Friday night I finally got the call I had been half expecting for years, however that did little to blunt the shock of it.  My wife and 3 of our kids had just gone to Target and were actually standing in the Dairy Queen line to get some ice cream.  My eldest was with our church’s youth group.  My mom called and said that my father had passed.  He was 56.  Saturday (May 31) I wrote my father’s obituary:

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Zeke "Timothy" Lowe, 56 of Springfield, IL passed away the evening of Friday, May 30, 2008 at St. John’s Hospital.

He was born October 4, 1951 in Lincoln, NE, the son of Cecil and Arva Lowe. He married Linda Schackmann on June 5, 1971.

He was preceded in death by his father, Cecil Lowe and is survived by his mother, Arva Lowe; brothers, Mike (wife: Jan) Lowe, Clinton (wife: Linda) Lowe; sister, Marsha Robinson, all of Lincoln, NE; wife, Linda; daughter, Kari (husband: Ted) Oliver both of Springfield, IL; son, Aaron (wife: Kim) Lowe of Bartlett, IL; and seven grandchildren.

Zeke was living retired after 23 years of ministry dedicated to rescue missions in Lincoln, NE and Youngstown, OH. No services will be held. Staab Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

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My father had Type I diabetes (for a great explanation of Type I and Type II see Scott’s analogy) since age 10 and had been on the insulin pump for years.  In 1991 my father had 7 heart bypasses and in 2000 4 of those were redone.  Early in May the doctor had explained to my dad that there was nothing else that they could do, they understood that there were blockages, but they couldn’t do another bypass, stints and angioplasty were out of the question at this point as well (he had multiple of both). 

My mom said Friday (May 30) he was complaining of a headache and sat on the edge of the bed, he laid over and then instantly started convulsing.   She immediately assumed it was diabetic and went to grab his glucagon shot (basically injectable sugar), when she got back she realized it wasn’t diabetic and started performing CPR while calling the ambulance.  She got no response and neither did anyone else.  He was gone.  It was a tough week, the toughest being Tuesday night when my mom finally broke down and I just held her as she cried.  Thursday (June 5) would have been their 37th anniversary.  My father didn’t want a service or wake and his desire was to be cremated (a fact he kept teasing my wife with as we’re the only ones in the family with a fireplace mantle ). 

We had a celebration on Monday (June 2) of his life and had a decent turn out, many of whom I didn’t know as they were my parents friends.  However the one request my dad did have was that if we did anything he wanted to make sure that everyone present knew that Jesus "is the way, the truth and the life".  The long and the short of it is that while we mourn our loss, and he wasn’t perfect, he’s in a better place without pain and our lives are richer for knowing him.