Loss propels journey of faith

 

Melinda Rogers, The Forum

Valley City, N.D. – Matthew Kiefert paused at the front door of his Valley City home to wish his father a happy 30th birthday.
The happy-go-lucky second-grader ran down the driveway and hopped on the school bus.

It was May 6, 1987 – the last day Dwight and Robbin Kiefert would see their son alive.

Thirty minutes after Dwight smiled as Matthew reminded his mother to buy him a birthday cake, a phone call changed the family’s life forever.

There had been a school bus accident, the caller said. The Kieferts should go to the scene. There were reports of a fire and injuries.

 

Dwight Kiefert talks about the journey his life has taken after his son, Matthew, was killed in a bus accident 20 years ago. David Samson / The Forum

The Kieferts raced to the scene where they found Matthew’s younger sister, Kimberly, walking around with an ice pack on her head.

 

Paramedics were performing CPR on Matthew, who was lying on the ground near the smashed school bus and a crushed car.

 

“We thought. ‘15 miles from town and no heartbeat.’ We thought about how hopeless the situation looked,” Kiefert recalled.

 

His son was officially pronounced dead a short time later.

 

Danny Rolf Olson, the driver of the school bus who coincidentally graduated with Kiefert from Valley City High School in 1975, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.

 

Olson drove through a stop sign at the intersection of North Dakota Highway 1 and Barnes County Road 32 about 10 miles southwest of Valley City.

 

The bus careened into a car driven by 69-year-old Bernice Brennan of Verona, N.D.

 

Brennan also died. Eleven others were injured.

 

Olson pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in June 1988. He was sentenced to five years in prison for Matthew’s death and one for Brennan’s.

 

Twenty years later, memories of that day still sting, Kiefert said.

 

Coming to terms with Matthew’s death has been a lifelong process for the family.

 

It’s also a journey that helped them find faith and courage to share their struggle with grieving and acceptance with others.

 

The weeks and months after Matthew’s death were dark for the family.

 

Kiefert tried to be strong for his wife and children, Kimberly and Kristine.

 

But internally he struggled with questions of “why?” every day.

 

“Everything was good one moment and then it’s gone. You’re planning for a funeral and you’re in a state of shock for several weeks,” Kiefert said.

 

“There’s so much blame. Why didn’t we know about this guy? Why didn’t one of us take the kids to school? Why were they even riding the bus? You feel like a failure because you didn’t protect your children.”

 

Time passed and the family made it through Olson’s trial and sentencing.

 

After finding solace in religion, Kiefert decided that Matthew’s death could be an opportunity to talk about faith.

 

He began speaking at churches and sent his family’s story to a local Christian radio station. The Kieferts’ tale of coping with the loss of Matthew ended up airing on more than 1,100 radio stations around the world, he said.

 

Kiefert recently penned the book “On Our Way Home: A True Story of a Family’s Triumph over Tragedy.”

 

He’s now traveling around the region promoting the story. He’ll appear Saturday at B. Dalton Booksellers at West Acres mall in Fargo.

 

Kiefert balances his job operating a custom planting service in Valley City with traveling to spread Matthew’s story and his journey of faith.

 

He said though it’s excruciating to relive Matthew’s death over and over, telling the story is worth it to bring comfort to others.

 

“What we try to do is give direction on how other people can help others going through a loss or struggling with a death,” Kiefert said.

 

Robbin Kiefert said she prefers not to speak in public about the death of her son and the family’s grieving process but is glad her husband’s efforts have moved others.

 

“I’m really proud of Dwight and his accomplishments,” she said. “We just hope and pray we can touch one person (with our story).”

 

Kiefert said he hasn’t spoken to Olson in years but has forgiven the man who took away his son. Olson was arrested again for driving under the influence in 1991.

 

Attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.

 

Wally Bjornson, administrator at Grace Free Lutheran Church in Valley City where the Kieferts are members, said the family’s story is an example of how people can move forward after difficult situations.

 

He said people are often amazed after hearing Kiefert’s story.

 

“Through (Matthew’s death) it has brought him closer to God,” Bjornson said.

 

Learn more about “On Our Way Home“

Radio interview of Author Carol Channer, Strength for Today While My Soldier is Away

 

Click to Listen to Radio Interview With Carol Channer

Learn more about “Strength for Today While My Soldier Is Away“

sblow@dallasnews.com

On this day next week, the past master of this job, Paul Crume, will remind us once again that the stir of angel wings is never too far away.

That Christmas column has become a classic. But Norma Garza needs no reminders that a realm exists out there beyond our own.

Norma’s familiarity with angels began in the worst possible way. Twenty-six years ago, her son was hit by a car and killed.

Shane Bonenberger was 14 at the time. The family lived in Evansville, Ind.

On that July afternoon, Shane and a friend walked to a nearby bowling alley. Returning home, they dashed across a busy street, trying to outrun a yellow light.

Shane was struck and suffered a massive brain injury. He died two days later without regaining consciousness.

Norma, 60, a resident of Far North Dallas, tells the story of Shane’s death and its aftermath in a slender book published earlier this year, A Christmas Miracle (Tate Publishing).

She is not a writer by profession. She has worked in the offices of a Plano hospital since she, her former husband and their two daughters moved to Texas in 1990.

When she sat down to write her book, she did not choose words for their artistry but rather for their honesty. She hoped the book would speak to grieving parents.

“I have met so many people who can’t move on after they lose a child. They just can’t get out of the sadness,” Norma said. “I wanted to try to write down what happened to me.”

Seeking

Norma is frank in telling how the sadness almost swallowed her, too.

A slow turn for the better began when she found her way to a meeting of Compassionate Friends, a support group for parents who have lost children.

She spent most of the first meeting in the restroom, sobbing uncontrollably. But gradually she found solace in being among others who truly knew her pain.

In that same way, Norma hopes her book will become a lifeline for grieving parents.

Most of her advice is practical and utterly down-to-earth. But another part of her counsel is literally out of this world.

Norma suggests that parents talk to their deceased children.

“We know that they are always with us in spirit. We can talk to them at any time,” she writes.

What’s more, she suggests that parents ask their children for specific signs of their presence and well-being.

For Norma, the practice began in despair just a few weeks after Shane’s death. She was distraught to discover she didn’t have a single recent photo of him for enlarging and framing.

Sitting in her back yard in the middle of the night, she cried out to Shane: “Help me find a recent picture of you!”

A short time later she got a call from Shane’s school. A teacher had been shocked to open his desk at the start of the new school year and find a packet of Shane’s school photos. All unsold photos had supposedly been returned and destroyed.

“It was the best school picture Shane ever made,” Norma said.

Similar things happened over the years. Part of Norma believed they were just coincidences. But in December 2005, all doubt disappeared.

A gift

“I had begun to collect angel figurines,” she said. “And just before Christmas, I asked Shane for an angel. I said I wanted to know it was from him, so it couldn’t be just an angel on a Christmas card. I didn’t tell anyone about this.”

A week later, only days before Christmas, a package appeared on her doorstep. It was from an old friend back in Indiana – someone who never sent gifts, someone who had no idea Norma had begun to collect angels.

But inside the box was a small porcelain angel – a boy angel.

An accompanying letter from the friend explained that she was drawn into a shop she never visited, that she spotted the angel alone on a shelf and that she knew instantly she had to buy it for Norma.

Norma was struck by how much the angel looked like Shane, right down to the haircut in that last school photo. And when she turned the angel over, she couldn’t believe her eyes. There was the angel’s name, inscribed by the manufacturer: “Shane.”

“I felt such a sense of peace,” Norma said. “I knew I’d had my Christmas miracle.”

Some may listen for the quiet rustle of angel wings, but Norma Garza’s faith rests on more solid things.

Learn more about “A Christmas Miracle“

A book about living homeless

 

By Jean Lundquist, Special to the Free Press
The Free Press

Lonnie Friesen wasn’t homeless by choice, but he was homeless by design.

The former Mankato resident lived among homeless people in Texas while

trying to find the balance he needed for his life.

Even as he went to work each day, that day ended at a homeless shelter in Dallas. While there, he examined his marriage, his role as a father and his relationship with God. The journal he kept of his experiences in 2001 has become a book called “The Homeless Heart.”

The book, published by the Christian-based company Tate Publishing & Enterprises, outlines Friesen’s experiences in the shelter and the lessons he learned about himself and life, in general.

Family struggles

Friesen, who grew up in Mankato and went to West High School in the 1970s, moved with his wife to Texas to start fresh after their oldest three children moved into a world of drugs, alcohol and trouble. Friesen had been raised in a strict Baptist family and was unable to cope with the addictions of his children.

Before too long, however, his children called for help, and he moved them to be with him in Dallas. That put a strain on his marriage.

Every life, Friesen writes, “comes down to an instant when the choice you make alters the course of your entire life.” One of those instants occurred when he turned and walked out of his house following an argument with his wife, vowing not to return until his adult children were out of the house.

He decided to give it 40 days.

Although Friesen stayed with a friend for a few nights, he knew he couldn’t impose on someone for that long. He also knew his budget wouldn’t allow for 40 nights in a motel. So after just a few nights on his friend’s couch, he decided to move into a homeless shelter.

Shelter life

At the shelter, Friesen was fed an evening meal, which most often included beans. His journal identified each meal, each shower, and which bed he slept in at night.

Each man was identified by the bed number he occupied. For the first few nights, Friesen was No. 7.

Friesen discovered several men were in circumstances similar to his own. They were there not because they were mentally ill, but because of temporary setbacks.

One had been relocated to Texas by hurricane Katrina. One had owned his own business but was defrauded by a customer. He sold everything he owned to pay his employees and ended up in a homeless shelter until he could get enough money together to rent an apartment.

Shedding light

Friesen is a man of strong faith, but said his experience taught him that organized religion has failed him. At church, Friesen said, people are asked to pray for the less fortunate but aren’t asked to put their prayers into action.

“After you pray for a sick person, get up off your knees, go to their house and help them clean it,” he said. “If religion doesn’t change the way you live your life, what’s the point?”

In his journal, Friesen also examined his life as a husband and father. The realization that the system that tries to help the homeless serves in many ways to keep them

homeless shed some light on his relationship with his son.

“It’s like saying you’re going to keep kicking a man until he gets up,” he said.

During the family’s time in Minnesota, Friesen said he tried tough love with his son and kicked him out of the house because of his drug and alcohol abuse.

“Kicking him out wasn’t helping him — it wasn’t giving him what he needed,” he said.

What he needed, Friesen said, was respect, patience and boundaries, with someone teaching him things he needed to know to get better. If people need a home or a car, then we should help them learn how to get them.

“I’m not going to give them mine, but I’ll help them build their own,” he said.

The same was true with his son.

Friesen went home before 40 days had passed. During a visit with his family, his daughter, who was in the Army, told him she was going to Iraq and asked him to come home before she left. He moved back home that day.

With some changed attitudes and new insight, Friesen said his family became stronger than it had ever been. Of his home, he said, “This is a place of safety.”

The Homeless Heart is available through Tate Publishing at www.tatepublishing.com in paperback for $10.99, or as a download purchase for $6.99.

 

Learn more about “The Homeless Heart“

Published by Tate Publishing and Enterprises, “Black Mesa” tells the story of Brady, a man with a painful past and heart of revenge. His intentions to use a woman named Cassidy as bait to entice his enemy become foiled when he falls for her and must resolve the pain of his past.

According to the author, a cast of colorful characters, including a rodeo clown who is also an ordained minister, support Brady and Cassidy’s adventure with Old West, Wyoming flare.

Balts was raised on a dairy farm three miles east of the village of Dallas and says she has never lived far, having married the boy next door. She currently serves as the treasurer for the Dallas township.

Learn more about “Black Mesa“