Follow Me, I Don't Know Where I'm Going: Reflections on Love, Loss, and Life by a Too-Young Widow

By Nicole Venzke Peterson

On September 15, 2016, after playing soccer in the rain with his school-aged children, 45-year-old Tim Peterson left the park in his truck with his baby boy, followed by his middle children and wife behind. His last words to Nicki were “Follow me. I don’t know where I’m going.” Moments later at County Road 11 and Evergreen in Burnsville, Minnesota, their lives changed forever. Follow Me, I Don’t Know Where I’m Going, blogger Nicole Venzke Peterson’s first book, is at once a tender and humorous love story, a touching and enlightening glimpse into the grief of a too-young widow, and an inspirational and practical diary of a faith journey. For those who have loved, lost, or simply lived life, this emotional and spiritual book is sure to bring hope to readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973665908

Nicole Venzke Peterson

Nicole Venzke Peterson, too-young widow, passionate and exhausted mother of three and stepmom of two, long time sufferer of control freakism, self-proclaimed smart girl who is a slow learner when it comes to life lessons, lifelong Christian who has often spoken the right answers but is now just learning to truly listen for them, is a published writer, podcaster, and blogger. Since losing her husband, father of her children, best friend, and running partner of nearly fifteen years in September 2016, Nicole finds purpose in living to tell about love, loss, and life, authentically and productively. Follow Me, I Don’t Know Where I’m Going is Nicole’s first book. Nicole grew up in White Bear Lake, a northeast suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, lived and worked for fifteen years with her late husband, Tim, in and around Lakeville, a southern suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and now resides in Altoona, a small town outside of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with her sweet kiddos and her husband, Greg. To be clear, Nicole is and always will be a Minnesota Vikings fan.

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PROLOGUE

Road Trip, Anyone?

As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.- Acts 4:20

I’m just a girl. An ordinary girl that’s lived a pretty ordinary life, if there is such a thing. I have no formal credentials, no degrees or certifications that make me an expert per se, no grief counseling or life coaching experience, no long list of published writings, nothing of that nature. In fact, as I stand here prepared to tell our story, I feel really underqualified in the eyes of this world. But maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly why our story matters.

The cross. Its rough and weathered wood. Its lowly nature. It, too, looks underqualified. Underqualified to be something miraculous. Something life changing. Something globally and timelessly significant. But as I gaze upon it in church or in my imagination, it never fails to bring the hot sting of tears to my eyes. For that cross is for me. For Tim. For Greg. For my sweet kiddos. For everyone ordinary and rough and weathered and lowly. And since our story began, I feel undeniably drawn to that cross. Undeniably compelled to haphazardly kneel at its foot, come as I am in my ripped up jeans, favorite old sweatshirt, and hair in a messy pony, risking getting my knees and hands and face dirty. For the cross is the tangible thing here, that more than ever, connects me to my Heaven. Connects me to my Timmy. Connects me to my Jesus who made Heaven mine and Timmy’s in the first place. Connects me to my Heaven that holds a place for my Gabby, my Sam, my Sidney, my Parker, my Grady, my Greg, my everyone on some day, from some place, via some path we cannot know. But nevermind that right now. It’s that rough and weathered and lowly cross that lifts me and my dirty knees up, that raises my beat up chin to look upwards, and tells my dusty underqualified hands to type out our story for you to read at some time in some place I cannot know.

But my hope, my almost frantic prayer, is that this story can draw you to the foot of that rough and weathered and lowly cross, too. To draw you to my Jesus. To draw you to His hope and peace and love. To draw you to His Heaven that is yours despite your dirty knees and beat up chin and dusty hands. It is yours, even if you have no idea how to get there. It’s ok.

Follow me, I don’t know where I’m going.

PART 1

The Backroads

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:9

CHAPTER 1

Soccer Mom’s Truck

O h my goodness, the rain. Maybe the grass and trees and lakes and streams will benefit from it, but seriously, this is truly unpleasant. It’s September 2016 in Minnesota and it’s wet and it’s cold and it, quite simply, is a horrendous day for a soccer game. I love my kids and all, but I will not sit in a chintzy lawn chair in sideways rain in my work clothes with a cheap umbrella that will not cooperate with the wind to watch them, along with my 12-year-old-at-heart husband and another similarly aged coach, run up and down the field in a scrimmage that simply does not matter. I’ll sit in the parking lot in my warm truck watching through a wet windshield, thank you very much. The other team had the right idea when they decided it was too wet to play and headed home. I admire the commitment and free-spiritedness of these kiddos and coaches who decided an intra team scrimmage was the best way to deal with the rain, but I’ll show my support from dry sidelines.

I love this soccer team. It’s a sweet little team from a sweet little Lutheran school made up of sweet little 4th through 8th graders, both boys and girls this year, who are coached by two sweet and quirky dads who love this sweet little team also. It just so happens that two of the players on this team are my oldest son, 13-year-old Sam, and his younger sister, my 11-year-old Sidney, and the sweet and quirky assistant coach is their dad, my husband, 45-year-old Tim. Our youngest son, seven-year-old Grady, and me, Nicki, young and hip mom and wife whose age shall remain unimportant (I’m 41 if you just must know), are the ones smartly planted in our family-movin’ SUV. My Sidney, one of just four girls brave enough to join the co-ed team (co-ed just this year as they had a player shortage on the typically all-boys team) is holding her own as a scrappy little blonde ponytailed defender out there against pubescent boys and her annoying dad who thinks it’s fun to play her extra hard because he can. This opportunity doesn’t happen everyday, that a brother and sister, two years and a gender apart, get to play on the same competitive team coached by their dad. Although I’m not enthused enough today to be sitting out in the chilly fall rain, I think this is pretty cool. It’s just not likely they will have the opportunity to be part of the same team again.

Thirty minutes of sloppy and fun-filled play ends and even this tough team and its coaches decide enough is enough. Dripping wet and smiling from ear to ear, the players run off the field and pile into family vehicles to head home for a hot shower and something warm to eat. My Sam and Sidney carelessly climb into my truck not minding that it and we are dry and clean and they are managing to spread their cold mess everywhere. After complaints from Grady and annoyed instructions from me, we settle in for the drive home. Tim, my handsome and fit husband of almost fifteen years, jogs up to my window, leans in for a quick kiss that makes me giggle and push his wet and sweaty self away. Little Grady, Tim’s shadow, opts to ride with Daddy and they run off together toward Tim’s pick-up, sprinting as though they can keep from getting soaked even though Tim is already drenched.

Tim swings around the parking lot as I back out. We decide to grab some fast food before making the thirty minute drive out to our dreamy country home surrounded by rolling corn fields, friendly farmer neighbors, peace and quiet, and only one pizza place that is willing to deliver way out there. I’ll follow Tim as, despite living in this area for over thirteen years, I have no sense of direction. Before he rolls up his window he calls out to me, Follow me. I don’t know where I’m going. Odd. Tim always knows where he’s going. Except today, I guess.

Those are the last words my Timmy will ever speak to me.

CHAPTER 2

The Starting Line

T hat would teach him - I took him up on his compulsive offer. Not to grab coffee, go to dinner, or catch a movie. Nope - not Tim Peterson. He committed big and went straight for the heart. He asked me to run a marathon. And I said yes. I learned later he figured we’d go on a few running dates and eventually abandon that plan to go do normal stuff like catch that movie instead. But it was early in our friendship, and Tim didn’t know at the time how stubborn and persistent I could be (silly boy) so before he knew it we were running 20 miles on a Sunday, quitting on a Monday, feeling guilty on a Thursday, and resuming training just in time to run 21 the next Sunday. And so it went.

At about mile marker 14 of the Twin Cities Marathon, October 2000, I cursed (out loud) our sorry training plan, but after five hours and some twenty-odd minutes we finished that marathon. Tim and I never actually ran together during the race because he couldn’t pace for anything and I had no sprinting speed to keep up with his annoying surges, so it was the biggest relief ever to see Timmy in the finish chute. Even better, he had beaten me, if only by a whole minute-and-a-half. So it was settled we’d never have to do that again.

After the race we shared the agony of stepping down a four inch curb together all the while discussing where we had