On the wing, Turkey Vultures are elegant birds.  Their wingspan is almost that of an American Bald Eagle.  When the sun hits them a certain way, the feathers on their wings seem translucent.  They float effortlessly, wings in a V shape, circling and soaring. Once a couple of years ago, one came over me so closely that I could hear the swish of its wings.  As long as a person is far enough away that he/she cannot see the ugly heads, they appear beautiful.

It was very impressive to see so many in the air at the same time.  Later in the walk, a Green Heron landed on a nearly pier as I passed one of the large ponds there.  The morning walk continues to be helpful.  At the moment, I think I actually need it to help keep my healing on course.

Wednesday morning (today is Friday) had been a good one since the Spiritual Formation group continues to provide a rich environment for processing what has gone on or is now going on in our lives in a way that reveals God’s hand, loving and supporting us.   There was a lunch with a good friend including some great conversation, very refreshing.

The afternoon included the second day of exercising.  The muscles that were getting sore, were worked enough to help relieve the discomfort for the moment. Then I headed to the mall to try to get a gift for Granddaughter Ashlyn’s upcoming birthday. I ended up walking the circumference of the mall on both levels, probably adding up to almost as much distance as I do in the morning.  I decided to try to add a mall walk on the hot afternoons.

I ended up at a couple of other places to get the gift.  Even with all that activity, the pain of Mary Ann’s death emerged, staying with me the rest of the day.  Oddly, yesterday a neighbor who lost her husband a couple of years ago, called to see how I was doing and revealed that she had had a bad day on Wednesday also.  Must be something in the air.

Yesterday was some better.  The walk in the morning was followed by a visit from a member and his daughter.  Ed is helping with a bit a caulk repair in the bathroom. They were both fun to talk with.  Later in the day a former member had asked me to to help her process something, a role that feels comfortable for me after so many years in the ministry.  That also was an enjoyable time.

I went directly to the third different support group meeting this week.  While there is a little overlap, they are all different groups.  It is remarkable just how helpful it is to be in a setting in which there is complete understanding and the freedom to laugh or cry without hesitance.  Talking so freely there makes it easier not to talk about the loss with others who will soon tire of hearing about how much it hurts.

The groups also help temper the fears that the pain is still so strong and hasn’t let go yet. It is apparent that those who have experienced a death as recently as have I are struggling at least as much as am I.  Those for whom the death was a couple of years ago, still have access to the pain, but they are not disabled by it.  They are able to enjoy life again.  The groups provide a helpful perspective.

After spending some time with vultures this morning, I got some more organizing done at the house.  I decided to buy flowers in memory of Mary Ann and for myself. I did as I had done before when getting them for her.  I asked the folks at Flowers by Bill for ten dollars worth of colorful flowers.  I was given a large bouquet with varied colors, from pastels to deep, dark colors to bright and cheery colors.  That bouquet now adorns the dining room table.

There was another walk at the mall.  After that I went home and read a very small book called Good Grief by Granger Westberg.  Daughter Lisa had asked about it in a phone call.  She saw it on a Hospice list of recommended books.  That little book was very helpful since it nailed very many of the struggles I have been having and named them as stages in the process.  They are different from the stages of grief traditionally listed.  The book confirmed that feeling each stage fully is a way to get through the grief, incorporating it into the new person who is emerging.  Not everyone will, of course, grieve in exactly the same way, but what he described seems to be the most common experience.

The evening ended with a very enjoyable dinner out with former parishioners.  We came back to the house and talked for a while about a variety of things.  I felt almost healthy again.

A couple of days ago, as I was making one of the rounds in the mall, something very obvious found its way into my awareness.  While Mary Ann has died, I have not.  It doesn’t seem fair that I should be alive and she is not.  Fair or not, it is so.  I am actually alive.  I do not need to feel guilty about that or apologize for it.  I am free to go on with life.  Recognizing that does not make it easy, just possible.

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I began the day with the two mile walk at Cedarcrest.  One purpose of the walking is to release endorphins, a natural anti-depressant.  Following that I continued my efforts at cleaning the office.  That also helps provide a sense of some tiny bit of control in the face of such a dramatic event beyond my control as Mary Ann’s death.

The visit from the bug man helped reduce the likelihood of another ant invasion. When grieving, even little annoyances can darken a day.

There was a nice Olive Garden lunch with two of the folks that were such a support to Mary Ann. The conversation gave us a chance to talk about grief issues and share some Mary Ann stories.

After getting the estimate on the bumper replacement on the van, I went to Rebound for the health assessment.  Actually, there was not a body mass index worked out.  Either it is not part of the assessment, or, as I suggested in an earlier post, he could see plainly the mass under consideration, the one just above my belt line.

The fellow doing the assessment is a physical therapist.  He did a thorough check to be sure I would be able to handle the exercise program.  After walking around the perimeter of the building a couple of times at a brisk pace, he had me do as many steps on a small platform as I could do in a minute and a half.  At the end of that time he said I had the record of the most done by anyone whom he has assessed.  I chose not to ask the average age or condition of those he has assessed.  I thought I would just bask in the glory.

As a different kind of step in the healing process. I went to a support group this evening.  I had not been feeling very good today, still a residual from the weekend, and just the pain that comes at its choosing, not mine.  I was apprehensive about how valuable it would be.  Some in the group knew each other very well and had been together for many years.  Some seemed much older than me (I forget sometimes how old I am) and I was not sure it would be a group that would be a benefit.

I was pleasantly surprised.  The group was open and communicative.  I became an active part of the conversation immediately (surprise!).  There was laughter, there were tears.  They were helpful to me in dealing with some of the most challenging dimensions of the grieving process for me at this point.  The materials we used this evening were fitting, stimulating good conversation, touching my sore spots with some healing salve.

Mary Ann was very creative, able to create good times with very simple things.  (I am hoping Lisa and Micah will write some of their memories of their Mom for me to include in a subsequent post.)  She quickly developed a neighborhood babysitting coop.  One Mom had three other Mom’s kids while they went out.  The next Thursday (not sure of the day) a different Mom would have the kids. 

There was a wading pool at a nearby vest pocket park that they often walked to.  There were summer activities there.   There was a YMCA with an outdoor pool not much farther away.  That was a favorite spot.  We went for walks in the neighborhood. 

There were the usual interesting times that come with having children.  Lisa and Chris down the block decided to cut each other’s hair one time.  Lisa got the worst of that one.  Micah was getting a push on his three-wheeled “Green Machine” by a neighbor girl who didn’t see that his toes were scraping on the cement.  The toes survived, but they looked pretty bad at the time.  Lisa ran away one time.  She told us she was doing so.  She came back shortly since when she got to the end of the block she stopped and turned around since she was not yet allowed to cross the street.  Micah, who was (is) very good at drawing, took a ball point pen to the wing back chair in the living room, making indelible circles around the two decorative buttons on it. 

We all have often remembered the time the snow was so deep that there was no school.  The four of us trudged a number of blocks to Leonard’s Restaurant that we had discovered managed to stay open.  We had a great breakfast there, as always.  Then there was the year that the ice and snow took out the power for a number of days.  We camped out in front of the fireplace. 

Then came the bees!  I got a call from Mary Ann that there were bees coming down the chimney.  As I raced home, she opened the flue and lit some papers on fire to get them out.  The papers went out and the bees came in through the open flue and started gathering on the sheer curtains in the Living Room.  When I got home, I saw a huge swarm of bees that looked like thick blanket, hanging from the outside of the chimney.  I put on a trenchcoat, jeans, boots, a hat, scarf around my face, and with spray cans and badminton rackets made a frontal assault on them.  Finally, we called a beekeeper who came with his smoker and a cardboard box, coaxed them into the box and put them in the trunk.  It took a couple of weeks for them all to leave, but since he had gotten the queen bee, they finally left completely.

We vacationed at Estes Park in Colorado one summer.  The kids road horses and played during the day.  I hiked, Mary Ann read.  We enjoyed watching a species of Prairie Dogs that had their home in an open area surrounded by cabins. 

We went on a couple of ski trips with families from the congregation.  We took sleeper busses out, skiied three days and then returned over night.  The skiing was great fun.  The first year, Mary Ann and I were still on the bunny slope the afternoon of the first day as we looked up to see our young children riding the lift up the mountain.  It was embarrassing. 

On that first trip, I watched blind skiers, handicapped skiers, snake-like strings of three year old skiers with no poles in hand pass me by.  I did gather speed once near the bottom of that run, ski over the front of a blind skier’s skis and ski at full speed straight into a very tall wall of snow at the side of the run at the very bottom.  The impact pushed the snow through the hairs of my beard to the skin beneath.  I became the butt of many jokes. 

On our last day of skiing the second year, the shuttle bus we were on in the morning slid off the road and tilted on to its side.  We all exited through the emergency door at the back of the bus.  No one was hurt.  What we did not know was that the morning bus accident was an omen of things to come. 

As all of us were sitting in the sleeper bus with the benches facing one another so that we could play cards and talk, as we were driving out of the mountains, with snow falling.  The bus began to shift and we realized it was out of control, passing between cars.  Then for a moment, time seemed to stop completely as we moved into a sort of eerie slow motion spin.  We looked at each other as the bus began to go around, back end to the front, front end to the back.  Finally, after an eternity, it came to rest against the guard rail overlooking a steep drop.  Just under our window, a car slammed into the side of the bus, injuring the driveras his head hit the windshield.  His injuries did not appear to be serious. 

That was our last ski trip.  Mary Ann always had trouble getting off the lift.  She would fall every time and could not get up without help.  She spent the last trip in the lodge drinking hot chocolate.  With hindsight, it seems likely that the symptoms were beginning to appear before we had any idea there was a problem.  The general wisdom is that a person has Parkinson’s Disease for at least five years before the symptoms become obvious enough for it to be diagnosed. 

Then there was the notorious Colorado Vacation that never happened.  We started out heading for Colorado.  We barely got out of the city and the two kids were arguing with one another (one probably dared to put a finger across the imaginary line between each one’s side).  Both Mary Ann and I were fed up with it, so we told them we were not going to Colorado.  Their punishment was Des Moines.  That is where we ended up instead of Colorado.   Lest you from Des Moines be offended, we enjoyed the Living History Farm and a Science Museum that was great for the kids.  We did the Amana Colonies afterward. 

Mary Ann had a bit of a rebellious streak as far as church was concerned.  She certainly had no interest in being a “Pastor’s Wife.”  The way we talked about it when the subject came up was that she and I were husband and wife.  I was a Pastor.  She was who she was, not an attachment to someone else.  (That is where Lisa gets it, Denis.)  She participated at church in lots of ways that were meaningful to her.  She did not, however, seek to meet some set of expectations placed on her by others.  The kids mentioned to me recently that she would always stop with them at Daylight Donuts on State line before coming to church, often making them late for church.  I, of course, was oblivious to it since I was immersed in the Sunday morning tasks. 

One Christmas Eve, Micah had been sick for a few days.  He was having strong stomach pain as the 11pm worship service at which I was preaching approached.  Finally, Mary Ann had to get him to the Emergency Room to be checked out as I was preaching the sermon.  I had lost one brother to peritonitis from a burst appendix and another brother and I had had emergency appendectomies, mine when I was seven years old.   It turned out to be dehydration, but it certainly scared me. 

Enough for now.  The family track will continue on course, but the church track will soon be impacted by the national level controversy. 

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Parking will be behind the church, accessed from the street behind it that is parallel to Downer.  Since there are many stairs, some maywant to be dropped off in front on the Downer side.  There is construction in front, but cars can get through to drop off passengers. 

Those who have let us know (or let us know immediately) that they are coming will gather at Reuland’s at 115 Oak Avenue in Aurora for a meal.  The food will be served at 12pm.  We will provide time and a microphone to anyone who has a Mary Ann story to share. 

Since that church is where Mary Ann and I were both Baptized (as Infants) and Confirmed, as well as being married there, it is especially meaningful that the Memorial can be held there.  Come and help us celebrate her life here on earth and the life she now has with the Lord.

Then there was the house.  We looked mostly on the Kansas side, in Johnson County, since that was where the church was located.  After a while, nothing seemed to ring our chimes.  There was one possibility, but it was a little over the range that had been suggested to us based on my salary.  Then the realtor said, “We can look at the old house on the Missouri side.” 

Understand that the Missouri side meant a school system that had a typically bad reputation for quality as a city school district.  The Missouri side was more varied racially.  Johnson County was much less varied ethnically.   Both of us appreciated the older feel and ethnic variety of the Missouri side, but mostly, we just fell in love with the house the first time we saw it.   We bought it in 1972 for $22,500.

We had both grown up in older homes.  The “Old House” as she called it, was a two story shake sided house built in 1926.  The developer built to match the topography, leaving trees, curving streets around the hill.  The trees were all tall and stately.  There was a large bed of irises in full bloom.  The lilac bush was hanging with heavy clusters of blossoms filling the air with their scent.  There was the largest pussy willow bush/tree I have ever seen.  There was a spectacular Silver Weeping Birch in the front yard.  Each house in the neighborhood differed from the rest. 

There was a 25 foot long living room with a fire place — french doors to a side porch.  The dining room had a huge hand painted scene that blended with the wallpaper.  It was just an outline and was muted enough not to be distracting.  The Master bedroom was 18 feet long.  with a full bath and walk-in closet.  There were two other bedrooms, much smaller.  The house had a second full bath upstairs and a half bath in the breakfast room downstairs.  The kitchen was quaint, but there was barely room for the fridge.  There was a detached garage with a basketball hoop on the front of it.  Mary Ann loved that there was a basketball hoop out there.   There was something about being able to shoot hoops that she liked. 

The old stone basement had a little water in it at times, but it was no major problem.  There were some very entertaining camel back or cave crickets in the basement.  The house was solid as a rock.  It had shifted as much as it was going to shift decades earlier.  The plaster in a couple of ceilings was in bad shape, but both were repaired for about a hundred dollars.

Early on we remodeled the kitchen just a little, taking the wall to the breakfast room out, putting in sliding glass doors and adding a deck.  Those changes allowed much more space in the kitchen area.  We removed five layers of wallpaper from the walls, patched and sanded.  The walls were in almost perfect shape.  We heard about a fellow who would refinish wood floors.  We tore up the wall to wall carpets and found a beautiful white oak floor with red oak stairs. 

We enclosed the side porch into a multipurpose space.  A parishioner who was very skilled as a carpenter did much of the work, trading labor with me.  Dick did the carpentry for me and I helped him on his Mother’s farm.  At that time his labor would have been $16 an hour, and farm hand more like $3 an hour labor.  It sounds like a good deal at first glance.  Have you ever put up hay in 94 degree weather?  If you have, you know whereof I speak.  I almost died!  Well, maybe not quite that bad. 

Mary Ann made curtains and always had an eye for color.  The house was wonderful.  We felt very much at home there.  Mary Ann put in a little garden near the garage and used branches from the pussy willow for stakes at the ends of the rows.  The garden did not do well, the stakes thrived.  We had little pussy willows growing at the end of each row.   There was a tiny oak tree sapling that sprouted in that garden a few feet from the garage.  Mary Ann refused to let me pull it out.  I carefully explained that it was too close to the garage.  We drove by that house a couple of years ago.  In the intervening thirty some years it has grown into a tall and perfectly shaped oak tree.  The Silver Maple saplings we planted in the front yard had grown from the seeds of the neighbor’s tree.  When we went by that same time, they were huge trees.  The Monkey Grass we brought from Ron and June’s front yard in Memphis decades ago is still covering the terrace. 

I remember Jack, next door.  He was a Great Dane who was so tall that when he got curious and jumped up, his head would be above the top of the six foot privacy fence.  When he went back down the air would catch his ears and they would fly up, looking very silly.  Of course, I fed the birds and squirrels there just as I do now.  If I dared to sit out on the deck too long, interfering with the squirrels eating the olives from the Russian olive tree, one of the squirrels would find a branch right over my head and drop squirrel turds on me.  His aim was remarkable.  We had brought ferns and Jack-in-the-pulpit and wild phlox plants from my folk’s place in the country in Northern Illinois and planted them on the north side of the house in the back yard.  They thrived there for all fifteen years. 

Near the end of the fifteen years there, Mary Ann and I spent three weeks painting the outside of that shake sided house.  We scraped, primed, put on two coats of paint in three colors on that two story house.  Mary Ann did the lower story and I did the upper story.  I also scraped, primed and painted the 22 windows (all 6 panes over one). 

I thought I would tell the story of that house in one post before going on to our lives during that time.  By the way, that house for which we paid $22,500 in 1972 was on the market in 2007 or 8, listing for $310,000 — location, location, location.  

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The bus took us through Lichtenstein, where we had the best meal on the trip, good sausage and trimmings.  By the time the trip was over, none of us could look a Wiener Schnitzel in the face.  Almost every meal was breaded veal, boiled potatoes and peas and carrots.  If we tried to order a glass of water and said the German word for water, wasser, we were brought sparkling mineral water. There was never any ice to be found.  Alas, we had to drink wine and beer.  The beer was one Mark a for a half liter, 25 cents, American.

In Austria, we could look out of our hotel room at a lake across the street bordered on the other side by mountains with puffy clouds hanging half way between the surface of the lake and the peak of the mountains.  We shopped in Switzerland and finally ended up at the airport in Belgium.

When we arrived in the airport in New York City, the plane had been delayed long enough that we missed our flight to St. Louis.  The airline gave us vouchers for a meal at a very nice restaurant in the airport while we waited. I had a huge steak about the size of what we used to call an arm roast.

It was either at the Washington airport when we were on the way to Europe, or in the New York airport on the way back that we ran into a family with a large and very friendly dog that we took time to pet.  The family the dog was with was Bobby Kennedy, his wife and children.  This was in 1966, between his Brother John F. Kennedy’s assasination and his own in 1968.

Finally, we landed in the St. Louis airport.  We had cut things too close as we managed our limited dollars very carefully but apparently not carefully enough.  The cost of the shuttle ride from the airport back to our apartment was $6.00.  We didn’t have that much.  We were stranded.

Hilton and Trudy Oswald came to our rescue.  They were a cute, older but very energetic couple who had come along on the trip with us.  We had hung out with them sometimes, especially since Hilton could speak German fluently.  They piled our luggage and us into their old Mercedes and drove us to our apartment.  It was not too far from their home.

The next week in St. Louis it was about as hot as it had ever been.  We never lived anywhere that was hotter and more humid than St. Louis.  There was a strong smell of yeast in the air constantly from all the breweries.  That week there was a temperature inversion.  The pollutants were kept from blowing away.  The air was yellow.  The temperature was 106 degrees for six days in a row.  Our apartment was, of course, not air conditioned.  We would open the windows of the bedroom, as well as the ones in the living room to get a cross breeze.  We slept in our underwear.  We would lie on our backs until they were adequately sweaty.  Then we would turn over and let the air movement very slowly dry the wet side, while the other side got sweaty.

Now there is the matter of the rent.  We had left enough in the bank to pay that first month’s rent when we returned from Europe.  The bank that before we left for Europe had told Mary Ann there would be no job waiting for her when we returned, did have her job available.  With both of us working full time, we were able to get back on course, paying the rent and saving for school in the fall.

We had very little money in those years.  We were dirt poor, along with all the rest of the seminarians, especially the growing number of those who had gotten married.  I don’t know that we felt poor.  Wonders could be done with hot dogs and creamed corn or macaroni.  Popcorn was cheap.  When we wanted to party after classes on Friday, one couple would bring the limes and the tonic water, the other couple a bottle of cheap Gin and we would relax with Gin and Tonics.

Mary Ann was able to earn a little extra money by babysitting for a couple with a toddler.  The parents got a pretty good deal.  We had one car, a gray 1956 Chevy with stick shift.  Mary Ann refused to learn to drive a stick shift.  That meant that the parents got two for the price of one, which was 75 cents an hour.

One time the parents of the toddler asked Mary Ann if she would be willing to babysit their son at the grandparents’ home.  She got the directions to the house and we headed out searching for it.  They were confusing directions, but we managed to find it.  It was a huge house on many acres of land.  There was an airplane sitting in an area beside the lane that led to the house.

We had been instructed to go to a room over the garage.  The room was outfitted as a playroom.   When we had mentioned the name of the Grandparent’s to someone, they wondered if it could be the J. S. McDonnell who owned McDonnell – Douglas aircraft.  It was!  He had been on the cover of Time Magazine not long before.  At that time, his income for one year had been $90,000,000 (yes, 90 million).  This was in the late 1960′s.

That number is relevant to what happened when the grandparents returned, and it was time to settle up.  I can remember Mary Ann and I standing beside the cooking island in the kitchen as we totaled the bill for the four hours.  At 75 cents an hour, the total was $3.00.  Mrs. McDonnell had a $5 bill.  She waited until Mary Ann searched her purse and billfold, and I searched my pockets for what seemed like an eternity to come up with the $2.00 in change.  No wonder he had $90,000,000.  He kept every penny he earned.  At the risk of being very politically incorrect, did I mention that McDonnell is a Scottish name.

As the story continues, the Vicarage (Internship) from Hell comes next.

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That first year at the Seminary, I was singing in a very good choir made up of students from the Seminary and singers from some of the Lutheran churches in St. Louis.  There were probably sixty or a hundred Lutheran churches in St. Louis at that time.  A radio station in Holland had tried to get St. Olaf’s choir to come for a Heinrich Schuetz festival there.  Somehow, they got hold of a tape of our choir and offered to pay us 30.000 Guilder to come to their radio station studio to sing and make recordings.

Mary Ann was not singing in the choir.  She had started working full time at a bank so that we could continue to survive while I went to school.  I continued to work part time during the school year and full time during the summer at Clark-Peeper Office Supplies in Clayton.  Even with the promised 30,000 guilder covering a portion of the cost of the trip, each of us had to pay a portion also.  I don’t remember how much.  I do remember that we could take non-member spouses along for about $750.

We knew we might never get a chance like that again.  We had enough savings in the bank to cover the cost for me and for her, enough for a little spending money on the trip, leaving $100 in the bank for when we returned.  That would be enough to pay the next month’s rent, with nothing left over.  Mary Ann’s bank said that they would not have a job waiting for her when we returned.  We decided to do it!

We flew to Washington, D.C. and on to London.  We spent four days there, visiting cathedrals, riding the Underground (subway).  We sang at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge.  The trip there was harrowing.  The tour bus driver was nuts!  Of course he was driving on the wrong side of the road, that was to be understood, it was England.  However, when a blind curve was approaching while on that two lane road, he moved right out to pass a car.  He was traveling at a frighteningly high rate of speed. Our worst fear was realized when a car appeared coming toward us from the other direction on that curve – traveling at an equally frightening rate of speed.  We passed three abreast on that two lane road.  It took hours to clean the seats on the bus — okay, it almost scared us that much.

We drank warm, bitter beer and ate beef and kidney pie.  That was about as bad as it sounds.  We saw all the usual sights.  Both of us decided that we wanted to return some time.  That never happened.  We were right about the once in a lifetime opportunity.

Then we flew into Amsterdam and drove to Noordwijk-Aan-Zee, a small resort town on the North Sea.  There we stayed in a boarding house while we went back and forth to the radio station in a larger town nearby.  I remember riding bikes together to the laundromat.  I remember that the wash water was scaldingly hot.  Someone in there managed to warn us about that even though they spoke only Dutch and we spoke none.  I knew a few German words, but we were told that it would be far better to stick with English than to use any German.  Our bus was picketed at one point because we had a German bus driver.  The war was still fresh in people’s minds.

The weather was too cold for swimming, but we rode to the beach of the North Sea just to see it.  The breakfasts were cold cuts and cheese and breads.  For all the meals, all five days, we had the very same cloth napkin kept in a plastic holder at our place at the table.  We had fried chicken one night.  As a somewhat compulsive hand washer, it was a horrifying experience!

After recording for the Heinrich Schuetz festival, we headed on to Germany.  Only West Germany was accessible at that time.  We saw the huge Cologne Cathedral, Frankfort, Munich.  We visited castles, Linderhof, Neuschwanstein (where from the balcony of the throne room we saw one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen, a lake nestled in between wooded mountains).  We saw what was left of the Heidelberg Castle boasting the largest wine barrel ever filled with wine, so large that it had a dance floor on top.  We did a concert in a cathedral in which there was a full five seconds of reverberation after stopping the final chord. (We heard tell of one castle that had a seven seconds of reverberation.) It was a powerfully moving experience to sing in those churches.  We sang a total of 8 times in three weeks.  The rest of the time we traveled and saw so many beautiful sights.

Classmate Louie (nickname) and Elise had moved their wedding date to just days before the trip so that they could be together on it.  In Muenster, it happened that they were assigned to stay in separate places.  There were tears flowing.  Since by then we were an old married couple of six months, we offered to stay in separate places so that they could stay together.

In Muenster we stayed in homes for two nights since one of the members of the choir was recently from Germany.  We sang at her home church in Muenster.  Mary Ann stayed with a family that spoke English.  I did not stay with such a family.  Actually, I ended up in a boarding house run by a family from church.  The first night was fine.  One of the other boarders was Franz von den Ohden Rhein (Frank from the Old Rhine), who spoke English.  The second night Franz was gone.  I sat at the supper table with six or eight people who could speak no English, not a word.  I knew my one sentence in German, the one that revealed that my Mother was born in Germany.  That was it.  The good news was that after a few bottles of wine, we seemed to be able to communicate without much trouble (at least that is how I remember it — what I remember of it).

The adventure continues tomorrow.  (Can you say “Bobby Kennedy??”)

Today was a better day.  The morning walk was reassuring in that again, I actually enjoyed the sights and sounds.  The pain allowed me room for that.  After I got cleaned up, I got a cup of coffee at PT’s and was greeted by Sara and Kelsey.  They are barista’s who have been very thoughtful and welcoming to me.  I taught Kelsey in Confirmation Class and Confirmed her a number of years ago. She is very newly married.  She had some very thoughtful and affirming words.  It warmed my spirit.  A good way to start a day.

I wrote some thank you notes and then headed to Paisano’s for the monthly lunch with Jimmy.  He lost his wife many years ago and understood very well what I am going through.  After that I stopped for a moment to drop something off at church.  There I spent a few moments with Linda and Marilyn who were part of my support system for many years, whether they realized it or not.  They knew.

When I went to the Wild Bird House to stock up on feed for the birds, I was greeted very warmly by Melody and Todd, who had only a day or two before discovered that Mary Ann had died (still very hard to write or say).  Todd came over and put his arm around me to comfort me.  We have just talked on occasion over the last few months, mostly about birds.  I would stop there most weeks while Mary Ann was in her Tuesday morning Bible Study.  It helps so much to have people around who seem to care, trying to provide comfort and understanding.

I spent the middle of the afternoon writing thank you notes.  They brought me close to tears more than once as I thought about what Mary Ann went through.  I was also overwhelmed in a good way with the realization of all that so many people did for us.  The hours that people spent here are far beyond counting.  It is not even remotely possible for me to repay what was given.  Those who came usually enjoyed Mary Ann, but they were sometimes scared that she would pop up and then fall, maybe hurting herself.  I think people felt good that they were really helping us, making a substantial difference in our lives.  I think many felt that they were doing a ministry for Faith by freeing me to continue to serve Faith while Mary Ann could not be left alone.

It is also clear that Mary Ann ministered to those who came.  So many have been struck by her courage and unwavering faith in the face of all she went through.  She did not complain.   People could talk with her and know that it would not be shared with the next visitor.  I still marvel that she just took the next hit whatever it was and went on as if nothing had happened.

This afternoon, friend and former parishioner Mark came over to talk and listen.  He has been through this.  He phoned Sunday afternoon, knowing that it would be a terribly painful time for me.  We set this time then.  Mark brings with him a strong and vivid faith along with some counseling experience, as well as having lost his wife whom he loved just as I loved Mary Ann.  He walked me through a Psalm that was especially meaningful to him at the time of his grieving.  The content of our conversation will remain between us.  It is enough to say that it was a helpful, meaningful and comforting time for me, immersed in the Grace of God, and the healing God provides.

It has not been an easy day.  Easy is no longer an option, at least for now.  It was a better day.  The pain was clear and identifiable, always ready to pop back fully into view.  It did not express itself as often or with as much intensity as it has in the last days.  I am not so naive as to think it will not come back with full intensity whenever it chooses.  It was just helpful to have a day in which it did not rule.

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Poor Bathe Aide Zandra left during that time to let us be with her.  I grabbed a Bible and tried to read a couple of Psalms.  Words and tears mixed, mostly tears.  In a few minutes Mary Ann stabilized to a steady heart beat and steady breathing.

Zandra had pointed out some of the telltale mottling on the bottoms of her feet.  That was at about 9:45am.  We called Hospice Nurse Emily who came out to put a dressing on one of the sores that had developed.  Her blood pressure was low, and the oxygen saturation percentage was lowering.  Gratefully, her lungs were still clear.  Mary Ann again made clear with some scary sounds that she was not happy with being moved.  Nurse Emily indicated the obvious, that it would probably be before the day was done, certainly by tomorrow that the end would come. Emily  was here late in the morning.

We kept close track of Mary Ann’s breathing, which remained pretty steady.  Then we saw that in just an hour or so, the mottling had moved from the bottoms of her feet all the way to her hips.  When we called Nurse Emily about how to determine when to use the Morphine, I told her about the mottling.  She said she would be over at 2pm, an hour from that call.

Emily talked with us for a while and shortly after she left, Mary Ann took what turned out to be her last breath.  We were all immediately at her side.  I had found one of the books I used in the ministry and put it nearby.  I read a beautifully written Commendation of the Dying liturgy.  She died during that couple of minutes.

It is hardly necessary to tell you what came next.  After I gained enough composure, I called Nurse Emily to record the time of death.  Nurse Lisa came first since she was closer.  Then Nurse Emily came and did the official recording of the time.  Nurse Emily and Nurse Lisa prepared Mary Ann for the funeral home to take her.  We had all the time we wanted before they came.

Daughter Lisa and Denis let their two little ones (5 and 7) come in to see Mary Ann. I have worked with families with children often in situations like this.  Letting children satisfy their curiosity and ask questions is very helpful.  It is better to treat things honestly without giving them more information than they want or need.  They need to hear that it is all right for their Parents and the Grandpa cry, and that their Grandma is okay even though she has died.  They need permission to be sad or silly or whatever they need to do.

Granddaughter Ashlyn (5) was mostly excited that she lost her very first baby tooth this afternoon.  She is counting on a very generous tooth fairy.

Son Micah and Becky came in next with eleven year old Granddaughter, Chloe.  This is her first Grandparent to die.  She just needed to do some crying and be nurtured by her Parents.  There were lots of hugs.

Denis took the girls to the park for a while so that they would not be there when the funeral home took Mary Ann out.  They had an appropriate experience without that.

We made all the phone calls we could think to make.  We checked to see if the Funeral could be at 11:30am on Thursday at the church (Faith Lutheran Church, 17th and Gage, Topeka, KS).  It appears that the day and time are acceptable to all parties.

There were more food deliveries today.  There have been emails and phone calls as the news has begun to spread.  At about 4:30pm Pat from Penwell Gabel Funeral home and a helper came to pick up Mary Ann.  I have done so many funerals with them in the dozen years before I retired that they are more friends than they are funeral home staff. Our appointment is set for 11am tomorrow.  We will take the dress and the pictures at that time.  Son Micah is working on a draft of the obituary.

Lisa and Micah have each been doing their grieving in ways that work for them.  There have been hugs and tears.  Each of them has a Spouse who provides them with love and support without limit.  Is is such a comfort to a Father to see that.

Pastor Mike came over and spent the next couple of hours with us, just talking about Mary Ann and our life together, as well as what might be in store for me.  It gave me a chance to talk, something I do especially when I am dealing with my feelings.  It is my mechanism for processing things.  It served as a way to keep at bay the sadness that is sitting in my gut.

I have to say that the sadness is much different from the pain of these last couple of weeks as I saw Mary Ann decline to a shadow of her former self.  The horribly painful knot in my stomach, feeling her pain, untied immediately after she died.  I want her back, but I could not tolerate seeing her in that condition any longer.  I find myself talking as if I am just fine, while just under the words are tears and sadness and a dull pain — a new one, different from before.

She no longer is in pain. That is the best news imaginable.  In my faith tradition there is no doubt that she has transitioned to a kind of joy and peace immersed in love beyond human comprehension. For those whose view of reality does not include a similar spirituality, the release from the pain and suffering of the last couple of weeks especially, is a great good.

My hope tonight is that I will share a bit in her peace by getting a good night’s sleep.  Whether or not I can sleep is another one of those things over which I have no control.  I am really getting tired of all the things over which I have no control!

If you want to write a comment about this or any of the posts on this blog, look to the column on the right side of this page, titled “Recent Posts,”  click on the name of a post and you will find a box at the end of that article in which you can write a comment.  Clicking on the title of the post you are reading will accomplish the same thing.  Comments are appreciated.