About Lainee

My Brighteyes

We took the money from Lainee’s dress and headed for Colorado Springs. Somewhere along the way, in that old green-and-blue Ford, the two of us decided our little adventure was beginning to feel a lot like The Blues Brothers. We laughed our way down the road and had a wonderful honeymoon together.

Before we returned Joe’s car, we spent the last of our wedding money on a used 25-inch color console television. Until then, our only television had been an old 12-inch black-and-white set I’d bought when I was a kid with money I earned mowing lawns.

It wasn’t exactly an extravagant beginning.

But it was ours.

Those early years weren’t always easy. We struggled financially, we faced difficult seasons, and we had disagreements along the way. But somehow the struggles drew us closer. We grew up together and learned how to build a life together.

Early in our marriage, Lainee created a little design from three letters: TLA.

True Love Always.

She would sign cards and notes to me with those three letters for years to come. TLA didn’t mean our marriage was perfect. It meant that through the struggles, disagreements, laughter, adventures, and everything else life brought us, our love kept bringing us back to one another.

For more than 42 years, that was our promise.

True Love Always.

Zach always wanted to be wherever Mama was, and truthfully, Lainee wanted him there too. We didn’t have much money for babysitters anyway, but that wasn’t really the point. Every once in a while we’d get invited somewhere and the invitation would say “adults only” or suggest getting a sitter. Lainee’s answer was always pretty simple: “If Zach can’t go, we don’t need to go.” So we stayed home. Family wasn’t something Lainee tried to fit into the rest of her life. Family was her life.

I thought Mama was a great title for Lainee until she became Nana.
Nobody did Nana like Lainee did Nana.

The world Opened Up

Not long after Kyleigh was born, Lainee did something nobody expected. Her boss and good friend Deb was looking for volunteers to spend several months in England helping transition part of their work back to the United States.

Lainee volunteered.

Deb couldn’t believe it. Deb knew, Lainee didn’t travel well, and she had just become Nana. Why would she leave now, with a brand-new granddaughter at home?

Lainee’s answer was pure Lainee: “Yeah, but she’s just an infant. She’ll never even know I’m gone.” 😂

Elaine had placed a condition on her volunteering “As long as Jodie goes with me” she said. Most people never knew there was more behind her decision. Lainee’s best friend Jodie had recently lost her husband, Stewart. Lainee knew how much Jodie loved everything about England, and she saw an opportunity to come along side her grieving friend and share an experience she might never have otherwise.

So the woman who was afraid to travel stepped forward first—to come alongside a grieving friend. There was just one problem. Jodie had two big dogs and told Lainee she couldn’t possibly leave them for three months.

Lainee had already solved that. “That’s okay. Jerry will take care of the dogs.”
So, Apparently, I had volunteered too. 🤣

And off they went. Then, on the second night, my phone rang. “Jerry, I can’t do this.”
She wasn’t sleeping. She was homesick. She missed me. And suddenly the woman who had jumped into the deep end of pool for somebody else realized she wasn’t entirely sure she could swim.

I told her, “Baby, you can do this. This is a chance of a lifetime. Stay.” And she did.

Something changed in Lainee during those months. She built friendships with Simon and Ruthie and Rob. She experienced their hospitality and eventually returned it when they visited us in America.

About halfway through her time there, I was able to join Lainee and Jodie for a week. The three of us even made a trip to Paris, where—after repeatedly warning everyone to watch out for pickpockets—Lainee was, of course, the one who got pickpocketed. 😂

But most importantly, the woman who had always been afraid of traveling discovered that she could go. And oh boy, did we go.
England opened the door to years of adventures together, trips with her babies, and eventually mission trips that took her into homes and around tables with people in places like Uganda and Colombia. Experiences she never would have had—and people she never would have known—were suddenly part of her life.

The world opened up for Lainee. And Lainee opened herself to it.

She Noticed People

Lainee noticed people.

Not in some grand or dramatic way. She simply had a habit of seeing the person in front of her—and sometimes noticing the little things the rest of us might have missed.

When we both worked in downtown Denver, we would often walk the 16th Street Mall during lunch. There were always people asking for something to eat, and Lainee would help when she could. Sometimes that meant buying someone a cheeseburger. But she preferred giving McDonald’s gift certificates so they could go inside and order their own meal and get it fresh.
Her reasoning was pretty simple:

“There’s nothing worse than cold fries.” 😂
That was Lainee. If you’re going to feed somebody, why shouldn’t they get hot fries too?

Another time, we were volunteering with the Denver Rescue Mission and had brought coats to donate. We were supposed to take the coats inside to go through the mission’s system so they could be distributed properly.

Then Lainee saw a woman outside in the freezing Denver weather who needed a coat.

I saw the woman approaching Elaine and reminded her that we are supposed to take the coats inside.
But, Lainee wasn’t terribly interested in procedure at that particular moment.

“Let them fire me. I’m gonna give this lady a coat.”

And she didn’t just give one, we ended up giving every one of the coats away before we got to the building – Oh, and neither of us were fired. 😆

Years later, on a mission trip to Colombia, our missionary friend Robert, took us to meet a local church member. And Lainee found herself on the receiving end of someone else’s generosity. We visited a woman living in extraordinary poverty. Her home had dirt floors and had been pieced together from whatever materials she could find. Yet when we arrived, she welcomed us into her home and offered us coffee and a meal.

The coffee came in mismatched china cups and saucers, some chipped and cracked. Our soup came in china bowls.
The soup was menudo. So, Lainee asked me what the pieces of meat were.

I told her it was tripe – basically, “Cow stomach.”
And that was apparently all the information she needed. 😂

The next time our hostess stepped away, Lainee quietly transferred every piece of tripe from her bowl into mine. So while Lainee enjoyed her soup, I got to enjoy approximately twice the recommended daily allowance of cow stomach.

But after we left, the china was what Lainee was thinking about.
She said something like, “Did you notice the cups and bowls she served us in? None of them matched. Some were chipped and cracked. But that was the best that she had. She wanted to give us the best that she had.” Something neither Robert nor I had considered.

Then after a moment she asked me: “Do you think that was her dinner that we ate?”

That’s was Lainee. She could always see:

More than a chipped cup. She saw a woman offering guests her best.
More than someone who was hungery, she saw a person who would also enjoy hot fries.
More than a pile of donated coats. She saw a woman standing in the cold.

Lainee noticed people. And when she noticed someone, it was very hard for her to simply walk past.

Ian was another person who discovered what it meant to enter Lainee’s world. He is our missionary friend from Uganda. Ian would come to stay with us, every year or two for several weeks, but Lainee never really treated him like a houseguest. She treated him more like another son.

His room was ready. The sheets were fresh. She made meals she wanted him to experience while he was in America. And near his bed would be a basket filled with his favorite treats, candy bars, cookies, etc… And Just like an expensive hotel it seemed to refill itself every day. 😂

Years later, when Lainee traveled to Uganda, she got to sit at Ian and Millie’s table and experience their hospitality in return.

Different country. Different friendship. Same Lainee.

If you came into her life, she made people feel at home.

The Greatest Gift She Gave Me

Perhaps the greatest gift Lainee ever gave me began with something I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

Church.

My family wasn’t particularly religious, and neither was I. Then one day Lainee told me that she and her friend Carolyn had decided to start visiting churches.
Fine with me. But I made my position pretty clear:

“Don’t expect me to become any holy roller.”

Eventually, Lainee came home and told me she’d found a church she wanted me to visit with her. I could see something in her eyes that told me this probably wasn’t the time to try to wiggle out of it. So I agreed—with another reminder that I wasn’t going to become any holy roller.

Apparently, the Holy Spirit had other plans.
We were welcomed at the church door by Buddy Donahue, who loved on us, sat with us, and made us feel like we belonged.

A few months later on October 29, 1989, Elaine and I were baptized. The rest as they say, is history.

Eventually I found myself traveling on mission trips, teaching devotionals, serving others, and helping men through some of the most difficult struggles of their lives.

But I’m definitely not a holy roller.

Right. 😂

Lainee brought faith into our family. But the greatest gift she gave me was much more personal than that.

She helped introduce me to Jesus.

She gave me many gifts during our life together, and those gifts continue to shape the man I am today.

But this gift doesn’t end when my life does.
Because of the faith Lainee helped bring into my life, as painful as it was to say goodbye to my Brighteyes, I know EXACTLY where she is.

And I know our story isn’t over.
I will see her again. 🦋💜

Before There Was Lainee’s Love

When I look back now, I realize Lainee’s Love didn’t really begin after Lainee died.
It didn’t begin with a shirt, a website, or an organization.

It began in the way she lived.

In the way she loved her family. The way she noticed people. The way she welcomed them into her life. The way she gave what she had, made people laugh, and somehow made them feel like they mattered. And those are the things I want Lainee’s Love to carry forward.

Not because we’re trying to recreate Lainee. There was only one of her. 💜
But because the love she gave us is still ours to give away.

The Bible tells us that love is patient and kind. It protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres.
And ultimately:

Love never fails.

Long before there was Lainee’s Love, there was Lainee’s love.
This is my way of sharing a little of that love with you.

TLA Baby – 💜🦋