Show and Tell

Honoring My Janelle – Follow Up….

Good Evening!

Today is Sunday May 27, 2012, Memorial Weekend….

While I have posted since Janelle left us, in my mind this seems like Post #1 of the new journey. I am still not sure exactly how long this will go and where this will take us however since the majority of the comments I am getting suggest we should continue, continue we will. I have lots of thoughts about things I can share in the weeks and months ahead that will be very special. There will be some humor as I reflect back on many of Janelle’s posts and provide you the “Ken” comments on many things she talked about.

Today’s post won’t be too long in words however depending on your interest you may end up here for many hours. Warning in advance…..these videos are sweet, but some of them bring me to tears immediately.

Grief…there is a lot of it right now. I will explore that with you more also in the weeks ahead because it is really crazy….fine one minute, crying another minute, wanting to be around people sometime, sometimes not wanting to be around people. I have such a great support network of friends that hang out with me and talk when I want to talk, don’t talk when I don’t want to talk. I also of course have Britt and Ian, both of who have been huge to my healing over the last two weeks. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers, they have lost their Mom. They are very concerned about their Dad but I am equally concerned about their healing.

OK, how about this picture? In the many pictures I came across this week, this one really hit a chord. Janelle loved her job, every aspect of it however no question her favorite time of the day was morning car pool, greeting the children, greeting the Moms (Dads & Grandparents as well). Look at that smile! How could kids not want to jump out of the car? How could caregivers not feel comfortable leaving their children in her care?

I took my first trip out of town this weekend. I even took Roxy with me. Short, went to Raleigh for one day/night to hang out with Britt and Kenneth and celebrate the birthday of their niece with the Freeman family. Special group of people we are now involved with. Happy Birthday Little Girl……

OK, I wanted to recap our activities Honoring Janelle. Below are several links to various videos. A brief explanation is included for each one. If you decide to view any of these and have a problem, please let me know as this is my first attempt at streaming video. Again, depending on your relationship with Janelle and the rest of our extended family, be warned that tears may develop….

Janelle Marie Clausen Hayes – Video Tribute. This is a collection of pictures starting very early in Janelle’s life. This was shown repeatedly at the visitation without the music. We shuffle played her iPhone 280+ Praise & Worship Songs instead. (13m 21s).

https://vimeo.com/42289241

Janelle Marie Clausen Hayes – Craft Montage w/ Music. This was put together and all credit goes to our Worship Pastor (Brad). I added some music but again, no credit to me. This was shown a few times at church in the weeks before Janelle left us as they discussed the situation and prayed for us. (2m 13s).

https://vimeo.com/42362410

 

Janelle Marie Clausen Hayes – Random Pictures. I decided I wanted pictures of the three services where we Honored My Janelle. My niece kept the camera handy and captured many pictures from the Visitation, Burial, Cousins Get Together and Celebration Services. Thank you Sarah! (8m 27s).

https://vimeo.com/42694541

Janelle Marie Clausen Hayes – Sister’s (and brother-in-law) Thoughts and Reflections. This was also the work of the Worship Pastor at our church (thanks again Brad). We had not quite decided who would talk at the Celebration service so Brad pulled these family members aside at the Visitation to provide some reflection. (4m 28s).

https://vimeo.com/42850395

 

And finally……

Janelle Marie Clausen Hayes – Celebration Service. This is the entire Celebration Service Video. It is very long. It is very Honoring. You will see bits of the above videos in this including the entire Sister’s video. Again, rather long but I wanted to provide it to you if you were interested. (1h 27m 39s).

https://vimeo.com/42881294

 

Thank you for all of your encouragement. It has and does mean a lot to me. My plan is to be back next Sunday with at least a short update, perhaps a couple more pictures of My Janelle.

 

Ken

Strength & Peace to you…….Psalm 29:11

 

Honoring My Janelle

Good Evening friends of the Show and Tell blog. Today is Sunday, May 20^th ......

  I trust you have had an OK week. Mine of course is one that I sure wish we would not have had to have however as one of my nephews put it on his Facebook wall…”I am blessed with a great family”. I quickly commented on his note as I agree.  Here are the Hayes cousins, well cousin Stephen could not make it due to scheduling conflicts so minus one, but new cousin Kenneth (Britt's husband) is now part of the clan so plus one.

 Before I get to a summary of the week (and there is a lot to share with you) I need to clarify / retract / re-state my comment made on May 10^th when I told you this would be the last entry. I have heard from a lot of you on that subject so here is the new plan.

First of all, I have been blessed and found comfort quite a bit this last week by going back and reading some early entries of the blog. Janelle’s first entry was on April 9^th, 2009….she just basically introduced herself to you. Sweet! You may enjoy doing that as well.

I have no plan to end the Show And Tell blog. Thus, for months to come, whether there is a lot of activity or not, it will be available for you to enjoy. If I ever get to the point where I decide to officially end it, I will make sure you are notified via a post well in advance. On that subject, if you have this blog setup such that you get notified when there is an update (there is a way to do that, I am just not sure how) please do not remove that notification.

For sure, every blog entry that My Janelle has made is being electronically captured for future use. I have no idea exactly what that will mean however and I think you will agree, her thoughts and insights are golden. My daughter Britt (perhaps you have heard of her via the blog) has her mother’s creative genes. I envision something very cool down the road. Perhaps a book to encourage people?

So, Show And Tell will be here for your enjoyment as long as you want it to be. It is possible that there will still be regular Sunday night updates for a while, just so you can know how we are doing. My original statement was meant to suggest that perhaps there will not be a “every” week update. We just need to see how all of that goes. If there are no entries for a period of time and you want to know what is up with the Hayes Family, you can always email me and you will get a response back within a day ([email protected]).

OK, now on with my purpose of today’s entry. My theme this last week (and for weeks to come) is making sure that everything we did (and do) was very Honoring to My Janelle. I am very sad and I am grieving but Honor we did. I am confident that she is pleased….well she may not be pleased with me because she never liked to be made the center of attention.

The services included a visitation on Monday evening May 14th at Sharon Baptist Church which is where Janelle worked for the last  17 years, Burial at Forest Lawn East Cemetery on Tuesday Morning (May 15th) and a Celebration Service at our church, Steele Creek Church of Charlotte on Tuesday evening.  Next week, I will be providing you links to many pictures that were taken as well as a video of the celebration service.

Visitation was beautiful.  I wanted to be respectful to everybody in terms of viewing Janelle's body so while the body was in the sanctuary where we greeted friends, I had it facing the front so people did not have to view her body if they did not want to.  I spent about 40 minutes alone, just me and My Janelle before the family arrived.  She looked beautiful and very much at peace.  I will keep that memory in my heart forever.

Burial was at a very nice place, out in the country.  I can't do justice to what a great place this is for My Janelle to be laid to rest.  Pretty much out in the woods, very quiet, a great place that I will visit very often and just reflect on the 31+ great years I had with her.

The Celebration service was also awesome and very honoring to her.  I opened the service as I wanted to personally welcome and thank everybody for everything they have done for us over these last nine months.  We had Praise and Worship.  One of her closest friends who was extremely helpful to me by being at our house when I had to run errands spoke.  My three sisters also spoke of their 4th sister.  Britt spoke about what her Mother was all about.  My two pastors (Sharon Baptist / Steele Creek) each provided a message.  We closed it with my brother-in-law singing a stunning rendition of How Great Thou Art / Be Exalted.  I was very pleased,  we honored this woman of God immensely.

Next week, I will provide you a lot of things...video tribute, pictures of all three services and a complete video of the memorial service.  If you have been following our journey, these will be very special to you.

Here is the piece we put together for the visitation....

SHOW.....

TELL....

I kind of came up with the words I wanted to include, turned it over to Britt.  She added, cleaned up my random thoughts and then did her creative magic..  Here is the file....if you print this, both sides you get three for the price of one.

Download Visitation-outline-final

We also provide a program for the Celebration Service.  Here is that file...

Download Hayes_bulletin

A theme that I wanted to use was from her August 7th post.  This was her first post after we got the news of her disease where she provided scripture.  Psalm 29:11 is now my life verse.  

"The Lord gives his people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace." Psalm 29:11 (NLT)

It will be used in some fashion on our grave marker in the next few months.  We also had an edited version of this post on display during the services.  Here is the file for that....

Download Stb-mom-poster-outline

 

Thursday the last of my family departed.  It has been a bit lonely around here, just Roxie (the dog) and me.  We are doing OK.  Very sad, definitely grieving, tears come many times during the day.  What keeps me sustained is knowing without a doubt that My Janelle is alive and sitting at Jesus's feet.  No doubt at all in my mind, 100% confident that she is fine and that I will see her again.

 

Friday I visited our resting place.  The picture on the left is facing the bench I had planned for as I expect to be a frequent visitor.  The picture on the right is looking the other way.  You may notice a small Orange wristband in the flowers.  My brother-in-law visited the grave before leaving town and left this.  It says "Get Your Head In The Game".  This is the Brain Tumor Awareness organization that promotes research and hopefully a cure some day so others do not have to travel down the path we have been on.

Today, I went to church.  Was not sure if I would really go until I got there however I know that whether it was today or next week or next month, it was going to be a bit emotional.  It was, but I got through it.  

 

Again as far as the future, you will definitely hear from me next Sunday, you will have the opportunity to see how we honored My Janelle.  After that, it may not be every week but I am kind of thinking that re-posting some of Janelle's posts and providing some Ken commentary may be a great way to extend this journey.

 

I look forward to continuing our online relationship as we move forward.  If you want to communicate with me outside of this blog, below is my email address and my facebook address....

 

Ken

email - [email protected]

facebook - [email protected]

 

Arrangements For Janelle

Good Morning My Blog Friends.  Today is May 11th.  My first order of business is to wish my son Ian a very happy 26th birthday.  May 11th fell on Mothers Day in 1986 and he was the best Mothers Day present Janelle ever got.....

Below is the obituary that will run this Sunday in Charlotte, NC as well as in Salem, OR.  I provide it to you so you are aware of how things are moving forward.

My plan for all of you very loyal readers is to blog at least one more time, probably a week from this Sunday (this is this week's Sunday update), provide you some reflections on the activities coming up.  I am also going to try and provide you links to things like Video Tributes if I can figure that out.  I am thinking that once I do this Reflections Update, that we will let Show and Tell come to a close.  I need to think through that a bit more but those are my thoughts at this time.

I appreciate all of the kind words received in the last 24 hours.  We are managing, lots of things to take care of.  Have a blessed day and again I will plan to see you a week from this Sunday...

Ken

********

Janelle Marie Clausen Hayes

Janelle Hayes, 53, of Charlotte, left us for her eternal home on May 10th, after a nine month brave and spirit filled battle against a brain tumor.

After graduating from Central High School in Independence, OR, Janelle attended Taylor University in Upland, IN where she earned her degree in Elementary Education with an emphasis on special needs children. Ken and Janelle married shortly after college and moved to St. Louis, MO to start their lives and careers. The family relocated to Charlotte in 1987 and moved into a house where they have remained for the last 25 years. After holding teacher positions in St. Louis, Janelle became a stay at home mom for a few years and then joined the teaching staff of Sharon Baptist Weekday School in 1995. In 1998 she became the Director of Curriculum at the school, and stayed in that position until January 2012 when she resigned to focus on the cancer battle.

In addition to her professional career, Janelle spent a lot of her personal time on numerous “crafty” activities ranging from the preservation/presentation of photos to the design of cards for every occasion. Her paper crafting pursuits also spawned the popular Show & Tell Blog with an international following. In all things, Janelle’s faith was the center piece of who she was and available in an unassuming way for all to see and admire.

Survivors include her husband of 31 years Ken; daughter and son-in-law Britt and Kenneth Freeman of Raleigh; son Ian of Charlotte; mother Jessie Clausen, and brother, Bob Clausen both of Albany, OR. Also surviving is her mother-in-law Evelyn Hayes of Melbourne, FL; sister-in-laws Janis Tobias of Platte City, MO; Lynne Bolinger of Kokomo, IN; Kris Amerson of Granada Hills, CA and many Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Nieces & Nephews. She was preceded in death by her father, Robert D. Clausen and father-in-law, Kenneth M. Hayes.

The family will be available for visitors on Monday, May 14th at Sharon Baptist Church, 6411 Sharon Rd, 6-8 pm.  Graveside services will be on Tuesday, May 15th, at Forest Lawn East in Weddington, 11:00am.  Also on Tuesday at 7:00pm we will gather at Steele Creek Church of Charlotte, 1929 W. Arrowood Rd for a celebration service of Janelle’s life on earth.

In lieu of flowers, the family would be honored to have contributions directed to either Sharon Baptist Church to be used for tuition scholarships to the weekday school or to Steele Creek Church of Charlotte to be used for their VISION Fund.

We would also like to thank the many people who have been such a blessing to us over the last several months providing meals, running errands, sitting and praying with us and doing so many other practical things that needed to be done.  Also we are so grateful for the care given to us by the staffs at Pineville Radiation Therapy, Mecklenburg Medical Group Oncology Team, and Hospice of Charlotte.

The Hayes family is in the care of Gaskin Services, Matthews, where online condolences may be shared in Janelle’s Book of Memories at www.gaskinservices.com.

A New Phase To The Journey

Good Morning All Of Out Blog Friends.....Today is Thursday, May 10, 2012.  My dad would have been 98 years old today.  I think Janelle has probably already told him Happy Birthday....

Janelle passed away to her final destination (Heaven) a few hours ago.  It became apparent to me in the middle of the night that we were getting close.  Ian arrived around 9:00, Britt got here about 11:30, we held Janelle's hand, told her we loved her, told her we would be OK and told her she could go.  She did shortly there after.  No final gasping for air, no apparent pain, just left.

I do not have any details at this time so I will plan to be back in the next couple of days and share more specifics on what the days ahead will be.

Please know, that we are OK, Janelle is definitely OK and we rejoice for her......

Talk to you soon.....

Ken, Britt/Kenneth & Ian

 

Happy Cinco de Mayo... (journey week #40 is complete)

Hello.  Today is Sunday May 6th; this is Ken checking in for Janelle.

As has been my approach, I will provide you my Janelle Health Update at the bottom.  First, just a bit about our week.  It has been another week of blessings; friends coming by for brief visits, food provided, flowers to brighten up the house, many notes of encouragement.  I (we) am very grateful to all of you standing with us through this time.

As I mentioned last week, Britt came into town last Sunday, stayed until Tuesday, Britt & Kenneth came back yesterday for the weekend.  Early in the week, we were honored to have Jackie Freeman (Britt's other Mom) come by to check in on us.  That is a 3 hr drive away...thank you Jackie!

Jackie also snapped the following picture.  Can you guess where Britt gets her beautiful smile from?

Also on Monday, I got an email from one of our friends who is going to be participating in a Cancer fundraiser this summer.  Here is a short portion of her sponsorship page....

My ride this year is personal for me as I dedicate it to the Hayes Family of Charlotte, NC. Their brave battle against Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM is the most common and most aggressive of the primary brain tumors) has been inspirational and challenging just like the ride. 

If you are interested in knowing more about this effort, here is the link....

http://www.24hoursofbooty.org/site/TR?px=1312394&pg=personal&fr_id=1170&et=l0XW3o5VBcfLzmqqQYNZow&s_tafId=14585

Friends continue to come by to check on us; brief but very meaningful.  Close friends, not a lot of words need to be spoken, just hang out and let Janelle know how much they love her....

Yesterday of course was May 5th, one of our neighbors behind us have an annual gathering (Party) to celebrate.  Since Britt/Kenneth were in town, they got to go and enjoy themselves for a while (I even joined them late in the evening after Janelle was fast asleep).  Ian was hard at work so he checked in with us via the other picture below...

I am sure you all remember a few weeks back when I found my "I Wear Grey For My Wife" shirts.  They have been the topic of a lot of conversations.  My hope is that it will in a little way bring awareness to this devastating cancer known as Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) and hopefully someday a cure.  It will be a focus for me for the rest of my life.  Through my brother-in-laws awareness efforts I have found the following logo which is also meant to bring awareness to brain tumor cancers and I have more shirts / lapel pins / stuff on its way.  

On the Janelle front, I think I have finally accepted that we really have NO routine.  It is so easy to wake up in the morning and kind of think that today will be like yesterday.  A much better approach would be to just assume that today will not be at all like yesterday.  One morning up at 9:00, another morning wide awake at 5:00 wondering why I am still sleeping.  This morning....10:30, sound asleep and no interest of getting up.

She is very weak.  The doctor told me that she would become very tired and sleep alot, have no appetite and eventually not get out of bed.  We are definitely moving to that point, she is getting out of bed every day but that is mainly because I am forcing that one to happen.

Hospice people continue to amaze me.  They are currently scheduled to come by on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That is based upon my request to really be the primary caregiver.  They are availble anytime.  I called them on Friday to ask a question, I left a very specific message with the operator that this was not an emergency, just a general question.  My phone rang like 5 minuters later with my nurse answering my questions completely.  

That is all I have to report to you.  I thank you for standing with us, praying for us, encouraging us.  It means EVERYTHING to me..........

Ken (& Janelle)