Back in the winter of 1984 I was a young married woman, pregnant with my first child. My husband had departed for air force basic training a few weeks before Christmas and I was living with my parents until we moved to our first duty station.
I had a couple months to go before my life got busy with a newborn and I wasn’t working except to clean the house and help with laundry and cooking.
Then I got a phone call.
Dave Lace was my former neighbor and was the editor of our hometown paper. He was calling to offer me a temporary job. I have no clue why he called me. I don’t know if he saw my folks and they told him I was bored. I’m fairly certain he had not a single clue that I would love to be a writer. He paid me some much needed cash to sit for a few weeks at one of those new-fangled word processors and write.
I didn’t realize it then, but I was getting my first training in how to create a news story. My assignment was to take the news from the last year’s papers and whittle them down to a few pages of newsprint.
It was a gift from Dave, and I accepted it gladly.
Dave and his family lived behind my family when I was in elementary and middle schools. He had a son my brother’s age and a daughter several years younger than me.
I was always looking for stuff to do. With the majority of kids in the neighborhood being boys, I slid easily into tomboy status and did all the stuff the guys did.
We played football, baseball, and basketball in the driveway. While the summer Olympics were going on we set up running courses in our yards to run. Broomsticks on chairs became our high hurdles. One afternoon, my cousin and I were out back throwing pitches. Dave was home and saw us. He came over and gave me some pointers on my pitching form. Then he said, “It’s too bad you’re a girl. You’d be a good pitcher.”
Dave did not waste words. I knew he meant what he said. It was a gift to me. I filed that away and when the high school started a softball team, I tried out with Dave’s words in the back of my head and my parents encouraging me to give it a try. Bronchitis took away my shot at the team, but Dave’s words years before made me think I could be a softball player.
A few years after that, I got his call to come write for a short season. I loved it! I loved the people, the atmosphere, the electric charge that coursed through the newsroom; how each part of the business fit together to make a working whole.
Over the course of the next decade or so, Dave lost his job at the paper. Politics don’t always allow journalists to do their jobs. I moved twice, had my four children. Every now and then dad or mom would tell me they ran into Dave and he asked how I was and what I was up to.
Having moved back home, I went through a couple jobs, God always preparing the next position for me as the one I was in was ending. That happened in the spring of 2000.
My job processing film for a church directory company was being phased out. It was the perfect job for me as I was able to bring in money, while staying home with my kids. Knowing change was coming, my mom was watching out for something for me to do.
“Did you see the paper?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s a job at the paper.”
Oh. Wow.
“You should do it. They want someone who can write and who knows Galion.”
Mom knew I could do that. I applied and got a part-time job as a reporter that soon evolved into a full-time job.
One of the first happy surprises was Dave. He was back at the paper helping out as a stringer. He wrote stories as we needed him to and handled all the court reporting those of us in the newsroom had no time for.
He paid attention to my stories, quietly pointing out areas I could improve, telling me how good a job I was doing. Dave’s mind was chock full of information, stats, tips; and he had no problem sharing all that with me. He so supported my friend and fellow reporter, Jon, that when leadership refused to do the right thing, Dave’s resignation followed Jon’s.
I moved to another paper, but the encouragement didn’t stop. I would run into Dave on the streets of our town and he would always pause to check in. What did I think about …? How did I like being editor?
I would ask him his opinion on leading my news team, how to motivate, when to be hard-nosed, how to go after a hard story when everything in you screams to run the other way.
He would always patiently answer, tossing in a joke or two. More gifts from Dave.
When I headed back to “our” paper, Dave was back too. Back on the court beat, back providing background details to stories that us younger or “not native” folks had no way of knowing.
When I was promoted to editor, filling Dave’s shoes decades after he had had them removed, he came to my desk beaming. He had no doubt I could to the job and do it well. No hesitation. No problems working for this kid he once taught how to dig into old news to create new.
Tips came to my desk from his listening post at a table of coffee-drinking retirees at McDonalds. He never steered me wrong.
Eventually, we became aware that Dave wasn’t doing very well. His mind was hit and miss. He seemed to be ailing. Needing him, his expertise, his encouragement, I sometimes pushed too hard, refusing to believe the truth before me that Dave was just not able to do what he once was capable of.
He quit working. I clung to him that last day he was in the office, inadequately offering my thanks for all he had done for me, telling him I loved him.
I continued to see him around town, at the Y. He always told me I was doing a great job. He never failed to push me, even when he couldn’t get my name right. Alzheimer’s eventually put him in a skilled nursing facility. A new job brought me to Wyoming.
On Monday, one of the first e-mails I got was from a friend and colleague sending a link to my former paper’s obituary section. No comment, just a link. I was stunned to find Dave’s name listed.
I believe, think, hope, pray, that during lucid moments Dave saw his need for a Savior. I loved that man, but I failed in my calling to do what was needed to bring those within my sphere of influence the Gospel.
He knew where I stood, but I never had an actual conversation about what I believed and why.
He gave me the gifts of love and encouragement; he taught me his craft, made it possible for me to do the job I enjoy now. But I didn’t show him how to have the most important gift of all — eternal life.
Gift giving does not end at midnight on Christmas day. It is a daily thing, of utmost importance. Christ followers have been given, have accepted; the greatest of gifts. It is not one to keep to ourselves. We aren’t always going to know for sure that everyone we love has made the decision which will lead to eternity with Christ. We can know we have done our part and not move through the rest of our lives mourning this kind of regret.
We need to take to heart the words in 2 Timothy 4:2, which say, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.”
It’s a gift, and gifts are meant to be given away.
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