Janey Kinder
A Tribute to a Loving Wife
By
Ken Kinder
As I look back on the 55-plus years of my marriage to Janey, it has been so much like the life I dreamed of as a very young boy who wanted to be a truck driver.
The road wasn't always smooth. It was dotted with bumps at times, but when I analyze those bumps, they were the sandpaper that was preparing us to be better lovers, parents, grandparents and just plain good people as a couple to better raise our family.
I see through tear-filled eyes that my bride came out of this finished process much smoother in the sanding and finishing stages of our marriage, but we can't all be perfect.
I started my truck driving career as a young boy in my early teens during summer vacations, riding with my brother in-law Elmer Harvey who taught me the trade and gave me the opportunity to fulfill my youthful dreams.
He was to me as a driving teacher what Janey was to me as a teacher of what it took to build a successful married life.
My friends are always teasing me about my first logging days being behind the reins of a couple of big work horses named Jack and Doc, before I could handle bigger and better trucks to get me down the road and that is true.
I didn't log with a pair of horses but drove some mighty suspect trucks before getting my first turbocharged Kenworth.
Janey was my Kenworth truck and Reliance trailer. She was my Alpha and Omega — beginning and end.
My wife, mother of our children, lifetime partner and the polish that made our home a shining place to live.
She used to ask me, “What do you guys talk about while eating lunch on your rides?”
And so many times my daughters would come into my office and talk with me for hours, and she would ask the same question, “What were you talking about?”
I gave her the same answer, “It was you we were talking about.”
It wasn't true, but she wanted to know about everything that we did and that was the mothering nature she had.
Janey was the risk-taker and gambler in our marriage. I was the 8-to-5-earn-a-living-don't-take-a-chance person, but she pushed me into taking chances, gambles that were not comfortable but made a better person of Old Ken and a few bucks in the bank, too.
It was her way of making me grow into the man I became.
We hadn't been married over a year when she started broaching the subjects of life insurance and burial plots. It just about drove me nuts.
I would reply, “Janey, we are still a couple of kids and you are talking about several years down the road,” but that didn't stop her.
She was almost five years younger than me and about 20 years wiser. It took her nagging about these things for me to finally see the big picture.
Janey, I will always love you for the man you made of me and the family you gave birth to and raised for me. Without you, my life would have been a dull and boring path to travel. With you, it has been a freeway of thrills and adventures.
It will be difficult for me to continue on without your prodding, but you left me with four children that have so much of you in their genes that I know life isn't going to change much with them pushing their old Dad in the way you would be choosing.
The one big thing I would change if I had the power would be to have given you better health in the past years, so you could have taken the cruises you planned and dreamed about.
I am now going through much of your papers, clothing, etc. and finding so many clues of your travel intentions. That is one more reason I loved you so much, your stubborn way of not giving up even when the odds were so heavily stacked against you.
I have kept in touch with our old family doctor over the years via e-mail. Doctor Ostrem was our doctor that Kaiser took away from patient practice to use in administrative work.
His job was to get the Roseville hospital up and running and reorganize the emergency room at Morse Avenue hospital.
This was several years back, but we have kept in touch once or twice a year and when I sent him the news of your passing his reply was:
“Dear Ken,I was so sad to hear about Janey. She was such a remarkable person, and from the medical point of view, it's really a miracle that she lasted this long. If there's any silver lining at all, it's that she passed so quickly, like what everyone wants, but what so seldom happens. My thoughts and prayers are surely with you.
Sincerely, Dr. Ostrem.”
I took her to the ER at 6 a.m. Tuesday, and they checked her condition and decided to give her a pacemaker, but she had just started on blood thinners and needed to thicken her blood prior to surgery. Her operation was scheduled for Wednesday, but her heart stopped that night at 6:20 p.m.
Tuesday, all the kids and grandkids were up to visit her and she was sitting up in bed, enjoying her family. She was telling them all about her table setting for Thanksgiving and was so proud.
A lady nurse was watching all this energetic interaction between our family and before we left after saying our goodbyes to Janey, she told us something that made us happy.
She said they don't often see such a close knit, happy, loving family as yours and it made her cry to watch your visit.
We left about 5:30 p.m. to go home, and I was coming back to watch “Dancing with the Stars” with Janey when I got a call from the hospital telling me her heart was showing bad signs and I needed to return.
I was there in a flash and the doctors were waiting to tell me that she was gone. I went in to sit with her and say my goodbyes, I then called all the family back to tell her goodbye and that same nurse came in and told us she was with Janey when she died.
She said Janey was sitting up telling her again about her table setting and was so proud when she just laid over and was gone in an instant.
It breaks my heart but I know she is in a better place and rid of all the suffering she has been going through for quite some time.
The light of my life was extinguished at 6:20 p.m., Nov. 22, 2011. Goodnight, sweetheart.(The Union's Editor's Note: The following tribute was written by former Nevada County resident Ken Kinder, whose wife Janey died Nov. 22. She was in the graduating Class of 1955 at Nevada Union High School. Wednesday, November 30, 2011)