Wonderstruck (18 page)

That thankful disposition plays an essential role because it invites us to reorient our lives toward God. Through praise and thanksgiving, we reflect on the transcendent nature of God—the reality that he is above all. As we look up toward God, we also can’t help but be reminded of our smallness. This shift in perspective softens our hearts, inviting us once again to lean into God’s goodness, to look up for his salvation.

How do your circumstances affect your attitude of thanksgiving toward your life and God? In what areas of your life do you tend to hold back expressions of thanks? Will you answer the call to give thanks no matter what situation you’re facing?

Karen embodied the wonder of gratitude like no one I’d ever met before. She found joy in great pain, hope in despair, peace in uncertainty. Still weeks away from another surgery, she radiated thankfulness in the wreckage of life. That kind of gratitude makes me curious to know God more. Karen’s thankfulness was not for the circumstances but in the God who refused to leave her side. Such gratefulness is pure madness. Nothing in the realm of logic makes it possible. Only God. Karen’s gratitude wasn’t natural but supernatural. And her appreciativeness left me undone.

Karen taught me that when we live life awake to the wonder of God around us, we find reason to give thanks even in the wake of wreckage and discover God at the end of the runway.

T
HEY CALLED HIM
C
ACTUS
J
ACK
. Sky-blue eyes and a silver goatee reminiscent of the spiny desert plant sat atop his tall frame accentuated by leathery skin that spoke of a lifetime spent in outdoor adventure. Like most people, Cactus Jack clocked a forty-hour workweek, but unlike most people, he logged his hours as a professional poker player.

Well into his eighties, Cactus Jack discovered cards as an effective means of supplementing Social Security. Five days a week, he drove from his home in Saint George, Utah, across the border into Nevada, where legalized gambling formed the backbone of the state’s economy. He preferred the rugged gambling town of Mesquite to the glitter of Las Vegas.

Poker wasn’t a financial risk for Cactus Jack as much as a complex mathematical calculation. He kept his advice to young players simple: pay attention to the cards, keep track of your
odds, never let your emotions get involved. Over the years, Cactus Jack won far more than he lost and stored his winnings in a black sock beside his bed. His stash of cash paid for prescriptions, groceries, and gas for his daily commute.

Jack was a regular fixture at the card table for more than two decades. His unique fashion choices certified him as a bona fide character. He loved to wear a white cowboy hat with light-colored three-piece suits and crocodile boots. A well-chewed, unlit cigar hung from the right side of his mouth. Every few weeks, he strutted into the casino with a woman on his arm. His wife of sixty-plus years, Martha, wore long flowery muumuus and carried a sixty-four-ounce trucker’s cup jingling with silver coins. When Cactus Jack disappeared into the poker room, Martha paused to pray in front of a row of slot machines before taking a seat on one of the faux-leather stools.

His presence at the casino was as steady as the desert heat during the summer. Whenever he didn’t appear, friends at the casino knew something was wrong. On such occasions, dealers and fellow players phoned Jack’s house. Sometimes Cactus Jack took a substantive loss in the poker room and needed time to recalibrate his emotions before returning. Other times he or Martha nursed an illness. Upon hearing the news, someone from the casino would drop off chicken soup or a homemade pie.

Eventually, Martha couldn’t make the trek anymore because her health deteriorated as she progressed through her seventies. Cactus Jack stayed home for months to care for her until she died.
When he returned to the casino, everyone—from the poker dealers to the players—noticed the sparkle in his eye had vanished with Martha.

Cactus Jack continued his commute to Mesquite until, without warning, he disappeared from the casino for more than a week. Phone calls from concerned friends poured in. People soon learned that Cactus Jack had died from heart trauma.

My mother struggled to deliver the news.

After all, Cactus Jack was my grandfather.

Leif and I, along with my mother and aunt, traveled to Saint George once we learned my grandfather was in the hospital. He died before any of us arrived. In the wake of his death, we began the long process of sorting through his possessions, which felt like following a creaky staircase into a bottomless vault of memories.

Each of us tackled different rooms throughout the house. Dusty shelves, jammed drawers, eclectic artwork, and odd thingamabobs met us everywhere we turned. My favorite discovery was a collection of plaques and trophies from the 1950s celebrating Grandpa’s world records in speedboat racing. Because several of the competition classes were eliminated, he still holds a few records today.

Underneath Cactus Jack’s bed, I unearthed a dusty stack of
photos in an empty cigar box. Sorting through the old images, I recognized a sandy-blonde girl with sun-kissed cheeks as my mom. She had grown up on the shores of Englewood Beach, Florida, where my grandparents managed a resort and sold real estate. The photos showed my mom and her three siblings holding up an enormous snook. One photo captured Mom pinching with pride a black shark’s tooth she had found on the beach; another presented my aunts and uncle as kids gathered around the table for a Thanksgiving feast.

In the overflow of the garage, a set of golf clubs reminded me what had brought my grandparents to southern Utah years before. My grandparents owned a cabin on the shore of Henry’s Lake near Yellowstone National Park, but the frigid temperatures made the winters unbearable. They longed for a place where they could still play eighteen holes during the coldest months of the year. Their solution was to divide their time between Utah and Idaho.

Many of the junky items alluded to my grandparents’ final years when they watched too many hours of the Home Shopping Network and ordered unneeded treasures off infomercials. Though their grandchildren had long since entered adulthood, I found handfuls of plastic toys, stuffed animals, and wacky gizmos. Somehow aging awoke my grandparents’ childlike passion for play.

As we sorted through trash and treasure, my mom retold classic Cactus Jack stories. One year, when business was slow,
she said, he built a palm-frond beach shack near Englewood Beach. The novelty real estate office caught the attention of tourists and provided an upsurge in home buying.

Mom reminded me of a pivotal moment in my grandfather’s life: When a friend asked my great-grandfather for a loan to start a small grocery store, my great-grandfather gave his friend the money. The store took off. The friend told my great-grandfather that he could have his money back or gamble on the investment in exchange for a percentage of the business. My great-grandfather took back his money.

That grocery store became a large grocery-store chain known today as Publix.
¹

Such were the real-life lessons Grandpa watched unfold during his adolescence that undoubtedly shaped his outlook toward taking risks.

One of my fondest memories was fishing with Grandpa as a child. We’d wake up early in the morning, bathe in bug spray, and then sit together in the early morning silence waiting for the slightest tug on our lines. My grandfather knew live worms gave me the willies so he baited my hook every time. Whenever we brought home trout, grandma smoked and canned the fish. All these years later, I still can’t eat smoked fish without thinking about my grandfather.

I also remembered the assignment I received early in my career to interview the televangelist John Hagee. Grandpa acted as if I’d laid down a royal flush for all the chips. This was a brush
with fame from his perspective; he asked me to share details of the interview at least seventeen times. I never understood my grandfather’s enthusiasm for the televangelist, but his passion revealed his own desire to know God.

Even Leif chimed in with a few Grandpa stories. The first time Leif visited my grandparents, Cactus Jack pulled out a deck of cards and began dealing. Grandpa tapped the top of the deck and asked, “What are the odds of the next card being a face card or higher?”

Leif stared at him blankly. Cactus Jack explained the cumbersome math equations needed to calculate the probabilities of the top card. Not bad for an eighty-four-year-old.

Emptying dozens of bottles of prescription medication from my grandfather’s bathroom revealed how much his health had deteriorated over the last three years before his death. During a previous visit, I had noted how his athletic stroll had been reduced into an old-man shuffle. Cactus Jack found comfort from the aches and pains and indignities of aging through a self-prescribed blend of cigars, sugar, and cable news—all of which are manageable on their own, but when combined, produce a potentially explosive situation room.

As consistent as the sunrise, Grandpa’s day always began with Fox News. As daily headlines broke, Grandpa self-medicated with donuts and a bowl of jelly beans he kept nearby—both of which welcomed him closer to the no man’s land of diabetic coma. To help him stay awake, he slipped on his oxygen mask, lit his stogie,
and crowed muffled obscenities at the news anchors whenever a debate riled him.

Watching the disturbing scene unfold, we hung our heads, knowing that no amount of cajoling was going to pry the bear claw pastry, remote control, or lighter from Grandpa’s grasp. Instead, we decided to take bets on what would kill Grandpa first.

Dusting, scrubbing, cleaning, and sorting filled our days. Sometimes a sound would emerge from someone in another room. A drawer stuffed with knickknacks usually brought a groan; a wacky toy brought laughter. The white cowboy hat brought everyone together as we paused to admire my grandfather’s signature accessory. But the work also stirred up deep emotions. Watching tears run down my mom’s and aunt’s faces made me want to be a source of strength and stability. Every time I felt a rush of emotion, I widened my eyes, increasing the surface tension so I didn’t have to feel soggy. Then I slipped into a nearby room and wiped away any escapees.

Sometime during the afternoon of the third day, I couldn’t contain my grief any longer. I disappeared into the guest bedroom and wept. The tears flowed freely, leaving my eyes bloodshot, my face swollen. When I reemerged, I returned to sorting through bookshelves, but my mother caught a glimpse
of my face. I acknowledged the process felt overwhelming but assured her I was fine—even if I wasn’t 100 percent honest.

My aunt returned one day carrying a black plastic canister the size of a coffee can. “Here’s Grandpa!” she said.

Taken aback by the announcement, I realized I’d never seen someone’s remains after they returned from the crematorium. I held out my hands as if I were reaching for a newborn. Clutching the box, I was surprised by its weight. A gentle shake of the container reminded me of the finality of life.

Grandpa had come home. Now we deliberated over what to do with him. My aunt suggested we place him on top of the piano, where we could imagine him watching us as we cleaned. In some families, this might seem ridiculous, but in my family, it was perfectly in line with how we handle our grief. Still, even for me—fully initiated into our unique familial dynamics—the whole experience felt surreal and strange, and I disappeared into a back bedroom to weep for a second time.