I think one of the hardest things about grieving is when it comes time to get back to normal. For one thing, when someone passes away normal goes out the window. You have to find a new normal. Then too, I don’t think our American culture allows us enough time to deal with death. Given the permanence of the separation, we simply need more time to reflect.
PAULINE ALWAYS LIKED SNOW. As I indicated last time I wrote we were expecting snow and while we didn’t get the record snowfall Washington, DC, and other places got, we did have plenty of the white stuff here. Saturday (the 30th) was probably the worst day for getting around. Vicki had decided she wanted to record herself singing a couple of hymns for the funeral service (she didn’t think she had it in her to sing them live) so we went to church and taped My Jesus I Love Thee and It Is Well With My Soul. Michael Johnson met us at church to discuss music and play piano for Vicki. As we were recording Michael suggested Vicki do It Is Well a cappella. She did and it was beautiful. Pauline would have loved it.
While we were doing this Will took all the kids sledding in Cross Plains. They and several other families from church met there to enjoy the hill at the City Hall. Even Ethan was there taking a few runs down the slope.
ABOUT THE FUNERAL SERVICES. The funeral arrangements went off as planned. Both services were well attended and Bro. Bill delivered a separate eulogy for each service. He did a great job both times. After the graveside service we drove around to some of the places Pauline lived in Camden and then went to visit Aunt Sue.
THE REAL TREASURE. Will, Darice, and the kids stayed here until last Wednesday (the 3rd). Vicki, Will, and Darice spent Tuesday and early Wednesday going through Pauline’s papers and things so we can begin the process of settling her estate. It was during this time we discovered Pauline’s jewelry box was missing. Someone had broken in her house a few weeks ago (something I decided not to report here at the time). The thief must have only been interested in a quick job as nothing else in the house had been touched, however, he did take the precaution of cutting the phone line in case of an alarm system. All is to say that while we hate to lose the things in the jewelry box the real treasure we found was a box FULL of love letters between Pauline and Jessie.
AN ACTS 2 CHURCH. While the funerals were hard we definitely felt loved and supported. Our schools and churches get a little gun shy here in Tennessee when it comes to snow and our services were cancelled Sunday morning (the 31st), however, the funeral went on and there was a crew of men who cleared about half the parking lot for us. One Sunday school class organized a meal to feed us after the funeral (and if we’d known how much food they were bringing we would have invited all those attending the funeral to eat with us). Still others made sure the ladies in Pauline’s Sunday school class could get to church in spite of the snow.
ETHAN UPDATE. A couple of weeks ago I reported that Ethan would be having an MRI to see how well all the chemo and radiation was treating his cancer. I am sad to report that some growth was found on Ethan’s spinal cord. He is now receiving oral chemo. Please continue to pray for Ethan.
BACK TO LIFE. With all the snow it’s been sort of hard to get back into our normal routine again. The kids had three snow days last week and two more this week. We’ve actually used up all our stockpiled days that were set aside as of today. Ben got up Monday and said, “I wish the weekends were five days and the school days were only two days." I couldn’t agree more.
Later that morning Nate was taking his time getting ready. When I tried to make him hurry up he asked, ”Are we late-late or just late?“ He is his mother’s child.
What made Vicki and I crack up though happened as The Who was performing during the Super Bowl halftime show. When their performance was over (and you have to picture all of us singing along on Who Are You) Nate said, ”That was some of the best music I ever heard!“
You can complain all you want to about the old geezers playing the halftime show, but at least with Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend there was very little chance of a ”wardrobe malfunction.“ Rock on there, buddy.
Joe
