Nathan, the Engineer
June 12, 2021 — Laura House
At an early age, we discovered that engineering was in his blood. When Nathan was three years old, we took our children to a local park, and while Ryan and Megan jumped onto the merry-go-round to enjoy the ride, Nathan squatted down to look underneath, enthralled, and wondering what made it work.
He loved his Little Tykes workbench as a toddler and enjoyed building things as a child, and by the time he was in fourth grade, his interests brought new frontiers. If anyone in the family had a broken electronic device like a transistor radio, cassette tape player, or anything that could be taken apart, Nathan claimed them and meticulously dissected them. Sometimes he’d also dismantle perfectly good items to figure out what made them run. As I recall, we only really had one casualty, the VCR, which never was quite the same after reassembly.
He experimented with contraption-making too, like the water bomb on the door jam that was meant for a sibling but ended up on me. And then there was the time he rigged up batteries on his bedroom door knob to give a jolt to any perpetrator.
By the time he was a teen he was enamored with computers. What started with the simple coding of a game on our Dell desktop, ended up as a passion that ultimately led him to accomplish a degree in electrical engineering. As a teen, he’d reserve a mountain of programming books from the library and devour them, teaching himself several computer languages. It became a joke between the two of us since he’d reserve them online and I’d pick them up on my way home from town. “Do I need a wheelbarrow again this time?”
At fifteen, we discovered a local First Robotics team, Team 1501, led by a group of dedicated engineers who mentored teens like Nathan, giving volumes of their time, patiently teaching and encouraging the next generation of engineers. During his junior year of high school, he literally logged thirty to forty hours each week during build season. As a programmer and driver for the team, he delighted in participating in the competitions, and the relationships with the 1501 mentors and team always remained special to him.
The summer after graduating from high school, he undertook a project that I now understand was quite a feat. He built his own CNC machine from scratch. I’m so thankful that we still have that today. Nathan definitely had the “engineering mind,” and that was exhibited in so many aspects of his personality.
A few years ago, I asked my family to share a word that described Nathan and his personality, and we wrote them all on a plate that sits in my kitchen. Thoughtful, creative, loving, kind, loyal, tender-hearted, reliable, resourceful, compassionate, intelligent, honest, inspiring, funny, entrepreneurial.
What words would you use to describe the loved one you are missing? Somehow it’s cathartic to write them down.
I’ve been thinking today about the words that might describe me right now and I am grateful that the list is different than it was at the beginning of this journey. Although grieving and sad are still on my list, there are so many others — grateful, thankful, hopeful, joyful, trusting Jesus, and longing for Heaven. Which side of the aisle are you on today? Regardless of where you sit, I assure you that Jesus is there with you. Cry out to Him when you are grieving and troubled and you’ll find comfort that surpasses what you’ve ever known before.
Psalm 119:76 “May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant.”
Psalm 40:1-3 “I waited patiently for the LORD; And He reached down to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud; And He set my feet on a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.”
