Friday, February 27, 2026
(Part 6 of 7)
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
North
Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
Driving south from Durham after breakfast with my friend Bob, I have time for a last visit with Uncle Merlie. I knocked and opened the door; North greeted me, unsure of how to respond to a stranger. Merlie’s oldest daughter Susan named her dog North, and he spends quite a bit of time with Uncle Merlie, while Susan is out and about. A beautiful dog that belongs to a beautiful family.
I didn’t have long before I needed to get to the airport. But seeing my uncle three times that eventful week seemed like a more complete experience. A trinity of visits, so to speak, with increasingly intimate times together. Today was just Merlie, Dave and North. I asked my 100 year old uncle about his experience this week … after a year of anticipation and planning comes a weekend of parties, trivia and rented wheelchairs, then a day of family sharing including a whole set of 80 pictures they hadn’t screened at the party … and now nearing the end of the week, just North and me. And soon, just North.
He felt fine, filled … maybe a little alone after being with all the people. “Think you’ll be traveling to see any of them again soon?” He looked up at me and smiled. Not so much, he said. His home was quiet, and I think his spirit was quiet too. His living room felt full of God to me.
I often wondered, spending those few hours with him, about his smile. His intelligence and unwillingness to just “settle” shows through. He trusts his friends, he loves his family. Often during the week he has a companion (whose birthday gift was a $100 gift card to McDonald’s) to sit with and drink coffee, have a meal.
Uncle Merlie’s smile rarely if ever lights up his whole face, but it accompanies his eyes, which invite and encourage me. I read somewhere recently that you can’t fake a smile with your eyes, but you can do nearly anything you want with your lips. I look into Uncle Merlie’s eyes and wait. He’s in no hurry.
Many of the photos from the 60’s show him watching his family, or working with them. After a few years in the navy he met Gloria and they quickly fell in love. Reading Gloria’s childhood memories, I realize how much Uncle Merlie must have learned from her about family and commitment. “Devotion” might be a better word.
Her parents, Michael and Hannah John, were born in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) as the 20th century began. They emigrated to the US through Ellis Island, learned that their parents had chosen them for each other as mates, and were married. They were proud to learn English and become citizens.
The John family settled in Rhode Island with their growing family, eventually five daughters and a son. Until Gloria was 18, when their family bought a car, they walked everywhere. On Sundays their family walked the two miles to their grandpa’s house, and during the week he often walked to visit them.
In the summer the kids were sent out to gather grape leaves in a woods five miles away. Their mother brought them up eating Mediterranean food: “yogurt, stuffed grape leaves, kibba, hummus, tabouli, majudala, stuffed squash, shish kabob, shamborrack, Syrian bread, matmool, baklava, sleetair, kabesa, and so many more delicious dishes.”
Merlie and Gloria were married 56 years. Never having smoked, she died of unexpected lung cancer in 2008. Now her absence at all these gatherings in 2026 was palpable, almost like you could reach out and touch her. And … I am sure though we couldn’t see her, she could see us.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the LORD
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
(Ezekiel 18, Psalm 130, Matthew 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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