in memoriam: einar vestbakken negaard

Today would have been the 94th birthday of my father-in-law, who passed away just under 6 weeks ago. We would like to honor and remember through this guest post written by my husband, Christian, about his father.

In Memoriam:  Einar Vestbakken Negaard

March 7^th, 1923 in Finnskogen, Hedmark, Norway - January 27^th, 2017 Santa Barbara, California, USA

On a snowy morning, high on an alp in Canton Wallis, Switzerland, I contemplate the life and soul of my father, and the lingering influences of him upon me and I dwell deeply upon the legacy one life leaves upon another.  I feel compunction to honor his memory and share this amazing life story of 93 years, full of paradox, contradiction and sometimes extremes.  Men like him just aren’t made anymore, and perhaps that’s just as it should be?  Einar is an old Norse name for warrior, and I think my dad could not live this down, his name defined him in many ways.  He was “old world” and Viking to the very core.

But I wonder why despite his vigor and energy he was always “old and traditional” in his views.  He loved music and dancing but never thought much about Elvis or the Beetles. His taste was Lawrence Welk and the polka.  Most all the anecdotes throughout his life dwelt upon his Norwegianess and the first 25 years of his life.  He was stuck in retrospection, he was a sentimentalist and not a dreamer.  He saw Norway as utopia, yet he was much too outspoken, critical and unfiltered to make a successful Norwegian, he could never really go back.  His early life was a show of sparks, his Viking character was subjected to forge and hammer.  

His humanity spanned from super human to super flawed, hence I’m finding that summarizing such a life is a difficult assignment to do justice to.  Therefore, I will consider 3 defining paradoxes of my father with some illustrations.  These 3 paradoxes are vulnerability and tenacity, frugality and generosity, and pessimism and idealism.

Vulnerability:  Born into family Vestbakken in a place and time when surnames described your origins, he faced poverty and hardship his entire youth.  He was conceived out of wedlock, and had to bear the duty of the first-born son. This was the heavy burden upon his young life adding to his complicated relationship with his own father.  He could never fully reconcile and escape the pull of these immutable attributes.  He conquered the external and environmental adversity (just move to California) but always wrestled with the internal foes set into motion at a young age.  In fact, he took so much compassion upon himself that he could not recount these details without sobbing.  He never fully escaped the psychological bondage this had upon him.  Yet, at the same time I have never known someone who so readily broke into silly childhood songs.  These were always just under the surface, and when gazing upon my children something happy was illuminated within him, and therapeutically he sang to them in Norwegian, something ridiculous and light.

Tenacity:  My Farfar (father’s father) Petter was a woodcutter, which was a hard way to put food on the table. Families needed cash, crops and livestock for bartering.  This was infinitely difficult post World War I in a global depression, and food was therefore always scarce.  To grow up as the oldest of 9 children with food shortage has a profound influence upon one’s psyche.  Factor in the absence of the “basics” of electricity, refrigeration, flushing toilets etc. and you realize a child’s destiny is to start work young, and few finish school.  In fact, my dad’s formal education stopped at 8^th grade, which is almost incomprehensible?  But when you are sleeping 4 children to a bed you leave home early to support your family. 

Dear reader can you grasp the different world that this was?  Toughness is fist-fighting for shear recreation and competitive skiing and running.  Dad could climb stairs walking on his hands (all true).  He could carry a 300 lb bathtub up to the second floor by himself.  I think it is fair to say he had an ability to tap into a crazy amount of determination.  He could have lived happily one thousand years ago as a Viking.  I can picture him sitting in an open boat in the rain for days, eating half spoiled fish for three meals, and laughing about it.  I don’t recall him EVER being sick from work, none of us do?  Somehow he never really felt physical pain the way the rest of us do, no headaches, backaches and so forth.  He was so stoic he could go to the dentist and have his teeth drilled without anesthetic. It took tenacity taking a boat to America in 1950, with a small suitcase and almost no money in your pocket, working on your aunt’s house in Minnesota to cover room and board.

Frugality:  Besides farming and fishing, his early life entailed fixing what was broken.  They cobbled things together during and after the war.  This was his first job in Oslo as a young man.  Handyman was the means he supported three younger siblings and gave them the chance to develop their talents and pursue educations.  They even shared clothes and shoes.  Wasting was viewed as a mortal character flaw, and for the remainder of his life could not throw food away.  Fortunately, God gave him the best cast-iron stomach on the market.  He honestly could eat vast quantities of half spoiled food, and you would sit and marvel.  Only once this failed him at 85 as he proved he could not actually eat like a wolf. He ended up with a self-induced case of pancreatitis after consuming all the fat trimmings from a beef roast.

Generosity:  He was the neighbor who did your plumbing urgently on a Sunday and wouldn’t consider charging you.  I became the son who would clean out the gutters for a little old lady, and dad would make me take the 5 dollars back.  Neighbors don’t charge for neighborliness.  In medical school we were a house of six white collar kids and one blue.  Yet, I was the only kid that had my medical school paid in full by good ole’ dad.  I still marvel at this and don’t for a second take it for granted.  Thank you, Dad (and Mom!).

Pessimism:  In many ways he always struggled with a sense of inferiority.  And he recognized the rank that a college education gave a person.  He saw himself as an underdog, and I believe could not grasp the concept of his own manifest destiny.  This was in spite of a tremendous amount of financial comfort in the end.  But since he struggled until about 50, and worked until 70 he never felt successful in the worldly sense. His self-perception for himself and often others was pessimistic.  I think this stemmed from his own internal discontent?  In his heart he always championed the underdog, even politically, and had distaste for the elite. Yet he knew his life was not in vain, and he was truly a self-made man.

Idealism:  He basically idolized his very godly mother, who was a charismatic among Lutherans, and her unconditional love for him was a sustaining force even after her passing.  Again he couldn’t talk about her without sobbing.  In my boyhood I adjusted to this, but as a man I realized there was unnatural pain in his soul.  At age 14 he left home to begin supporting his family.  He worked at a Christian retreat center, and had a powerful conversion experience.  He had a life-long love and respect for God, but tragically could never grasp God’s grace for himself.  This was a great internal battle for him, feeling unacceptable in God’s eyes. 

In the Bible it says…” from whom much is given, much is expected “(Luke 12:36).  But what do we expect from those who have been given so little?  Are not our successes really contextual to the elements we have to succeed?   Work ethic, capital, ability to save, intuition and luck, interpersonal skills, and our personality all determine our ability to achieve.  I would say my dad reached the finish line with an extraordinary amount of success.  Considering the headwinds of his nature and nurture, his internal milieu was so complex to overcome.  Nonetheless we as his family never ran out of forgiveness.  His marriage survived where nearly all would have failed. 

In his final years, he had the added luck of not just the external comforts, but the gift of sound mind and body to live independently at home (with my mom’s help) until he was nearly 94.  In his last 3 months he had “soul satisfaction” and said many times, “I have received more than I ever deserved”. This man who was so critical TO the end, was not able to see the liabilities IN the end?  He adored and loved my mom those final months, and said so.  Honestly, it was a miracle that we all covet.  The miracle of a peaceful, pain-free and satisfied finish.  Other than his failing vision he complained of just cold feet and not much appetite. 

This old Viking could finally rest in his last days.  His undaunting spirit of industry put to rest.  His incessant struggle for having everything set to his particular bias vanished.  To finally give up control, be present, rest in the moment, and express love was a gift to us.  He knew he would die soon, was waiting for it, and in his readiness fell asleep to never wake again. We are grateful for the blessing of his unique and extraordinarily complex life, for the investments he made in us, and the miraculous final moments.  In watching someone die, and let go, and transition to the next existence we are thankful for the spirituality it stirs within us.  What are the purposes to our own existence, and how does this frame our duties?   How do we answer the questions to our own inadequacies, and walk in compassion towards ourselves and others?  By observing death we are confronted by our thoughts of God and the meaning of holiness in the universe and our own brief moment of significance.  Is not a heart that bears witness to dying enriched to live better?  

Dear Dad, you always found a way to give out of poverty.  Even in your final weeks, you gave gratitude and peace, and wanted nothing.  This is a noble life.

Trivia:

1. He had an incredible memory for people, relatives, stories and song lyrics.  He could tell the same story 100 times.

2. At age 10 he broke his femur ski jumping and was in traction for 3 months.  It was an era of no antibiotics and he could have been an amputee.  His leg never fully healed right, yet he went on to be competitive in running and skiing events.  At 87 this same infection began to spontaneously drain the staph aureus in the bone had been there decades long.

3. As kids, he and another brother once saved a third from falling into a frozen lake.

4.  He bought his dad his first horse, then car.  He bought and then delivered the family’s first bicycle (after riding it 100 miles). And bought his mom her first washing machine, at about 50 (this made sense once the electricity came!)

5.  To be Vestbakken meant stingy.  He felt his grandpa was miserly, and though not uncommon then, they changed their surnames to the name of the farm (Negaard).  Family trees are complicated in Scandinavia.

6.  He was a bachelor a long time before he met my mother on vacation in Germany.  Married at 41, he secretly always wanted to be younger, and lied about his age by 3 years.  Medicare still thinks he is 91?

7.  He almost died at 80, like the stoic idiot he was he sat through the night with chest pain, waiting for the doctor’s office to open. Emergency stenting saved his life.  Despite the massive heart attack, he never had long term congestive heart failure.

8.  He was a news junky and loved McNeil Lehrer Report, he also loved watching Dancing with the Stars.

9.  He spoke “5 languages”, though this make me laugh a little because, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are awfully close.  Nonetheless it is clear he had a knack for learning language.

10.  Hugging was always a show of strength, he would squeeze you till it hurt, and you thought a rib might break.

11.  Chopping wood and building fires was his number one therapeutic activity.

12.  He loved to grow and nurture fruit trees.  My brother and I keep this legacy alive.

13.  He loved pickled herring, and rutabagas and other Norse “ethnic” food.

14.  and many other quirks….