Rev. Dennis J DeWitt was born and raised in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. His college years were split between Muskegon Community College and Hope College in Holland Michigan. After ten years of teaching Spanish in the West Ottawa School District in Holland, he enrolled at the University of Michigan and obtained a Masters Degree in School Social Work. With this he returned to West Ottawa, for the next two decades. Many of his students were challenged with special needs. The social work job included coaching parents, helping them in setting boundaries, improving their parenting skills and dealing with loss. In 1992, Dennis attended the first Mens Conference at the Crystal Cathedral, where he heard a call to ministry. He retired from the public-school system, and enrolled at Western Theological Seminary, where, in 1996, he was awarded a Masters Degree in Religious Education. The Rev. Dr. Dan Miller of the Nondenominational Community Church of Douglas (Michigan) called him to interview as part-time Associate Pastor. Dennis began a program in the Reformed Church in America called The Approved Alternate Route, and was ordained as a Minister in the Reformed Church in America in 2003. At the time of his ordination, he was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, which continues to be controlled at this point with medications. Grief counseling services became one of his most frequently provided ministry. His personal journey began when his wife, Jan, died in 1970 of breast cancer. He was immediately thrust into the role of being a single parent with four children, ages seven, five, three and eight months. Who counsels the counselor? He sought help from friends and two clergymen. A new marriage brought three more children into the flock. This newly blended family then had seven children under age eight. Now, years later, the family numbers 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. With them have come the joys and sorrows of having many pets dogs, to be exact. This book was generated, in part, from the experience of losing our dog, Muffy, which brought about my realization that in this process, one revisits previous losses. As with all people, the longer one lives, the more those losses accumulate. The stories contained in this book are for the most part real and true and represent many interviews.
