These are Tisha’s years of glory -- short but wonderful.
There was a time . . .
A few years ago.
When someone named Mark
Entered your life’s flow.
We loved you so.
Your future was bright.
A color shone forth,
Green was the light.
Tisha starts dating Mark steadily and immediately starts changing. She is becoming confident in her looks, her work, her abilities, her intelligence, her future. Mark and T become lovers and best friends by late 1997.
We meet Mark and T for wine tasting in the gold country outside of Sacramento. What a fun weekend. T and Mark are a wonderful couple.
In the Spring of 1998, Nancy and I take a vacation to Greece and Turkey with our church friends. While in Greece we get a call, our sixth scare. Tisha has been in a very violent auto accident. Her car flips three times and is totaled. Fortunately, she walks away from the accident with a minor concussion and vertigo, which goes away in a couple of weeks. The highway patrol says that the car probably would not have flipped if it wasn’t a Jeep. They add that Tisha wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t a Jeep. When we get back from vacation, we help T buy a replacement car. Unfortunately, she let her insurance lapse a couple of months before the accident. So, no help there.
In August of 1998, we go to Lake Tahoe to attend Al and Brenda Andersen’s Gwen (Kyeell) wedding. Mark and Tisha, also, attend this beautiful wedding on the shores of Lake Tahoe at CalNeva Resort. The next day Mark and I go to a local restaurant in South Lake Tahoe to wait for the girls who are shopping.
Mark asks for my permission to marry T. It is an honor.
Wedding plans begin in earnest by the fall of 1998. Mark and Tisha join us in Colorado Springs for USAFA Parents’ Weekend, 1998. Mark is becoming a member of the family.
This is now Nancy and T’s time. I believe that Nancy has been planning this wedding for 27 years. She is off and running. Nancy’s business is the best that it has ever been that allows us to plan an elegant wedding sparing no expense for our first daughter’s wedding. T and Nancy talk 4-5 times a day. Wedding arrangement are moving ahead at a break neck speed. Dresses, caterers, video, photo, music, wine selection, registering at stores, wedding cake, flowers, schedules, invitations, rehearsal dinner arrangements, seating arrangements, painting of the church, landscaping changes, tent plans – this is going to be a wonderful event.
I surprise Nancy with a 30th wedding anniversary trip to Lake Tahoe. T and Mark arrange our accommodations and we have dinner with Mark and T for our anniversary dinner, Dec 14th, 1998. Stan Beard has helped me transfer the reel-to-reel tape recording of our wedding to a cassette. We listen to our wedding with Mark and Tisha – bad music, poor sound, long sermon, never ending organ music, Nancy’s delicate voice – it’s perfect.
Mark and Tisha are home for Christmas. We are hosting the Christmas-eve party this year. The little kids are great with their readings. In typical fashion, we rush from singing at church to our house for presents and singing then back to church for the midnight service. This is Mark’s first experience with the Rinehart Christmas. Our tradition of hiding the presents until Christmas eve, sneaking in after the kids have gone to bed to put the presents under the tree, wrapping the tree in sheets to hide the presents until morning, then marching into the living room on Christmas morning to open the presents in both the stockings and under the tree is not unique, but it is our tradition. He loves watching T and Brooke jockey for opening the last present. In our family, it has not been who opens the most. It is who opens the last present. In this case, T thinks she wins until Brooke finds her mountain bike on the deck. Check and mate.
We meet Tisha and Mark in Northern California for another weekend wine tasting event in February. Wick and Kathy Petersen and Paul and Donna Van Dillen join us for this fun weekend. We take over the Fox’s B&B in Sutter Creek.
Nancy starts printing the invitations weeks before they need to be mailed. Time flies. We mail the invitations. Within a week, we start getting wedding presents, which we store in the work out room. The stack of gifts start growing.
About five weeks before the wedding, Tisha starts complaining of a sore neck. Sounds like a pulled muscle from working out with her personal trainer. She tries a chiro and then goes to her doctor. He prescribes muscle relaxer and pain killer (take an aspirin and call me later). A few weeks later, T becomes dizzy during a hike with Mark. She then starts throwing up. What is going on?
With complaints of a sore neck, nausea and dizziness, Tisha goes to the local ENT specialists in Tahoe the week prior to the wedding. After exams, they diagnose “Positional Vertigo” and prescribe anti-nausea medication for dizziness. During this first visit, Tisha throws up violently during an “Eply” maneuver. This does not seem to worry the doctor or it hasn’t been communicated to the doctor. Tisha calls Nancy and lets her know the results of the test. She is relieved that the ENT docs have ruled out a tumor. For whatever reason, she thought it was a tumor.
She continues to throw up over the weekend. Mark calls Nancy on Sunday and then calls ENT for a reference to an emergency room. He is told that the emergency room is not necessary. He should double up on the prescription and come into the office on Monday. Tisha continues to throw up. They go back to the ENT on Monday. New doctor, similar exam. Diagnosis changes from just Positional Vertigo to include an inner ear infection. More medications are prescribed including a steroid. By Tuesday, Tisha starts reacting to the medicines and is well enough to fly home Wednesday morning.
We started a month prior to the wedding in preparing the church – paint the fellowship hall and sanctuary, paint the trim on the trailer, add to the landscaping with arbors and benches, replant some of the grounds, power wash the hardscape, etc. The Embrees come down on Monday prior to the wedding to help in the preparation. Jerry and Susan work with my brother and sister-in-law, Rodney and Cheri Rinehart, in decorating the church – stringing lights, doing the odd jobs. Nancy is working with Kirsten Embree in preparing the flowers. I’m doing all the odd jobs at church to get it ready. The tent is delivered and set up on Wednesday. We arrange the tables and chairs, hang the twinkling lights and netting, pull electrical cords and prepare for the sound equipment. All is going according to plan. The church is rapidly taking shape for the wedding.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Tisha is dizzy but not nauseated. Nancy makes contact with a church friend who works for an ENT doc at Scripts Clinic. They discuss scheduling an appointment for the following week after the wedding but before the kids leave for their honeymoon. Tisha visits the church, prepares for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Wednesday night is a relaxed evening at home. Rehearsal and dinner on Thursday proceed without a hitch. Tisha is dizzy but “getting through it”. On Friday, T is still dizzy but attends the bridal luncheon. All goes well, but T is not feeling well in the afternoon. She starts vomiting late in the day. This continues into Saturday.
Saturday morning the schedule is scrambled. Tisha is still sick. Nancy and I talk of what to do if Tisha is too sick to make the wedding. We have no answers. We reschedule hair and nail appointments. Nancy and Mark take T to the emergency room at Scripts Clinic. Doctor examines T and prescribes more drugs for T and sends her off. T is not looking good when she gets home, but she is not nauseated. She is rallying and is determined to make this her night. The rush is on. Hair, nails, get dressed, get to the church on time. Tisha looks gorgeous at the wedding. She is still dizzy and rigid in her stance and walk, but she pushes on. Her smile glows. This is her night!
The Church is packed. My girls are beautiful. Tisha in her wedding gown, Nancy in her “Mother of the Bride” outfit and Brooke in her brides’ maid gown. How grown up the girls have become. Brooke holding Tisha’s train as they rush from the front of the church to the back door so that T can listen to Landon and Aspin’s song. Nancy’s the proud mom. All her plans and work focused on this one evening.
We decide that both Nancy and I will help Tisha down the aisle in case she losses her balance. She is unsteady but ready. The flowers are gorgeous. The music is wonderful. Brooke does the scripture reading without a flaw. T is wobbly at the altar but smiling throughout the ceremony. Pastor Michael Skoor does a great job with the message. T and Mark are an elegant and beautiful wedding couple. Mark’s friends are great, hamming it up with the ring, enjoying the moment. There is something special about this evening beyond this being my daughter’s wedding.
Michael Skoor and I talk after the wedding. He comments about how good Tisha looked considering her condition. I reply I’m more worried about Monday than tonight because I think there is more to this dizziness than we’ve been told. I want to get her in for a checkup. Little did I know.
The reception flows from magical to mystical. The food is delicious. The setting could not have been better. The weather is perfect. The band is great. Stan’s songs are wonderful. It is just as Nancy planned it and Tisha wanted it. The twinkling lights in both the tent and fellowship hall transform the evening. T loves it as she and Mark table hop, cut the cake and dance. She and Mark dance their wedding dance with T not missing a step including the twirl. I dance with T to Stan’s singing “Butterfly Kisses”. I tell Tisha I love her and how proud I am of her. It is the last chance I will ever have to tell her this. I’ll cherish this moment for the rest of my life.
T and Mark are off to the hotel by about 11pm. The party continues until midnight. Marg Schlosser and Landon Beard get “Elvis/Jesus” to the hotel on time. What a night! Beautiful woman.
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