Calvin mourns the death of Dykstra
The Calvin College community mourns the death of junior Stephanie Dykstra. Stephanie lived in Grand Rapids and attended Grand Rapids Christian prior to moving to California for her senior year of high school, when her father accepted a post as the minister at a Christian Reformed Church in Walnut Creek.
A social sciences major Stephanie lived for two years in the Bolt-Heyns-Timmer residence hall before moving off campus for her junior year.
Stephanie was on campus on Friday, December 17, preparing to take an exam, when she collapsed (near Calvin's Chapel). Calvin Campus Safety officers responded to an on-campus phone call for help and they in turn called 911. This took place shortly after 10 a.m. Stephanie was, at the time, conscious, but having difficulties breathing. She was brought by emergency vehicle to Spectrum Health Downtown where she was pronounced dead on arrival, shortly before noon.
On Saturday, December 18 the medical examiner's office concluded that Stephanie had died from a pulmonary embolus, or blood clot, which blocked the artery to her lungs.
Calvin College chaplain Dale Cooper was at the hospital where he and Stephanie's friends waited and prayed while emergency room doctors did their best to save her life.
"There were some deeply important moments following her death," Cooper told a Grand Rapids Press reporter. He noted how those at the hospital came together in a circle to read Psalm 46.
Cooper will be Calvin's representative at Stephanie's funeral service, to be held on Wednesday, December 22, 1999 in California, and will participate, at the family's request, in that service.
Calvin plans to hold a memorial service for Stephanie in January (when classes resume) and Cooper will be involved in that service as well. Cooper often teaches a Calvin class on a document called The Heidelberg Catechism. It includes 129 questions and answers. The first such Q&A is this:
Q. "What is your only comfort in life and in death?"
A. "That I am not my own, but belong -- body and soul, in life and in death -- to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ."
Comfort for the Calvin community comes from knowing that Stephanie Dykstra knew the truth of Christ's promises. We mourn her death. And our thoughts and prayers are with Stephanie's family -- father Jerry, mother Linda, brother Adam (a Calvin freshman) and sisters Suzanne (of West Covina, California) and Shelley (who lives in Grand Rapids).
NOTE: Stephanie's family has asked that memorial contributions be made to the Calvin College Service Learning Center, an organization with which Stephanie was very active as an inner-city tutor.
