Bryan deWit 7-13-2011
Bryan’s wife, Karyn, wrote this as her tribute to Bryan. She wants everyone to know how much she loved him and how she felt about him.
I’m sure if Bryan was here right now he would tell everyone to hug your kids, hug your spouse, and tell everyone you know how much you care about and love them. Make time for your loved ones. Life is precious and it can be gone in an instant. Bryan was the nicest guy I had ever dated and we had 12 wonderful years together and I would give anything to be able to have had at least 50 years together because 12 years just wasn’t long enough.
I always knew that Bryan was there for me and if I had a horrible day I knew I could call him up and he would be there for me. He always knew how to make me laugh and he was my favorite person to spend time with. I really hope he knew how very much I loved him and cared about him.
I don’t understand why he couldn’t stay here on earth because we were supposed to grow old together. I don’t want to go on without Bryan, but I have to for our children. I’m afraid of looking at the four walls in my house and knowing he won’t ever be here again to share in the parenting and joy and love we had as a family. I’m afraid I won’t have the strength to raise our children alone and I would give anything if Bryan could just come back to us because we love him so much.
I’m not angry at God, but I will admit that I don’t understand why He would allow this to happen. I used to pray and ask God for a kind, loving spouse and meeting Bryan was the answer to that prayer. Bryan told me later that he knew he wanted to marry me on our first date. He impressed me from our very first date because he insisted on paying for my dinner. I watched how Bryan treated others and he was always respectful and polite and that impressed me, too. Bryan was always kind and willing to help others out. This was evidenced pretty early on when I had a problem with my car. We were going out to dinner when I heard my tire making a funny noise. I was very worried about it since I had to work the next day. Bryan very cheerfully said, “We’ll just bring it to Bryan’s Garage.” I asked him where that was and he brought me to the shop at work and he plugged the hole in my tire. I was just SO impressed with that and he continued to impress me in our days and years together.
He built me a wooden plate rail for our kitchen our first Christmas together and he asked me if I wanted it stained or painted white. I told him I didn’t care because I knew whatever he did would look good. Then he asked me how wide I wanted it and I told him wide enough to put a plate and knick knacks on it. He then asked me what I did care about and I said, “That you’re doing it!” To me, the fact that he cared enough to spend his time building something like that for me; was precious.
Where is God when it hurts? Where is He now? He’s right there beside us holding onto us telling us that He’s still in control even when we don’t understand things. As my friend Doris always told me, “Karyn, God is still on the throne” and He is. I don’t claim to understand the workings of God’s mind and why He allowed Bryan to die, but I do know that His love for us is everlasting and He will always be there for us. That doesn’t mean I have to like it or understand it, but God is still my God even when things are tough.
Isaiah 40:31 says, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. It’s okay to struggle and it’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to be angry at God. I know I am doing all of those things right now, but we need to know most of all that our faith is the most important thing we have in our lives. I believe that Bryan is in Heaven right now walking streets of gold. I hope he’s taking care of my little girl, Moriah, and the two little ones we lost.
At one point in my life, I was really struggling and as I was talking to a friend she said, “God gave me a verse for you just now” and she read to me from Isaiah 43, “But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid for I am with you.” Oh, and just in case I didn’t ‘get it’ the first time; another woman quoted the same verses to me at my fellowship group meeting that night, too. And that is how Isaiah got his name. Every time I look at him and say his name; I’m reminded of God’s great love for me and my family.
This is the saddest thing that I’ve ever walked through. I would rather have Bryan here than in the presence of our Lord. I think I will ask God why for the rest of my life because we were going to grow old together. When Mom and Dad had their 50th Wedding Anniversary, I asked Bryan if he wanted to have a renewal service when we hit 50 years and his answer was, “If I can still walk by then, we can.” Since he was 39 when we got married, he would have been almost 90 when we hit 50 years together. As always, his comment made me laugh.
For those who don’t know, my 4th biological baby, Moriah, died at birth. She had an extra chromosome that was incompatible with life. Even though Bryan didn’t understand how I felt; he was there for me when I talked about Moriah and he understood my fears about losing Isaiah when he was a baby and when he was little. He never belittled my feelings or told me that I shouldn’t feel the way I felt. I believe He is in Heaven taking care of and getting to know Moriah right now. All of this doesn’t mean that I won’t miss Bryan for the rest of my life or stop wishing that he was here with me. He was the best friend I ever had and I don’t think the sadness will ever leave me.
Right now; it seems the sadness won’t ever end. I wake up at night and the darkness surrounds me and I just want to scream, “Why, why, why, why…” over and over again. I wish that there were answers, but there are none. I wish that I had been woken up by Bryan snoring beside me instead of by the awful reality that he’s never coming home.
We talked about adopting on our first or second date. I always knew that God had called me to adopt and I didn’t want to get serious with anyone who didn’t feel called the same way. Bryan was very open to the idea and we both firmly believed we could love a child who wasn’t biologically ours as much as a biological child. We were very happy to have Christian and Mikeal come into our lives. It can be a struggle to parent children that have been through as much as our two kids have, but we never once regretted the decision to bring two more wonderful children into our lives.
Bryan was a very hands-on, active parent. He was always bringing the kids to The Lot, car shows, in the truck with him, to school events, or dropping them off at friend’s houses. In fact, I think he brought his three stepchildren to as many friends’ house as I did. I don’t think I could have asked for a better father for our kids and I honestly don’t know how I’m going to be able to raise our children alone.
For the most part, Bryan was a pretty quiet guy, but if you asked him about his car; you found out very quickly that Bryan could talk! He could go on and on about his car forever. Even though Bryan loved his car, he loved his family more. I think one of his favorite things to do was combining his love for his family with his love for his car and taking everyone out in his car.
On the weekends, Bryan was often found working in the garage on things. Isaiah would wake up and get excited and know that he could, “Work with Daddy” and he would jump out of bed to go and ‘help’. Oftentimes Matt would be over, too, and I would see a father and two or three of his sons, Matt, Christian, and Isaiah, working together side by side with their Dad. Of course, a six-year-old can’t help on a car much, but the other guys obliged him and Isaiah always found something to work on. It was a joy to me to see how much Bryan loved his children and the time he spent with them.
Bryan worked his entire life at Lincoln Nurseries and he loved his job. He loved working with his hands and fixing things around the house. Bryan often had two or three ‘helpers’ along with him as he fixed things around the house and he was almost always patient at showing them how to do things. He enjoyed being a parent and he liked to tell people that he had 10 children just to see people’s reactions.
How does one explain death to a little boy? This morning Isaiah told me that he had a dream that his Daddy was still alive. Yesterday he was still asleep and the phone rang and I was laying in bed next to him talking on the phone and he said, “You can’t be talking to my Daddy, my Daddy’s dead.” It absolutely broke my heart. Isaiah loved his Daddy so much and he’s so little to be without him. A few weeks ago he made a sock puppet that he called, “The Mayor”, but two days ago he told me he was going to name the puppet “Daddy” so he could still talk to his Daddy. I just sat down and bawled.
Overall, please remember to spend time with your family. Kiss your spouse. Spend time with him or her. Hug your kids. Read to them. Praise them more than you yell at them. Bring them to church and teach them about God and his son Jesus because this life isn’t forever and Heaven is real and everlasting. If you don’t know Jesus, please talk to the minister or a minister. Plug into a church around you. The Bible says there is only one way to Heaven; Jesus said, “I am the Way, The Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through me.” Your answer doesn’t lie in Buddha or Scientology or anything else the world has to offer you. Your answer isn’t at the bottom of that bottle of beer or in the next drug you might want to take; your answer lies in our Lord and Savior.
Life can be gone in an instant. I never thought that I would be woken up on Friday to find out that my husband and best friend was gone. We were supposed to grow old together. Bryan was not only my husband, but he was, as my sister-in-law Jenn always says, my life’s partner. We had talked about the plans we had for when the kids got older and what we were going to do together. Now the future just seems endless and sad. I keep wanting to call Bryan to tell him something that happened and then I remember that I can’t call him ever again and I sit down and cry again. Nothing seems to have meaning anymore and my once colorful world just seems gray and colorless. I keep thinking of all the things that Bryan and I had talked about or did together and I just don’t know how I’m going to carry on alone.
Since I had to do driver’s training and had to drive with Tiffany, Elisha, and Solomon, I told Bryan that he had to take Christian driving when he got his permit. I kind of wonder if he’s up in Heaven chuckling over the fact that I need to try to survive driving with another teen driver; which is NOT my favorite thing to do. I like to think that Bryan is smiling down at me and I hope he knows even now how very much I love him. I wish I could take back any cross words that I’ve spoken recently.
One of the best things about Bryan was his sense of humor. He made me laugh a lot. One time I told him that if I was stranded on a deserted island and I could pick one thing to be with me; I would want to be with him. I asked Bryan what he would pick. I’m known for my very bad sense of direction and for getting lost a lot so Bryan’s response was quite typical of him. He looked at me and said, “It depends; are you the reason that we’re stranded on this deserted island?” I laughed so hard at that as it was just so typically Bryan. Then he told me that he wouldn’t pick me to be stranded with, but he would pick a BOAT so he could sail away from the deserted island. Once again he made me laugh.
I am going to miss that laughter so, so much! We would go out someplace and I would say, “Are you going to embarrass me again?” and he would smile and say, “Probably!” We loved to tease and joke around and when he fixed my Dad’s brakes a few days ago I joked with my Dad that it was a good thing his son-in-law liked him because otherwise he might have done a bad job fixing the brakes!
I knew I was in trouble with Bryan when he fell asleep in a hard plastic chair in the lobby for our airplane layover on our way home from our honeymoon. One of the most annoying things about him was his ability to fall asleep at the drop of the hat. I was SO jealous of that trait. And honestly that and his snoring were his most annoying traits. That says a lot about what type of person he was. I’ve never met anyone who was more talented at fixing things that Bryan was. He got annoyed with me once because I was convinced he could fix our washing machine because he could fix everything else so why couldn’t he fix that! In the end, he and my Father DID end up fixing the washing machine so I was right after all.
Please, please, please keep me and his children in your prayers because we’re going to need them in the days and weeks and years ahead. Please don’t be afraid to share your memories and stories of Bryan because they will be a comfort to the children and me in the days ahead. Right now I can’t even think ahead to the next month let alone the years ahead by myself. I am still so totally numb that the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with; isn’t here. My mind just can’t wrap around the fact that I won’t ever see Bryan again. I will forget for a moment that Bryan is gone and then I remember and it’s like I physically can’t breathe. I just have the wind knocked out of me and I sit and try to force myself to breathe again.
I would like to close with the 23rd Psalm. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
I will love you forever and ever. Your wife, Karyn Nardin-deWit
