“Commit thy works unto the Lord, & thy thoughts shall be established.” — Proverbs 16:3
THE YEAR OF FIRE: 1989–90 AT PINE REST HOSPITAL
A Dramatic Biographical Retelling of the Life of CK (Calvin Kid)
I. GRADUATION AND A NEW BEGINNING
When CK walked across the Calvin College stage in 1989, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with academic honors and a GPA above 3.5, he felt a mixture of relief and expectancy. He had studied hard, thrived academically, and earned a spot on the Dean’s Honor List. But more than that, he had begun to sense the immensity of human suffering beneath the surface of everyday life. Psychology, with all its theories and diagnostic charts, pointed toward something deeper—human longing, fear, fragility, and hope. CK wanted to understand it firsthand. College classrooms had given him concepts. Now he wanted substance. Experience. Something gritty that would challenge him spiritually and emotionally. So when Pine Rest Christian Hospital—an institution steeped in CRC tradition and pastoral influence—offered him a job as a mental health worker on the adolescent unit, CK accepted immediately. It felt like the right next step, a place where theory met reality, where suffering had a face and hope had to be fought for. He had no idea how much that year would change him.
II. RETURNING TO HIS FATHER’S GROUNDS
Pine Rest was more than a hospital to CK; it was part of his spiritual DNA. His father had served there from 1970 to 1984 as chaplain and Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor. CK had grown up visiting the campus, walking its wooded paths, and hearing stories about patients and chaplains who struggled, healed, and sometimes fell apart again. To some of the old-timers, CK wasn’t just a new employee—he was “Jim’s son.” But this wasn’t a burden. It was a quiet respect, a shadow of legacy that lightly followed him into the staff lounge and the nurses’ station. To others, he was simply “the Calvin Kid,” another young, energetic graduate taking his first steps into the unpredictable world of mental health. Pine Rest itself was a strange blend of calm professionalism and spiritual warfare. Patients prayed. Staff prayed. Ministers visited. Scripture hung on walls next to medication charts. This was psychology infused with Christian compassion. A place where broken minds and broken spirits intersected. CK felt ready. At least he thought he did.
III. THE HOUSE ON KALAMAZOO AVENUE
CK moved into a modest, slightly drafty house on Kalamazoo Avenue, a rental shared by three other Calvin alumni. The household was a revolving door of personalities, ambitions, and late-night discussions. Jack Holwerda drove trucks for Steelcase, rising before dawn to haul office furniture across Michigan highways. Dan Dekam was working on his teaching degree, often buried in textbooks and student teaching plans. Kevin Vredeveld—quiet, steady, mysterious—paid his rent on time and rarely explained what he did with his days. Together they formed a makeshift fraternity of post-college wanderers, united by nostalgia, humor, and the shared uncertainty of adulthood. Evenings in the house were a mix of theological debates, jokes about college professors, frozen pizzas, and discussions about the future. They talked about marriage, ministry, missions, careers—every path seemed open, every dream possible. CK liked living there. It gave him a buffer between the heaviness of Pine Rest and the solitude of adulthood. And it gave him a sense of belonging during a year that would test him more deeply than he expected.
IV. THE ADOLESCENT UNIT: THE FRONT LINES
CK’s workplace was the adolescent unit, a controlled environment of alarmed doors, glass observation windows, and hallways that echoed with the constant tension of young people battling unseen demons. Adolescents came in for every reason imaginable: depression, addiction, trauma, suicide attempts, abuse, psychosis. Some were quiet and numb; others were explosive. CK learned quickly that every shift could turn on a dime. His coworkers formed an eclectic crew: Johnny King, the former Calvin basketball player with a calm presence and wise eyes; Belinda Clark, sharp-minded and compassionate; Frank Sisung, always carrying a clipboard and a joke; Dean, who had seen everything and survived most of it; Brent Gates, the athletic jack-of-all-trades; and Bonnie the nurse, whose authority and tenderness kept the unit from collapsing on itself. CK admired them. He learned from them. But nothing prepared him for the first time the unit erupted.
V. THE ESCAPE ATTEMPT
It happened in the middle of a night shift, when exhaustion blunts reactions and silence deceives you into thinking the storm has passed. CK was doing routine checks when he noticed one patient—an angry, frightened adolescent—standing unusually close to the reinforced window. Before CK could speak, the patient swung a portable radio with full force against the glass. The sound exploded through the unit. Again and again the radio slammed into the window, sparks of rage flying with each impact. CK rushed forward, trying to de-escalate, but the boy was wild-eyed, desperate, trapped within his own panic. In the chaos, the radio swung sideways and struck CK square in the temple. His vision flashed white, then red. Pain shot through his skull. He stumbled but didn’t fall. The boy kept swinging, but the window—embedded with wire mesh—held firm. Staff converged. The patient was finally restrained, sobbing, trembling, exhausted from the storm inside him. CK stepped back, touched his head, and felt the swelling. A black eye was already forming. Bonnie the nurse insisted he get checked out. He refused. He returned to work. It wasn’t heroism. It was shock. He had expected challenges, but he hadn’t expected violence. Not on the second month of the job. That night changed him. He understood now that mental illness was not abstract. It was raw, unpredictable, often heartbreaking. And it required courage—not bravado, but the courage to keep showing up.
VI. THE SUICIDE OF “BIFF”
The unit eventually stabilized, but only briefly. A few months later a tragedy struck that rippled through the staff like a silent earthquake. A young man—gentle, soft-spoken, earnest—whom CK privately called “Biff,” completed suicide. CK wasn’t there when it happened. He arrived afterward, walking into a unit heavy with grief, disbelief, and guilt. Staff whispered in corners. Nurses cried quietly. Even the seasoned veterans walked slower, spoke softer, stared longer into empty space. Suicide changes a workplace. It forces impossible questions: Did we miss something? Could we have prevented it? Were we too late? CK didn’t know Biff well, but he knew enough to feel the loss deeply. He remembered the boy’s polite smile, the way he listened intently during group sessions, the flicker of hope in his eyes when he talked about wanting a normal life. Now he was gone. Pine Rest held a debriefing session, but no session could repair the rupture. CK carried Biff’s memory with him. It was the first time death had brushed so close to his professional life. It would not be the last.
VII. WHEN THE HEALER BECOMES THE PATIENT
Just when CK thought the year couldn’t grow stranger, it did. One of his fellow staff members—a mental health worker he’d shared lunches and jokes with—checked himself in as a patient. The news spread through the hospital with a mixture of shock and sorrow. If the staff member had been erratic, depressed, or showing signs of struggle, people might have expected it. But he hadn’t. He had appeared normal. Competent. Even cheerful. Now he was behind locked doors on a different unit, wearing patient scrubs instead of staff ID. It rattled CK more than anything else that year. It taught him that the line between caregiver and sufferer is thin, fragile, often invisible. Anyone can break. Anyone. It humbled him. It frightened him. And it deepened his compassion.
VIII. THE GROWING RESTLESSNESS
As the year progressed, CK began sensing that Pine Rest was only a season, not a destination. He valued the work. He loved the staff. He respected the mission. But something inside him stirred—a desire for something broader, sharper, more outward-reaching. Psychology fascinated him, but the clinical world felt confining. He wanted advocacy, not just analysis. He wanted to influence systems, not just stabilize crises. So when an acceptance letter arrived from Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, CK felt something inside him snap into alignment. A new path. A new challenge. A new way to serve. Law school wasn’t a rejection of psychology. It was an expansion of purpose. But leaving Pine Rest wasn’t easy. He had grown, suffered, laughed, and learned here. He had witnessed the best and worst of human fragility. The hospital had shaped him. It had baptized him in reality. Now it was time to go.
IX. DEPARTURE FOR DETROIT
In late summer of 1990 CK packed his belongings from the house on Kalamazoo Avenue and said goodbye to his roommates. Jack wished him well with a firm handshake. Dan encouraged him to keep serving young people. Kevin gave a quiet nod that carried more weight than words. At Pine Rest he said his farewells to the staff who had become family. Johnny joked that CK would one day be “the lawyer who actually listens.” Bonnie hugged him like a mother. Belinda and Frank promised to stay in touch. Dean, the oldest of the crew, simply said, “You’ll do fine, kid. You’re not done growing yet.” CK left Grand Rapids with gratitude, grief, and anticipation. He felt the chapter closing behind him. Ahead lay Detroit, Wayne State, law school, and a landscape that would test him in entirely new ways. But he was ready—or close enough to ready. And in the quiet of the drive east, he whispered a prayer he would whisper many more times in years to come: “Lord, guide my steps. And if I wander, guide me back.”
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