Death, and Messages
Last Thursday — I think it was last Thursday — there were two familiar names in the obituary section. I don’t believe that’s ever happened to me before. Once in awhile I’ll see a name I recognize, but there have never been two. One was a man who was in the local civic chorale, who narrated a few of our band concerts some years ago. The other was a Realtor® I knew, from back when I was selling real estate.
The civic chorale fellow’s funeral was Saturday morning. I went, and was surprised there weren’t more people there. He was a retired AF pilot, flew jets in the Korean War. Was involved for many years in the cultural community and in his church. The place should have been packed. Maybe because it was a morning service, maybe because it was only mentioned once in the paper… I don’t know. It was a nice service, though. His nephew is a minister from somewhere up north, and he talked for a bit. His son got up and gave a very nice eulogy.
In the afternoon I went to the visitation for the Realtor® fellow. I don’t know when the service is/was scheduled, maybe they’re not having one. And I almost didn’t go — but I wanted to tell his wife how sorry I was.
I have to tell you, I was shocked when I saw his name and picture in the obituary section. He was only a few years older than me. What I didn’t know, because I’ve been out of the loop of what’s going on in the Realtor® community for so long, was that he had cancer.
His wife had cancer, too. She was very sick, for a long time. She seems to be doing very well, though, at least physically. She looked good.
What I wanted to tell you, though, and the reason for this post, was what she shared with us while I was there. I’ll give you the details I have, which she told us, but I can’t explain any of it as she didn’t.
He was in surgery to stop some bleeding, and they were moving him to the ICU. She was in the hallway when they moved him on his gurney past her. At that point she’d been told that there was nothing to be done, he was going to be gone within hours. She bent down to talk to him, even though he wasn’t conscious, and she told him she needed him to tell her what he wanted her to do.
She said immediately she felt his hands on her face. He didn’t move, he couldn’t, he was unconscious. And yet she said she clearly felt his hands on her face. She said that years ago when she was going through chemo, some nights he’d fall asleep in the recliner. When she went to bed she’d lean over to kiss him goodnight and he’d wake up and put his hands on her cheeks and wiggle them up and down. She said it was exactly like that. And then she felt what seemed to be an electric shock, she said it was like a lightning bolt, in her chest. And she smelled him. Said it felt like he’d gone right through her.
There was a chaplain standing behind her, with her hand on her back. She didn’t know the woman was there until they both yelled out, “Oh my God” at the same time. The chaplain then said, “Did you feel that?”
They both felt the same thing at the same time. Like a lightning bolt passing through.
He died some hours later. She said she sat next to his bed, holding his hand and talking to him, telling him it was okay to go, that she’d be okay. She said his heart rate was about 20 or 25, until she’d touch his face and it would shoot up to 100. She’d take her hand off his face and it would fall to 25 or so again. Finally she said she leaned over and said into his ear, clearly, that he could go, she would miss him but she’d be okay. And while she was saying that, his heart stopped. She said his lips were moving, and he seemed to be saying, “Love.”
What happened next happened the next night, or maybe two nights later. Their son, who had tried to get here in time to say goodbye to his father but didn’t make it, was upstairs in their house asleep. She was up pulling weeds in the yard. In the middle of the night. She wasn’t able to sleep. Hadn’t slept in 3 days. So, very early in the morning the son came lunging downstairs, tears streaming down his face. He had a message for her from his father.
He dreamed he was in some random living room. His father was there, sitting on a couch. He looked the way he did before he got sick. He said to his son, “You know your mother believes this crap….” and I just guffawed. I could picture him saying it. And then he went on. “Tell her I went to the park.” This meant something to her. She said the park was where they began their life together. I don’t know if that means they met there, or were married there, but it was significant. “Tell her I went to the park, and it’s wonderful.” He also said visiting was allowed, but “there are rules.”
His wife said if there was any shred of doubt left in her about the afterlife, it’s gone. She knows he’s okay, where he is is wonderful, and she will see him again. She said she’s crying because she’s selfish, because she doesn’t want him to be gone, she misses him. But they’ll be together again one day.
And I just wanted to share that with you. Because it’s awesome.
You Never Know Why People Act the Way They Do
So, Friday afternoon I was doing the commissary shopping thing. Near the middle of the month it’s usually not too crowded, but ever since the re-set some years ago, when they moved the aisles closer together so they could add one and made the passageways between too narrow to allow anyone to browse without blocking traffic, it’s still no fun navigating.
I got into the checkout line behind an elderly couple. The man was wearing a ball cap with some sort of unit emblem on it. I think it was Army, but I was so appalled by what was going on between them I couldn’t on pain of death tell you what it said.
They each had a cart. My attention was caught initially when she pulled a carton of orange juice out of his cart and placed it on the display next to the line. Hopefully a store employee saw it and took it back to the refrigeration unit it came from before it got too warm to salvage. I’m assuming they were a married couple, but it’s possible they weren’t.
What had me so transfixed was the way the woman was treating the man. Cruel doesn’t even begin to describe it. Apparently his cart was for his stuff, and her cart was for her stuff. But she was berating him because he had put things in his cart for him and didn’t get anything for her. She’d walk up from her cart (she was behind him in line), get in his face and just chew him out. She didn’t yell but I could hear some of what she was saying. What was more obvious was her expression.
She hates him. Her expression was filled with vitriol and contempt and hate. His expression I couldn’t decipher; he kept his face neutral, was wearing tinted glasses and didn’t look up much. Certainly he never made eye contact with her. He just took the abuse, which went on for the entire time I stood behind them, several minutes.
She chewed him out for not putting what she wanted in his cart. She emptied out his cart into hers before they went to a register, griping the entire time. When she told him to move forward, he indicated confusion and asked her something, I couldn’t hear what. Her response: “What do you expect me to do about it?”
He wasn’t her only target. She was also barking orders at the customers in line ahead of them, telling them which registers to go to. The commissary has a system where the cashiers, when they’re ready for the next order, push a button and the sign board above the line lights up the number of the next available register along with a voice that says, “Next, please.” None of the other people she ordered to go wherever she wanted them to go argued with her, they just went. They didn’t want to confront her either.
They went on to a register when it came open, and I went to another one. Last I saw of them they were getting into a car parked in a handicapped space. I suspect the handicap status had to do with the man; my brief observation was that he seemed to have trouble comprehending what was going on around him. Or maybe he was just shell-shocked.
I prayed for them while we were in line. I didn’t know what else to do — getting into the middle of marital stuff is hazardous. And I wondered why she hated him so much.
It’s possible that when they were younger he was a terrible husband. Maybe he cheated on her, maybe he beat her. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I just know that that woman was so consumed with rage and hate there wasn’t room for anything else.
So I prayed for them both. I hope it helps.
As Seen In the Commissary Last Friday
Correct spelling is optional anymore, apparently. *sigh*
Found by way of Instapundit. More at WIS TV‘s website. From the article by Meaghan Norman:
We know Navarro was fired on Monday. Before that, he was put on unpaid suspension for three days. The city claims it was for insubordination and an unauthorized audio recording.
In an exclusive interview with Jody Barr, Navarro claims 6 to 8 months ago he was first approached by then Deputy-Chief Ruben Santiago to frame Assistant City Manager Allison Baker by planting a gun and drugs in his car.
“He didn’t just tell me a gun, he told me, ‘Dave, it must be a stolen gun,’ and he also said cocaine and I asked him that question, ‘Why cocaine, chief? Nobody will believe that Mr. Alison Baker would use crack cocaine,'” said Navarro.
Navarro says Santiago approached him two more times about the same scheme. Navarro says he did not come forward earlier because he feared retaliation.
“After that phone call to SLED, I immediately felt retaliation from Chief Santiago,” said Navarro. “Things began to move immediately.”
Yikes.
Killing Trees….
Many years ago, when I was stationed in Germany, our parent wing, the 601st Tactical Control Wing, had a program that we all had to follow. It was called — this is going to sound a bit weird — the Self-Inspection Program.
Whatever you’re doing in the military, be it your primary job, a function within your job, or an additional duty, there’s a regulation that covers it. There may be more than one regulation that covers it. You’re required to adhere to all requirements in that regulation, or those regulations, in the performance of that job or task.
I don’t know if the Self-Inspection Program was a 601st TCW creation or if it was foisted off on us by the Air Force, but those of us with additional duties and staff functions had to maintain a Self-Inspection book. In that book were the checklists designed and published by the 601st TCW. You were required to run those checklists, if I remember correctly, once a quarter. If you discovered a discrepancy you were required to open a discrepancy report, which was written on a USAFE Form 66. I have no idea why I remember that; of what earthly use is that information? Anyway, you opened a Form 66 and then you were required to update the report at least every 30 days, detailing your actions to take care of the problem and close it out.
The officer in charge of the Self-Inspection Program while I was the DO of the 631st Tactical Control Flight (at which I was the officer in charge of the unit Self-Inspection Program — zero fun) was Captain Sandy Brose. I went TDY with her once to a USAFE IG Inspection of a radar unit in northern Germany. It was… interesting.
Capt Brose was responsible for reviewing every IG inspection report for information pertinent to the functions at the units. There were hundreds of units receiving IG inspections on a regular basis, so she had a lot of stuff to wade through. I don’t doubt it was unpleasant. Once she reviewed each report, she would choose information from that report, get it duplicated and sent out to the units. This was called “crossfeed information.” Anything that might remotely resemble something the units in the 601st Wing did, we got crossfeed information on. We were required to keep these copies in our books, along with the checklists and Form 66s.
So once a quarter a package would arrive from her with our crossfeed information in it. It weighed about 25 pounds. I’m exaggerating — a little. As the unit Self-Inspection officer it was my job to go through that mass of paper and parse it out to whomever it was supposed to go to.
We referred to the Self-Inspection Program as “Sandy Brose’s Kill a Tree for Freedom Program.”
I tell you this because I’ve been trying to get things ready for the 2013 Singing Christmas Tree rehearsals. This involves making copies of music for the choir, printing and scanning charts for the orchestra, and printing and scanning scores for the director. There are 4 pieces that I’m having to make 135 145 copies of each plus a few spares, and they run anywhere from 14 to 19 pages long. The copier can put them in a magazine format, on 11×17 inch paper. I did the calculations and I’m going to be going through nearly well over 2,600 sheets of 11×17 inch paper, and that’s for the choir copies alone.
This does not include the paper needed for the programs, the list of donors, tickets, ticket ordering forms, newsletters for the choir, etc. etc. etc.
I’ve decided to call it [my boss’s name]’s Kill a Tree for Jesus Program.
You’re welcome.
Summer Band
There’s a thing I participate in during the summer months that I thought I’d mentioned before, but apparently haven’t. The Columbia Summer Band is a mixture of members from three community concert bands, plus some other folks that play in other ensembles. We meet a few times at the beginning of the summer to rehearse, and then we go around to assisted living facilities and retirement communities in and around Columbia and give concerts to the residents and staff. It’s fun, they’re always tickled pink to see and hear us, sometimes they feed us and it’s amazing how music can bring back memories and make a difference to our audiences.
Last week we were at the Presbyterian Home in Lexington. Nice place. Everyone was wonderful to us, the venue was great (quite a bit larger space to play in than where we were the week before, some of our venues are close quarters).
Here’s the thing. We have a trumpet section that has one volume. Well, okay, that’s not really fair. There are a few trumpets in our trumpet section that apparently only have one volume, and that’s set to 11 (explanation here, should you need it, and sorry about the ad, can’t do anything about that — mute your speakers before clicking).
It was painfully loud. Several times loud enough that I was flinching. I’m a flute, so I sit in front with a row of saxophones behind me, between me and the trumpets, and my ears were ringing. As a bonus, during “The Fourth of July” (I thought it was during “Semper Fidelis”, but I was wrong), a few of the trumpets managed to get about 3 measures ahead of everybody else, loudly, and stayed there for awhile because a) they’re so loud they can’t hear anyone but themselves and so missed all the musical cues happening all around them that would have twigged them to the fact that they were in the wrong place, and b) they pay no attention to the director so that even though he stepped from behind his stand and walked directly in front of the flutist next to me waving his hands like he was hailing a cab they continued on, oblivious.
Yikes.
This last concert, at Laurel Crest in West Columbia, was better. Not that they didn’t get painfully loud, but they didn’t do it quite as much, they actually responded to the director’s volume changes sometimes, and they didn’t get lost.
Here’s hoping the trend continues.
I Inadvertently Promoted My Boss to Pastor Today
Whoops.
We had a responsive reading in the service today. Titled “God and Country”, it’s in the old hymnal. The boss wanted the words up on the screens anyway, so I did slides for them. The pastor’s part was prefaced with “Leader:” and the congregation’s with “Congregation:”. I think that’s what he said he wanted; he yelled it up at me in the balcony from the floor.
And then I got to thinking about it. This is almost always a mistake. I should never think; it never turns out well.
I was wondering about the whole “Leader” thing. I thought it might be odd looking. I considered going back in and changing the font colors to distinguish one part from another, but depending on the background the slide guy attached to it, that might have been an even weirder combination.
I spoke to a friend about it, and she suggested changing “Leader” to “Pastor.” That’s how they do it in her grandson’s church, she said (at her church they have ministers, not pastors — and maybe they don’t have screens and slides, I don’t know). I thought that was a fine idea. So I changed it Friday afternoon. Just slid in on our way back from lunch and changed it.
And then this morning we’re getting set to do the responsive reading and there’s my boss, up front, leading the thing. He’s not a pastor.
Oh, boy. There was of course not a thing I could do about it except try not to look distressed there in the choir loft in front of everybody. Not many people know, I hope, that I’m the buffoon who does the slides. I expect he noticed that his part was labeled “Pastor”, and he knows he isn’t one of those, but he didn’t say anything to me (not that he could have — we’re in the choir loft and there are microphones and people are looking at us). It was funny, in a stupid kind of way.
I’ll find out Tuesday, at the latest, whether he thought it was funny, too. Assuming he remembers. Which I hope he doesn’t.
I didn’t see his wife up in the balcony this morning. That’s where she usually sits, when she’s in attendance. Her home church is not the one I go to, and I suppose she was at that church this morning. I’m relieved, actually, as she certainly would have noticed and said something to him. Which would have reminded him to buttonhole me about it later.
Maybe he’ll forget….
I’ll try to remember to let you know.
Cheers, y’all.
Gotta Watch What You Say If You Want to Go to England
Sad times. Found by way of Instapundit, more at Roger’s Rules.
If the UK government doesn’t like your opinions, they’ll keep you out. Sad. Very, very sad.
Also, while we’re at it….
As Seen At the Commissary
I was on base this afternoon, doing the grocery shopping. While standing in line to checkout, I took this photo.
His mother, or maybe it was his grandmother, was right there with him (she’s to the right of the shot). When did it become acceptable to park your backside on a grocery shelf? My mother would have ripped my head off right there.
We’re doomed as a species. I’m just sayin’.
The Boss Directs, I Obey
Sometimes I think my boss has no clue how long things take. For example, last Wednesday night when he arrived from his real job to get ready for choir rehearsal (and it’s usually when we go over the slides for Sunday) he handed me a stack of music and said it’s for our mass choir thing at Shandon that we’re participating in in August. Eight pieces, each one averaging 14 pages in length. He wants 30 copies, front and back, hole-punched. That is, formatted so the choir members who are participating in August can put them in their folders.
Well. The folders themselves aren’t your standard 3-ring folder. They’re a bit smaller, and there’s a pocket of sorts on the back so you can slide your hand in and not drop the thing while you’re turning pages. So the pages that get put into the folders can’t be 8 1/2 by 11 inches. That’s too big; they won’t fit. They have to be cut down.
What this means is I have to copy each piece (so I don’t perform surgery on his copies), cut the pages to trim off anything that isn’t music, tape each page onto another sheet of paper so it can go through the copier, and the pages are taped on alternating sides of the sheet (flush against the left, or flush against the right) so I can copy front and back and then cut them down to size without losing anything. It’s not difficult. It is, however, tedious and time-consuming. Very, very time-consuming.
So he hands me this stack of work and says he wants it done to be distributed to the choir next Wednesday. This in addition to finishing the keyboardists’ books of the Singing Christmas Tree sheet music (which are done, minus the last pages of one piece as they somehow were forgotten to be copied and sent by the church we borrowed the piece from, oops), plus all the other routine stuff that has to be done each week, including prepping stuff for the choir’s rehearsal on Wednesday and getting things squared away for next Sunday.
I went back into work this afternoon, even though I’m only supposed to work Monday through Thursday, and spent a few hours working on getting the music ready. I’m going back in tomorrow, Saturday. The benefit of going in this afternoon and tomorrow is that no one else will be there (although the pastor was there this afternoon, I think I unnerved him, he thought he was by himself and then all these machinery noises began happening), so I can use the copier and paper cutter and hole puncher without getting in anyone else’s way.
I’m halfway through copying, cutting and hole punching. Still have four pieces to go. Discovered we’re missing at least one page of one piece (we seem to have a trend). And I still have to sort and organize so the pieces can be handed out Wednesday evening.
I love my job, I really do. But I don’t think my boss has any appreciation for how long or how much work it takes to make things turn out the way he wants them.
Like the freakin’ sandbags.
Oh, well. Everyone’s nice, I work indoors and no one screams obscenities at me. So I’ll manage.
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