Thank you to everyone who has offered prayer and support for myself and my daughters during this time. I have noticed that many people have been reading Michael’s writings. I don’t know if you are family members, co-workers, new or old friends or just someone who heard about him, but because of the personal details in Michael’s writings I will no longer be posting his book, With Renee. He started to write the book for our children and grandchildren. The following is part of the intro:
There are a few autobiographies that I would sincerely desire to read and fewer that would leave a lasting impression on my life. I enjoy the Gospels, book of Acts and the whole Bible for that matter because they tell the life stories of God and his people. But two life stories I always wondered about was that of my own parents. Who were they before I was born? You always hear of parents stopping in moments of clarity when they realize they were saying statements to their kids that their own parents had said to them. How had they changed from the child to the adult? I also wondered how my parents acted and how other adults saw them at work and other times when I wasn’t around. I used to ask my parents a lot of questions trying to unveil who they were and how they came to believe and think the way that they did. To this day I have stories that give hints to their past but ultimately I feel their true and complete story will never become clearer than a glimpse to me. I don’t want that to be true for my children. I know that how I raise you will have a lasting impression on not only how you see the world but how you will raise your own children. I desire to tell you why I do the things I do and how I came to learn and believe the things that I taught you.
First off it is impossible to tell my early story apart from God and your mother Renee because they are so much apart of it. The same way it is impossible for me to tell my later story apart from you Lydia and Melody. The other day we were all walking through the graveyard together and your mom started talking about how she would do my funeral. I in turn told her how I would do hers and we both felt like the other person truly knew our hearts and how we would want to be remembered. We both agreed that we would only allow selected speakers to speak. Neither one of us could handle a family acquaintance or friend saying a story that wasn’t true about the life of the person we loved so much. Your mom said she would make everyone walk to a difficult but breathe taking place in nature. There would be no pamphlet or summary written down about my life. Simply a bunch of people in God’s country were she would have someone play Amazing Grace on the bagpipes. She said that she would read something if she could but the funeral would have to be postponed until she felt she had truly captured what she wanted to say.
For your mother I saw a beautiful mood lit room set up for a meal like you would see for a very high end wedding reception. On the walls would be her paintings and pictures. The music playing softly in the background would be piano songs she had written herself or loved to play. I would decorate and coordinate everything with her daughters. It would be a tribute to her and I would make the point that the greatest thing she ever felt she had been able to create and devote her life to was not a painting, picture or musical piece but her children. And that she always felt that her greatest masterpiece was her family. Both of us love you two very much.
This book has two sections. The first is entitled “Loving God with your life.” It holds my personal testimony and I hope one day it will have yours too. The second section is called “Loving God with you mind.” In a world that constantly calls the things of God foolish I have written some teaching that can help us. It can be used as a defense for your faith but most importantly for your own understanding. The word tells us to love God with our hearts as well as our minds. I pray you will love him with everything in you. Believe me he is more than worth it. Jesus Christ was God and he came to earth a long time ago to show us how much he loves us, wants a relationship with us and to lead the way away from all pain and suffering to eternal life in paradise. I will follow him forever and my prayer is that one day we will all be together in heaven with Jesus Christ.
I didn’t know he had written down the details of that day we walked through the cemetery. He wrote so frequently at night while I read, painted or listened to music by him; now every letter, prayer or account of his life that is recorded is a precious gift for myself and our children. I had the privilege of meeting Michael when we were only 18 years old and by the grace of God we were able to grow up together. Everything that made us who we are as a family came from Jesus and is based on His love. A love that can walk you through any hardship and give you hope in any circumstance. Michael was my husband but he was not mine to keep. As God says in Isaiah 55 verse 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
During this time I will continually put my trust and faith in God’s word and my prayer is that you will too. If you want to know the truth about Michael’s life or faith from his perspective feel free to email me through our website and I will share as much as possible.
Showing posts with label With Renee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label With Renee. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
With Renee (Chapter 1) by, Michael Blankartz
I am eighteen-years old and everyday during rush hour traffic I see what I am supposed to become returning home from work. The role models for my generation look angry and depressed. They are zombies caught up in a routine waiting for retirement. Do you know what it is like to wake up in the morning and not want to get out of bed because nothing that you will do that day is worth rising from the comfort of the warm sheets? I have read novels about people whose life had meaning, they got out of bed excited to start another day because they loved what they did. I don’t love what I do and I don’t know of anyone who does. Let me rephrase that, I don’t know anyone who is consistently excited about their life. My life is comfortable and that is all that I see people living. I wish I could have the focus and direction that the main characters of those novels had but I don’t. Unfortunately, I have no clue what I want to do with my life.
Presently I work at a recycling center. I was really excited last year when I got the job because in some small way I felt that I would be involved in helping the world while other kids my age were working in fast food. But now my only satisfaction comes from giving homeless guys more weight than the scale reads and $1.00 a pound instead of $.85. My job starts when the customer dumps their aluminum cans into a conveyer that caries them into a basket for me to weigh them. I spend my time removing everything that isn’t an aluminum can before it gets into the basket. This includes aluminum foil, rocks, trash and even old maggot infested food.
Truthfully the maggots have only happened twice but they stick out more powerful in my mind than the trash. I get to give people money for recycling which is rewarding but it isn’t enough. I try to appreciate the little things in life but my rationalized meaning only keeps me happy for so long. Let’s face it I sort through old beer and soda cans that have been sitting idly in peoples backyards. The smell of stale beer constantly stains my clothes and overwhelms my nostrils. Who in their right mind would read the novel of my life? Even I wouldn’t make it past the first page.
Lately I have started to drink beer at work with two of my co-workers. When I get to work at noon Kevin (he is a forty year old ex-meth addict) goes and buys a twelve pack of beer and a bag of ice from the liquor store down the street. Upon his return Ed (he is an alcoholic in his late forties) fills a five gallon paint bucket with a little water, the ice and the beer. Once the “cocktails” as Ed calls them are on ice we work together to serve all of the customers as fast as we can. We sit on three lawn chairs that we found in the dumpster under the shade of a torn tarp. It takes a lot of effort for me to drink as fast as them while making it look natural. I have been drinking steadily since I was fifteen but usually it is warm beer out of a backpack. This beer is ice cold and the thought of drinking at work makes it even more enjoyable. I usually only drink two or three of my beers because I don’t want to get too buzzed at work. Besides I gladly give my fourth beer to Kevin or Ed because they want it more than I do.
I don’t want to work at a recycling center all of my life but it might not be for the reasons that one would think. It isn’t because my co workers are alcoholics or because I come home covered in filth. It isn’t because I only make $8.00 an hour or even the maggots. It is simply because I am not happy there now and don’t believe that I ever will be. I think that happiness grows from situations that supply your life with meaning. So if I can’t find meaning at the recycling center now then I will never be anything more than comfortable there. I don’t want to work at the same meaningless job for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live another twenty years and still not be living a life of meaning. I am terrified that when I’m an old man and dying I will know in my heart that my life was meaningless.
My father gave me an appreciation of philosophy and adventure through the books that he would recommend to me. Stories of fallen soldiers missing their loved ones, eastern monks traveling the world in solitude devoted to the one task of finding meaning and young adventures living outside the conformity of society. I loved the books and found role models in the pages. My father and I would talk about the characters in the highest regard and I found a teacher and friend in my dad. That was until I graduated high school two months ago and I told him my decision not to go to college. Instead I was going to work on the fishing boats in Alaska with a co-worker from the Recycling center. He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to college and it was then that I realized something about my father. He believed in talking about living a lifestyle “outside the box” but he never dared to put his ideas into action. My father was a living contradiction and I didn’t know what he truly believed. Did he want to live a life of adventure and risk or the calm and quiet lifestyle of an eastern monk? Was he too afraid to live without routine and security? Did he lack the wisdom to live the life of an eastern Guru? In the end I asked myself one final question would I be happy living the life of my father when I was forty?
I remembered his occasional comments about quitting his job as a teacher to work somewhere with less responsibility. I had heard him say on at least ten separate occasions that he wanted to be a floor attendant at Home Depot. I thought more in depth about the time he had to write a paper about the meaning of his life for an administration course he was taking to be a principal. He brought it to me in the family room and read me the title “News Junkie” before briefly summarizing it to me. He said that his life basically consisted of coming home from work as a special education teacher and reading Time magazine before watching the news on T.V. He finished his summary with “Pretty pathetic isn’t it.” I remembered how I laughed and told my father not to be so hard on himself. I told him that he had raised a wonderful family and had a humanitarian job that touched people lives. I assured him that there was nothing more productive than that and told him that his monitoring of current events was something that I admired about him after being a great father. He forced a smile and told me, “Your right, I hadn’t thought about that” and walked into the kitchen. As long as my father wished that he was doing something else he would never realize what he had. He spent more time talking about his dreams than reaching for them. And I guess a small part of me always resented him for that.
All summer I have been waiting for Jim (another coworker from Recycling center) to sell his motorcycle so that we could buy a truck and drive up to Alaska. Every week my father tries to get me to register for college and I tell him that I don’t want to prepare for the future only to find out in doing all the preparation I have wasted most of my life. For two months I have done nothing but tell all of my friends that I am leaving yet I don’t leave. It has been frustrating waiting for my life to start but thankfully I have run out of time. College starts next week and my father gave me an ultimatum to go to college, work full time, travel or move out. I told Jim I was leaving in a week and he said that he couldn’t sell his bike by then. I saw the fear in his eyes and realized that he never would have gone.
Yesterday I sold my Volkswagen bug for $2,000 and bought a train ticket that departs in two days. I read on the internet that there was a ferry that ported out of Bellingham Washington and traveled up the inside passage of Alaska. I don’t know what will happen to me when I get there or when I’m coming home. All that I know is that I want to see life as a gift instead of a burden. In two days I was going to start living the novel that I would love to read.
Presently I work at a recycling center. I was really excited last year when I got the job because in some small way I felt that I would be involved in helping the world while other kids my age were working in fast food. But now my only satisfaction comes from giving homeless guys more weight than the scale reads and $1.00 a pound instead of $.85. My job starts when the customer dumps their aluminum cans into a conveyer that caries them into a basket for me to weigh them. I spend my time removing everything that isn’t an aluminum can before it gets into the basket. This includes aluminum foil, rocks, trash and even old maggot infested food.
Truthfully the maggots have only happened twice but they stick out more powerful in my mind than the trash. I get to give people money for recycling which is rewarding but it isn’t enough. I try to appreciate the little things in life but my rationalized meaning only keeps me happy for so long. Let’s face it I sort through old beer and soda cans that have been sitting idly in peoples backyards. The smell of stale beer constantly stains my clothes and overwhelms my nostrils. Who in their right mind would read the novel of my life? Even I wouldn’t make it past the first page.
Lately I have started to drink beer at work with two of my co-workers. When I get to work at noon Kevin (he is a forty year old ex-meth addict) goes and buys a twelve pack of beer and a bag of ice from the liquor store down the street. Upon his return Ed (he is an alcoholic in his late forties) fills a five gallon paint bucket with a little water, the ice and the beer. Once the “cocktails” as Ed calls them are on ice we work together to serve all of the customers as fast as we can. We sit on three lawn chairs that we found in the dumpster under the shade of a torn tarp. It takes a lot of effort for me to drink as fast as them while making it look natural. I have been drinking steadily since I was fifteen but usually it is warm beer out of a backpack. This beer is ice cold and the thought of drinking at work makes it even more enjoyable. I usually only drink two or three of my beers because I don’t want to get too buzzed at work. Besides I gladly give my fourth beer to Kevin or Ed because they want it more than I do.
I don’t want to work at a recycling center all of my life but it might not be for the reasons that one would think. It isn’t because my co workers are alcoholics or because I come home covered in filth. It isn’t because I only make $8.00 an hour or even the maggots. It is simply because I am not happy there now and don’t believe that I ever will be. I think that happiness grows from situations that supply your life with meaning. So if I can’t find meaning at the recycling center now then I will never be anything more than comfortable there. I don’t want to work at the same meaningless job for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live another twenty years and still not be living a life of meaning. I am terrified that when I’m an old man and dying I will know in my heart that my life was meaningless.
My father gave me an appreciation of philosophy and adventure through the books that he would recommend to me. Stories of fallen soldiers missing their loved ones, eastern monks traveling the world in solitude devoted to the one task of finding meaning and young adventures living outside the conformity of society. I loved the books and found role models in the pages. My father and I would talk about the characters in the highest regard and I found a teacher and friend in my dad. That was until I graduated high school two months ago and I told him my decision not to go to college. Instead I was going to work on the fishing boats in Alaska with a co-worker from the Recycling center. He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to college and it was then that I realized something about my father. He believed in talking about living a lifestyle “outside the box” but he never dared to put his ideas into action. My father was a living contradiction and I didn’t know what he truly believed. Did he want to live a life of adventure and risk or the calm and quiet lifestyle of an eastern monk? Was he too afraid to live without routine and security? Did he lack the wisdom to live the life of an eastern Guru? In the end I asked myself one final question would I be happy living the life of my father when I was forty?
I remembered his occasional comments about quitting his job as a teacher to work somewhere with less responsibility. I had heard him say on at least ten separate occasions that he wanted to be a floor attendant at Home Depot. I thought more in depth about the time he had to write a paper about the meaning of his life for an administration course he was taking to be a principal. He brought it to me in the family room and read me the title “News Junkie” before briefly summarizing it to me. He said that his life basically consisted of coming home from work as a special education teacher and reading Time magazine before watching the news on T.V. He finished his summary with “Pretty pathetic isn’t it.” I remembered how I laughed and told my father not to be so hard on himself. I told him that he had raised a wonderful family and had a humanitarian job that touched people lives. I assured him that there was nothing more productive than that and told him that his monitoring of current events was something that I admired about him after being a great father. He forced a smile and told me, “Your right, I hadn’t thought about that” and walked into the kitchen. As long as my father wished that he was doing something else he would never realize what he had. He spent more time talking about his dreams than reaching for them. And I guess a small part of me always resented him for that.
All summer I have been waiting for Jim (another coworker from Recycling center) to sell his motorcycle so that we could buy a truck and drive up to Alaska. Every week my father tries to get me to register for college and I tell him that I don’t want to prepare for the future only to find out in doing all the preparation I have wasted most of my life. For two months I have done nothing but tell all of my friends that I am leaving yet I don’t leave. It has been frustrating waiting for my life to start but thankfully I have run out of time. College starts next week and my father gave me an ultimatum to go to college, work full time, travel or move out. I told Jim I was leaving in a week and he said that he couldn’t sell his bike by then. I saw the fear in his eyes and realized that he never would have gone.
Yesterday I sold my Volkswagen bug for $2,000 and bought a train ticket that departs in two days. I read on the internet that there was a ferry that ported out of Bellingham Washington and traveled up the inside passage of Alaska. I don’t know what will happen to me when I get there or when I’m coming home. All that I know is that I want to see life as a gift instead of a burden. In two days I was going to start living the novel that I would love to read.
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