when October goes

So, I’m sitting here looking out the window at another cloudy Friday with rain forecast for Saturday. The breeze picks up and another shower of leaves falls. The poplar tree in my neighbor’s back yard is a little more golden today than it was yesterday.

Another October.

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smokey roofs
I watch the planes go by

The children running home
Beneath a twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years

I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see October go

I should be over it now I know
It doesn’t matter much
How old I grow
I hate to see October go

For the unenlightened, that’s a Barry Manilow song. Barry’s corny, true, but that song…not so much. I rediscovered it after Daddy died. November, 2004.

The past three weeks have been a reminder of just how fragile life is. I finally got around to watching Defiance. What a great movie. After watching it I did a little research into Jewish tradition, which I really should know more about. I was interested in the blessings: “Blessed art Thou oh God, King of the Universe, who…” When we were watching the movie, hubby asked me why they break the wine glass at the end of the wedding ceremony, and I didn’t know. So when I was reading about the blessings, there was the answer.

To remind the couple that life is fragile.

Two weeks ago there was a shooting just down the road from our house. Two police officers were shot as they tried to apprehend a suspect who was threatening to kill his estranged wife, who was at work at the time. She was the manager of a local fast food restaurant. The suspect was killed. One of the officers also died a week later from his injuries. The community was devastated by the incident.

Life is fragile.

Last week we learned of the sudden death of a friend back home in Virginia. We’d known him for thirty years. He died of a massive heart attack. He was 58 years old.

Life is fragile.

Next week it will be November. It will have been five years since my dad died. Five years since my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, and my father all died, one right after another.

Life is fragile.

In Cielo, little Brenda had heart surgery last week. She is doing well. I don’t know how things are with Rosa, but hope to hear soon. I’m not going to be able to see her in January. I don’t like it, but it’s how things are.

Another breeze. Another shower of leaves.

Another October goes.

 

nobody noticed

Monday afternoon I had to drive into town for a 3:00 appointment. “Driving into town” makes it sound like I live in the middle of nowhere. That was true 20 years ago when we moved to this part of the county, but not so anymore.  Where there used to be no major commercial entities within about 5 miles of here, now there are: McDonald’s, Sheetz, Walmart, BK, Hardee’s, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Lowe’s Foods, etc. And several large housing developments, one of which is next to the Lowe’s Foods shopping center.

As I passed the intersection at Lowe’s,  I noticed several police cars on the opposite side of the highway, adjacent to one of the newer housing developments. There was yellow crime scene tape going up. No accident, evidently. Something else.

I finished my 3:00, and another appointment at 4:30 and was on my way home when hubby called. He was stuck in traffic on the highway just before the Lowe’s Foods. Said it looked like a bad accident. Told him it sounded like the same place I had seen the crime scene tape going up a couple of hours earlier, and I didn’t think it was an accident. As he got closer to the scene he noticed an ambulance, and a “major crime scene investigation” unit.

He said, “I think they may have found a body.”

They did. Or, a jogger did.

The story is: the jogger found the body Monday afternoon. It was “badly decomposed”; it’s been really hot here for the past several days. No other details were available.

Yesterday I heard this: the deceased person was 34, a landscaper. He had been working on a job last Friday, I guess, and was walking home. Decided to take a short cut through the housing development there next to Lowe’s Foods, and had been stung by a bee. There was no epi-pen to be found. Evidently he died from anaphalactic shock from the bee sting.

So, from Friday until Monday, no one reported him missing, wondered where he was or if he was OK? Maybe they did and the media just didn’t report that.

I hope so.

I hope somebody noticed, before the jogger did.

 

More than a number

http://www.legacy.com/roanoke/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=124289351

http://www.legacy.com/washingtonpost/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=124286857

See those 2 web addresses up there? If you look at them closely, you’ll notice that they are from two different newspapers: The Washington Post and the Roanoke (VA) Times.

Look closer and you’ll see this:

Lifestory&PersonID=124289351 / Lifestory&PersonID= 124286857

I remember enough from my programming days to recognize that PersonID is a key to a record in some database somewhere. In this case, it’s a database of death notices, and those both reference death notices for Eric. Two different PersonID numbers….suggests redundancy, duplicate data stored in multiple data sets, maybe?

But look even closer. See anything else??

Me neither.

Where are the friends and family who are hurting now because he’s no longer with them? Where is the list of accomplishments he gathered in his short time here? What were the things he loved to do, where did he go when he needed to get away somewhere and just, BE? What were his favorite foods? Was he a cat person, a dog person, or maybe a horse person? Who was this person? Who IS this person?

Everyone we come into contact with, every day, is so much more than a Lifestory&PersonID.

I’m going to try harder to remember that. To find out these things about the people I love, the people I’ve known for my whole life, and the people I’m just now getting to now. And I hope they would do the same for me.

Because we are all more than a number, more than a PersonID.

And when I leave this earth, I would like to know that my life made a difference. That people will remember me for who I was, what I did, and not just that I was a PersonID.

If you had to sum up your entire life into one sentence, what would it be?

 

Eric

A friend of ours from high school died last Saturday. He was an architect in Washington DC, a member of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society. He and hubby had been friends since middle school, and I had a terrible crush on him in the 8th grade because he looked a lot like a boyfriend I left behind (well, actually he dumped me) when we moved to Salem.

We knew Eric had health problems. He’d had a stroke a few years back. Hubby and I both know how devastating a stroke can be; both of our fathers died from stroke complications. But, a stroke in one’s 40’s? Not fair, not fair, NOT FAIR.

Here’s to a life well-lived, although too short.

Capitol Hill Restoration Society: At-Large Member: Eric Snellings

As a native Washingtonian, Eric Snellings has a deep sense of belonging and commitment to the city and Capitol Hill. He has been a resident homeowner in the Historic District since 1988, and he and his wife have raised their teenaged children here with the support and resources of the Hill community. An architect by profession, Eric has focused on commercial work and has worked on several projects involving historic buildings and districts. He joined CHRS in 1989 and has been an active member of the Historic Preservation Committee for over three years. He is a past member of the North Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association and current member of the Stanton Park Neighborhood Association. Eric has served as the Secretary for the past year and intends to increase his focus on the quality of life issues for families raising children in the city and particularly on the Hill.

 

’til death did they part

Way back in the 80’s when I first moved here, before Borders or Barnes and Noble ever sprang from the fertile ground surrounding the mall, there was a bookstore, Hinkle’s. It was a family business with a store downtown and another one at a strip mall just west of downtown. They sold books, of course, and office supplies, and gifts, cards, stationary etc. They did custom printing. When I was getting used to living and working here in the ‘city’, I used to walk to the bookstore during my lunch hour and browse. Over the years as the ‘burbs took over and businesses started leaving downtown, the downtown Hinkle’s closed. Not too many years later the strip mall store closed as well.

A Borders opened in the strip mall. The building downtown has been torn down and replaced with a shiny new office building, now in search of tenants. I sort of forgot about Hinkle’s until I was looking for a graduation gift for someone, I don’t even remember who, and I went to the strip mall with the intention of going to Hinkle’s, only to find that the store was gone. A couple of years ago a grandson in the family died tragically. He was friends with some of our students at church, and they took his death hard.

More time passed, until a couple of weeks ago when……

My neighbor went on a trip and I picked up her mail and newspapers while she was away. I was scanning the paper one morning and noticed an obituary for an elderly lady named Hinkle. She was in her 80’s and had lived a very full life. She was described as “not having a mean bone in her body, but she did have a disdain for crumbs.” All in all, a very sweet tribute to a life well-lived.

Then I noticed another obituary, for an elderly gentleman named Hinkle, printed immediately after hers. So I read it and found this:

On Aug. 8, 1941, he married Mildred, and never spent another day without her, maintaining his unwavering devotion to Mildred for 67 years; Mildred also passed on Sept. 16, giving new meaning to “‘ till death do us part.”

So I went back and read the first obituary more closely. Yes, it was Mildred. The obit said that she had been “persistently courted by a young office supplies salesman”. Then, this:

On August 8, 1941, Mildred married Pete, and the two spent every day for the next 67 years together as devoted husband and wife. Pete also passed on Sept. 16, giving new meaning to “‘ till death do us part.”

She had passed away early in the morning at a retirement community. He died later that day, at Hospice.

And I cried for these people I didn’t even know. Not tears of sadness, but what? Their story touched my heart in a deeply introspective way that I was not prepared for. I was crying out of respect for a love story I didn’t really know. There was sadness in that my parents had to be separated by death way too early, and honor in knowing that my parents had also lived a love story, ending in “til death did they part.”

This is what marriage is supposed to be. I pray that hubby and I will be so fortunate.

 

Little Girl, Lost

The little girl I used to be is lost in my basement.

I went down there yesterday looking for a book. I found these pieces of that little girl, scattered in cardboard boxes, plastic storage boxes, and a trunk:

a naked, dirty baby doll.

a plastic circus elephant coin bank; you put the penny in his trunk, pull his tail, and he throws the penny into his back.

her first pair of prescription eyeglasses.

a broken souvenir of the Empire State Building, given to her by her first “boyfriend”; he was 5, she was 4. His mother was her babysitter. He went to New York on a vacation and brought her back the souvenir.

clothes that she made for herself when she was 10 or 11: a skirt, a blouse, shorts, a dress.

one of her favorite sweatshirts: there are two sets of footprints facing each other. One set has 6 toes on each foot. The other set says, “I like you. You’re different!”

her only ballet costume and black ballet shoes.

a pocketbook.

a list of students from her fourth grade class: Chris F, Robby R, Regina H, Tammy M. Contrary Goddess is on that list too.

“Teaching Little Fingers to Play”, “My Recital Book”, “My First Hymn Book”: all circa 1965.

school books: Virginia History and Geography, Spelling Correctly, Journey Through the New World.

a stuffed black bear, souvenir from her trip to the Smokey Mountains when she was 9.

Evening in Paris, purchased at the Ben Franklin on Front Street.

Avon bottles in cartoon character shapes, that used to contain shampoo.

vinyl records: 45s, LPs of Donny Osmond, The Jackson 5.

a matching scarf, hat and mitten set, green and gold striped.

Monopoly.

a single blue mitten that she knit herself.

her girl scout handbook.

a heart-shaped pink box that began its life as a Valentine candy container. Now it holds broken costume jewelry, an old wallet, string, various other junky broken things. I think her daddy gave her the candy, but I’m not sure.

Who is this girl, and why is she in pieces in my basement?  

I cried for her. Hard. For hours.

And I can’t seem to stop.

 

The Part Where (I)We Let Go: Chapter 2

The next morning husband and I awoke to find mama already gone back to the hospital. We followed a little while later. It was now Thursday, November 4. Daddy had gone into a coma overnight. He would rest for a while, then become agitated. At some point during the day a nice lady with a small harp came through the ICU, asking to play for each patient. She played for a little while and daddy seemed to relax a little. But after about 45 minutes he became restless and we asked her to leave. I don’t remember much else about that day, other than watching daddy, looking out the hospital window, and talking with the people who came to visit. My husband left the hospital for a while. He’d just gone through this with his mother the past May, and his father in June. In the evening, around 8:00 I think, we were all in the family waiting room taking a break when daddy’s doctor came and asked to see mama. She went with him and was gone maybe 10 minutes. When she came back into the waiting room, she fell onto the floor, in tears. They had taken a CT scan earlier and it showed massive bleeding into the brain. The doctor gave her 30 minutes to decide if she wanted to transfer daddy to another hospital for aggressive surgery, or let it be. Since daddy already had an implant defibrillator she didn’t see putting him through anything else. Husband and I agreed. She relayed our decision back to the doctor, and we went back to his bed.

Mama and daddy’s best friends from their church were there, and we spent about an hour talking with them, talking to daddy, reading from Psalms. And they started discussing plans for his memorial service. It was surreal, but not frightening. At one point daddy’s friend J. mentioned a gospel quartet piece that daddy had really liked. J. couldn’t remember the name of it, but he started singing it. Amazingly enough, it was something that I sang w/ our praise team at our church. I couldn’t believe it! We decided right then to ask the choir to sing this at the memorial service, and I asked to sing with them. The name of it is “He Never Failed Me Yet”.

On Friday, my husband came home to pick up the kids and bring them to Virginia to wait w/ us. I had a CD that I’d put in my mom’s car when I drove it home the night before. She never left the hospital after that first night, except to go for food, I think. Anyway, the CD is called “Revival in Belfast”, and it’s very popular in contemporary Christian music. She went out for lunch or something and my CD was playing in her car. She’d never heard it before, and I think the first thing she heard was “Days of Elijah”, a very uplifting song. There’s another, “When It’s All Been Said and Done”, that speaks directly to how we should live as Christians. She brought the CD into daddy’s room and we listened to it a lot over the next couple of days.

Through Friday and Saturday we talked to daddy, told him it was ok to go, that we would be ok. For some reason that I can’t remember, we weren’t allowed to turn the defib unit off. But we were allowed to slow it down to the max. He held on though. Saturday night mama sent us home to get some rest. She called us around 7:00 the next morning. He was gone, having died just at sunrise on Sunday November 7, 2004. She’d played music for him all night, sitting up w/ her best friend. The last thing she played, the music he heard here when he left, was “Days of Elijah”. She said it was like a celebration. Husband and I went to the hospital. The nurses brought us breakfast and let us sit with daddy as long as we wanted. We left around 8:30. My kids didn’t see daddy in the hospital, a decision that we made together. They had already seen their other grandparents in hospitals, nursing homes, and caskets. All within the past 6 months. Enough.

 That Sunday was special in my parents’ church, because they were beginning the process of raising funds to build a new church, having outgrown their space. Daddy had made a wooden box that had been used before for taking special offerrings. He had refurbished it, fancied it up, for this particular Sunday. We think he waited around just long enough to make sure they used it.

The letting go continued.

 

The Part Where (I)We Let Go: Chapter 1

I have a new favorite band, HEM. I must be living in a cave or a barn or something, because I’m finding music that I love, that everyone else already knows about. If this title isn’t a familiar title to you, and you watch television, you’ll recognize it as music from a Liberty Mutual Insurance commercial. Whatever.

The past few weeks have been so, what, frustrating? Boring? I went into knee surgery on September 28, thinking I was walking out the door. But I came out on crutches, and am still on crutches, and will be through the rest of the year, most likely. My fingers, toes and eyeballs are crossed in hope that, after this Thursday, I can “officially” bear weight on my right leg, which means I can drive. Unofficially, I’ve been walking around my house most of the time and only doing the crutch thing when I go out, which hasn’t been that much. Did manage to hit a Switchfoot / Reliant K concert last Friday that was great.

This particular week, the first week of November, is not one of my favorites. On November 3, 2004, my daddy had a stroke. It was Wednesday, the day after the elections. He and mama were at the bowling alley, doing their league thing. They had just finished the first game. I don’t know what he bowled, but I think it was something in the low 200’s. He was always a good bowler. And if you think bowling isn’t a sport, give it a try. Especially if you have knee or back issues. You’ll find out. Anyway, daddy fell or something and someone recognized what was happening to him and called EMT. The got him to the hospital very quickly. Luckily they were at the bowling alley and not at home when this happened, because the bowling alley was about 10 miles closer to the hospital than home was. Last April during the Va Tech tragedy the media was set up at this same hospital. Every time I saw a report from Blacksburg, and saw the entrance to that hospital, my mind went back to November 3, 2004.

I think I mentioned earlier somewhere, that day at work was just nasty. I was assigned to two projects: one in system test, the other in heavy development. There were meetings throughout the day on the two projects. My code in system test was working just fine, thank you very much. But some of the other programmers were having trouble, and I kept receiving error reports to debug that were from other programmers’ code. One other programmer in particular. I was new to this system and development environment; she was a veteran; I was supposed to fix her errors, because she had so many other errors in so many other facets of the project that she didn’t have time to get to them all. Did I mention that error reports were to be cleared in 24 hours? So, in meetings on the project in system test, I was reporting on her errors and not on test results from my own code, because we hadn’t gotten to my code yet because hers kept crapping out. Somehow, I was responsible for that.

On to the development project meetings: where are you on task 23? Not there yet, working on system test errors. What about task 24? Not there yet, because I haven’t gotten to task 23 yet, because I’m working on system test errors. Did I mention that those errors weren’t mine?? I went through two of these meetings, the second one ended about 2:00 in the afternoon. My boss followed me back to my cubicle with a view. Man, did I have a view, the only thing that made going to work tolerable there towards the end. On a clear day I could look out of my 17th floor window, due north, and see Pilot Mountain, and farther in the distance, the Blue Ridge. Awesome. Anyway, boss follows me, I sit down, he stands at the window and tells me I have a problem. I ask him what problem is that? (I know of several, but which one is he wanting to discuss?) My problem, says boss, is that my priorities are not in order. I ask him about that, because I”m genuinely curious. His answer: my focus should be on development, which was something I really liked about what I did. I told him, honestly, that I would prefer that myself, but as long as he assigned me other programmers’ errors to correct, each having a 24-hour turn-around, I had to focus on those first. He told me no I wasn’t. I got really confused. So he told me that I had to figure out some way to do both simultaneously such that, all errors were corrected and development would move forward. I told him I had a headache, probably migraine, coming on and that I was going home. I packed up my laptop and my files and headed home around 2:30.

At 3:00 I walked in my front door at home. The phone was ringing. My daughter had just gotten home from school. She was reading the caller ID and asking me if she should answer the phone. I told her it was OK, so she picked up. I listened to her talking very calmly with someone about school, about her new horse. I dropped the laptop, files, coat, etc. as she said “Here’s my mom” and handed the phone to me. Silence on the other end. The my mom’s voice, screaming. “Daddy, stroke, bad, you and husband come now, don’t bring kids, hurry please.” I don’t remember what I did next. I must have called my hubby because he was there almost instantly. I think I told the kids to pack some stuff for spending the night w/ friends. I don’t remember what I told them, probably that Papa was sick, but not to worry. I called a couple of friends to come pick up the kids. I remember sending both kids off w/ their friends’ parents. I don’t remember packing anything for myself. We hit the road at 6:00 PM and walked into the hospital at 8:30. Found ICU and my mom. Daddy was awake, recognized hubby and me, but he couln’t say anything because of the ventilator. He would hold my hand and smile at me, and then push me away. He did that more than once. My mom interpreted; she’d seen that behavior from him before when he’d been really sick. She said it meant “I’m fine, you take care of you and husband and kids.” I think he did that a couple of times. I think we told him the kids were w/ their friends, and I think he indicated that was a good thing. My mom told him that we were going to stay until he went to sleep, and then go get some rest to be there the next day. He closed his eyes for a little bit, then sort-of peeked out of one of them to see if we had really left, like he was pretending to be asleep just to get us to go home. So we left the hospital and went to mama’s.

And the letting go began.