly before she died, deep in the valley of her sickness, Tiffanyâs husband Jeff was attempting to help her with something. âYouâre doing great, babe,â he encouraged. âYouâre so brave.â
Surely in pain, but never one to show it, Tiffany responded simply, her last words on earth: âIt is my honor.â
Her honor. Her honor to die with dignity. To deny herself, take up her cross, and follow him.
“It is my honor.”
â Tiffany Wendt
The weeks and months âafter Mom,â as we called it, were red-eyes rough.
We slept in the same room â all five of us â for months. Our schoolwork suffered. We shut down and acted out. We argued and cried and pretended and escaped and, when Nancy entered the picture, became surly and exclusive, even while knowing she â and Dad â didnât deserve such behavior. Dad was full of his own issues, too, some of which Iâm probably still unaware.
But little by little, we climbed the hill. We tripped over our dragging feet (âPick up your heels!â I can still hear Mom say) â and, palms scraped, we hoisted ourselves back up. We helped each other. We leaned into the Lord. Dad taught us to notice things, like cardinals in the snow and promises in the Word. As we got older, we learned to remind each other of who she was â how proud sheâd be watching Laurenâs senior dance solo, what sheâd say if she tripped over yet another video game controller (some sort of expletive, weâd laugh). How overjoyed sheâd feel to see each one of us â Dad included â go on to marry a godly spouse.
In the wake of my motherâs death, my dad asked one question of a friend who had also lost his wife, the only person he wanted to hear from in that moment: âAm I going to be okay?â
âYes, Paul,â replied the friend. âYou will be okay.â
Resurfacing these memories hasnât exactly been pleasant. But itâs been so good.
One of the greatest encouragements to me, the hope I cling to, is that Tiffanyâs husband and children will be forged through this fire. I know my family is stronger because of the tragedy that bonded us together.
âSome of my very favorite people lost a parent at an early age,â someone told my father shortly after my mom passed. That has always stuck with me, a talisman to grasp when I feel the emptiness of not having her.
Without realizing it, as Iâve grown up, Iâve come to consider my motherâs death as a gift I didnât want â a lens through which I see the world differently. I have to be careful not to treat myself as âspecialâ because of it, but there is a certain pride I feel when I look to my side and see my dad witnessing to another widower, or my brothers wearing their hearts on their sleeves, or my sister looking after her child and students with a care that often brings her to tears (bless her heart). Troy jokes that the Schocks are an emotional bunch, and we are, naturally, but I doubt weâd be so passionate if we havenât been bred with a keen sense of what is at stake in this life.
This is why I have such hope for the Wendts. They already are a family of astounding faith. Can you imagine how powerful their testimonies will be now? How many others might come to Jesus because their belief was tested, affirmed, strengthened, and shared?
I canât wait to see it.
I donât have an answer for why women like Tiffany and my mom are taken from us so soon. I wish I did. And I donât have a road map to climbing the mountain of that grief. I wish I had.
But I do know that the Wendts will be okay. I know because I lived it, am still living it, and I know because God promised.
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
â Jesus Christ
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