Remembering Ross

I am giving thanks for the life of Ross Nierman (Oct. 10, 1941 – July 17, 2025) and the new life that is most certainly his in Christ. I am remembering as well his wife Emmalou. Ross and Emmalou were charter members of Coolwater Christian Church (2002 – 2023), the congregation Jennie and I, in the company of a host of prayer partners and a bounty of hardy souls, planted in Scottsdale, Arizona over twenty years ago.

Linda Ellis wrote a poem in 1996 titled “The Dash” that underscores the value of the dash that is between the beginning and culmination of a person’s (and church’s) life. It begins:           

Between the date when we arrive
and the date we go away,
there exists a horizontal line that captures every single day.

 And ends with:

For how you spend this life will someday be defined by everything that is remembered in the dash you leave behind.

Both Ross and the church he was instrumental in building have now completed their lives and left a dash behind. I knew both well and can testify to the fullness of their lives. The fullness of Coolwater’s life was enriched by Ross’s life.

Ross graduated from high school the year I was born and graduated from Purdue University with degrees including Civil Engineering - Construction Technology. His  expertise in construction fitted him for his role as our congregation’s liaison with Redden Construction, the General Contractor who built Coolwater’s building. Ross and Emmalou lived an hour south of our site. There is no telling the miles, phone calls, conferences and meetings Ross poured into the project.  

What many do not know is that the bricks and mortar that was Coolwater’s building and the flesh and blood that was its people were raised up in good measure from Ross and Emmalou’s grief; the desert dirt at the corner of 56th and Dynamite was watered by their tears. In 2005, three years into the planting of Coolwater, their 29-year-old daughter Sherri, who was engaged to be married, was killed when a drunk driver crashed into her car. When I drove down to be with Ross and Emmalou, Emmalou showed me the pattern for Sherri’s wedding dress laid out on a table. Several pieces had been cut awaiting being sewn together. The sight of that dress in pieces, never to be completed, and the silence that filled the room that day are etched in my memory.

Out of that inexplicable tragedy and unspeakable grief, one of Coolwater’s early ministries was born. Mindful of the phrase “Find a need and fill it, find a hurt and heal it” as a strategy for our new church’s outreach (attributed to Robert Schuller as well as Phoenix’s Tommy Barnett), I proposed to Ross and Emmalou that we commence a grief group. They assented. If their grief work could salve others’ pain, they were in. So it was that with them as founding participants and the blessing of a counselor from Hospice, we commenced a grief group that met weekly in the community room of the local public library. Dozens of others were upheld through their grief by Ross and Emmalou’s sharing theirs.

During those months, Ross found another constructive outlet for his bereavement, emphasis on the word “constructive.” He asked permission to build a shelter on our as-yet-undeveloped six acres of desert. We were meeting on the land for cookouts, fireside chats, and prayer walks, had our first fundraiser – a rummage sale, a come one, come all outdoor Christmas pageant called Journey to Bethlehem and our Easter sunrise service. Ross sketched plans for a 10’ x 10’ shelter: four posts covered by a slanted roof – a place of refuge from the desert sun. Years later when we designed our meditation trail, Ross’ shelter served as a way station on the route, our wilderness-wandering tabernacle, a labor of love hammered together in solitude out of a grieving father’s sweat and tears.  

Ross also helped me construct Coolwater’s first Constitution & Bylaws. More interested in ministry, mission, and relational evangelism (sharing the Coolwater vision with others) than the mechanics of administration, I welcomed Ross’ organizational savvy. He built our founding documents and then led by example – served as our first Moderator.

A few years later, he put on his hardhat (literally), rolled up his sleeves (literally), and supervised the building of our church. On groundbreaking Sunday, he provided plastic hardhats with the Coolwater logo for all of us and gold-bladed shovels with which to turn over the first spades of dirt. I cherish the picture I have of us standing together.

We had our first worship service in the building six years after Sherri died. Ross and Emmalou were there and they were there a dozen years later when Coolwater had its final worship service. Steadfast. Rock solid. Backbones of the church.   

Another charter member, Diane Foley, sent Jenie and me the bulletin from Ross’ memorial service. The Scriptures read were spot on for the man I knew:         

 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

     He gives power to the faint,
    and strengthens the powerless.
 Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
    they shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40)

We also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  (Romans 5)

Rabbi Harold Schulweis tells a story about violin virtuoso Yitzhak Perlman. On one occasion, one of Perlman’s violin strings broke. Everyone watched to see what he would do. Perlman didn’t leave the stage. Instead, he signaled the maestro and the orchestra began. He then recomposed his solo in his head, tuned his three remaining strings higher or lower as needed, and proceeded to play his piece with power and grace. When asked later about how he handled the broken string, he answered, “It is my task to make music with what remains.”   

Grief is not about a broken string, but a broken heart. How does one make music –go on with life – with what remains? At first, it may not seem possible or even desirable to go on with life. Ross and Emmalou did. They raised up a church out of their grief. Helen Keller, no stranger to making music with three strings, said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” By building a grief group, a tabernacle in the desert, a church’s founding documents, and a sanctuary, they overcame. In doing so, they bore untold numbers of others on their faith’s broad shoulders, me included.

When we huddled at their home the morning after Sherri’s death, Ross said to me, “Sherri didn’t have a math bone in her body. She was all arts – song and dance and stage and theater. But math: Forget it! I don’t think she ever learned her multiplication tables.”

I didn’t know where Ross was going with this, but I listened as he continued. 

“I’ll never forget the time she called me all worked up about her car. What is it?,” I asked.

“Daddy, it has 99,979 miles on it.” 

“Yes?” 

“Well, what am I gonna do?” 

“What are you gonna do about what?” 

“What am I gonna do when it gets to 99,999?” 

“What do you mean what are you going to do?” 

“Well, it’ll just stop, won’t it? That’ll be the end, won’t it?”   

At that point, Ross reassured his daughter by saying, “It will keep on going. Trust me.” 

Thank you, Ross, for reminding me of something very important – that it will keep going. Life, that is. Life will keep on going for those we love who die and for those of us who remain. Life will keep going. Death and grief, tragedy and suffering, a topsy-turvy world – all can leave us wondering if life really will keep going.

You showed me it does. And will. And I thank you.