Last week was a hard, exhausting week, even more so for others of my family than for us, I’m sure. Tuesday was the funeral for my nephew, David.
We went to the funeral home at about 6:00 p.m. More and more people came, until finally the room was crowded with people. My Uncle Bill, who is my father’s brother, and his wife, my Aunt Helen, along with my cousins Patty and Debbie, daughters of my late Uncle Don, arrived from Illinois. We are always so glad to see them; too bad it always seems to be a funeral that brings us together these days.
That evening, the wind began blowing hard, and rain came pouring down. It didn’t last long, and just before sunset there was beautiful rainbow arched completely over Columbus.
My sister Lura Kay said that the driver of the pickup that hit David’s house had a blood alcohol level of .25. Legal driving limit in Nebraska is .08, and somebody told me that when the level gets close to .30, people can die. The man’s brain wave test showed little activity.
“It didn’t before,” opined Lura Kay, making us laugh even while tears were running down our faces.
Christine came to the funeral home in the early afternoon, then began feeling dizzy and went home. She came back again later, and I talked with her for a bit. She is so kind and sweet. She was busy comforting others, just as she did her mother early Saturday morning.
Joe, one of David’s cousins, crying, took Lura Kay and John H.’s hands and said, “He was my best friend.”
Tim’s poor little children felt the loss of their mother Malinda all over again, I think. Melody, who is four, began to cry. Quick as a wink, Joanna, who is 13, had her little sister in her arms, hugging her tight. Poor little Richard, age eight, held Christine’s hand and sobbed, and she hugged him and wiped his eyes for him. And, of all things, Jeremy’s 15th birthday (he’s Tim’s oldest) was Saturday, the day David was killed.
Oh, my dear friends are all suffering so!
And what do you think of this: somebody called Lura Kay and laughed and cackled into the receiver. She recognized the voice.
I told my family that anyone who is glad about someone’s death is a murderer; the Bible says so. People who do such things will pay for it.
Christine, talking to Lura Kay and me, said to us, “I had so many dreams of all the things David and I would do together with the children, all the rest of our lives.” She stopped and wiped away a few tears. Then she shook her head and said, “But I mustn’t be selfish; I know he is in a much better Place now.”
Lura Kay took her hand and said, “No, that’s not being selfish. Remember what we found that David had written in his Bible? ‘It is okay to grieve.’ And he was right.”
Christine’s grandparents were there, having flown from their home in Florida. We love these people, and have prayed for them for many years, hoping they would turn to God. The grandfather told me that his father had died when he was 14, and his mother did not handle it nearly so well as Christine was doing.
“It’s all your wonderful friends who are so loving, even to me, that make such a difference.” Then he thought about it, and decided that wasn’t a good enough explanation. “But that’s can’t be all,” he said, very serious. “It has to be something inside,” he concluded.
Please pray with us for these people, won’t you?
Before we left the funeral home, Christine took each of my children by the hand and spoke to them, assuring them of David’s love for them, and of hers, too; telling them that they had often prayed for them. She’s extraordinary, and that’s the truth of it.
Tuesday morning, Larry went to the courthouse to get a title for the man who bought his Bronco, as they’d lost theirs. Next, he washed and waxed the Suburban.
Janice called then, and asked if Larry could come to my mother’s house at 11:45 a.m. to help take Mama to the church, for that was when the funeral directors would bring the casket and all the flowers.
At 11:40, I suddenly realized that it was not Larry in the bathroom taking a shower, but Teddy. Larry was still outside waxing the Suburban! Aaauuuggghhh!!
I, in the process of scrambling into a black dress that buttons down the back, sent kids flying to the back door to order their father into the house right that instant, do not dawdle, do not delay, do not dilly-dally, do not deviate, do not detour...because Mama SAID so.
He came, commendably only a few instants later. He jerked on his suit and combed his hair without benefit of a shower first (luckily, he’d showered just the night before), and rushed over to Mama’s--and managed to beat Loren and Janice there. When they arrived shortly, he helped Loren lift Mama’s wheelchair down the front porch so that she could go to the church and see David, and also all the flowers and the pictures they had on the table in the hallway. This is so hard on her, and she is so frail. She was fairly okay until, looking through a little album, she came upon a picture of Daddy standing beside David and Christine at their wedding, and then she sobbed over it. That was the last wedding at which Daddy officiated. He was so happy to marry them; he loved them both dearly, and felt that they were exactly the right mates for one another. He was right, too.
Finally Larry came back home, and then he started over again getting himself ready --showering, washing hair, brushing teeth, scrubbing face, etc. We could see hundreds of people had already arrived at the church, and the funeral directors had warned us that, because of the great number of visitors they knew would come, they would not reserve seating for the relatives; it would be ‘first come, first served’. Sounded troublesome to us, but the directors are The Directors, right?
Nope.
Our very own nice ushers reserved the first few pews for the relatives, and wrote lists of where all known relatives, friends, visitors, etc., should sit, and that’s exactly where they put them. So there.
Anyway, back to Larry’s preparations. The children were all ready, and for once Teddy and Joseph were waiting for us, as they would sit with us rather than the other young people. We did not yet know that the ushers had our names down for a reserved pew, and Teddy in particular was so antsy that he could not stay still for a moment.
“Your father,” I said to the children, “will be late for his own funeral, you watch and see!”
But we were soon crossing the street and entering a sanctuary that surprised us because of its lack of people; evidently they were all out in the school, or in the basement, or someplace. So we sat for 45 minutes before the service began. We didn’t mind, though, because the organist soon began playing. She plays beautifully, and she played one favorite song after another.
The funeral directors told John H. that they had directed the city florists to stop bringing flowers to the funeral home Monday at 5:00 p.m., as there absolutely was no room for more. They were instead to bring the flowers to the church Tuesday morning. Hy-Vee’s florist van alone must have come to the church, full of flowers to deliver, five times. There are at least three other flower shops in town, and they, too, made numerous runs. The funeral directors said that, by 5:00 p.m. Monday, there was easily $10,000 worth of flowers at the funeral home.
There were more than 500 people at the funeral, many more people than have ever been in our church all at once. Over 150 chairs were set up out in the school, and two closed-circuit monitors were put there so that everyone could see and hear the service.
The father of the drunk driver called John H. that morning to ask if the family would be offended if he sent a bouquet to the church. John H. assured him that we would not be offended at all, so the flowers were sent, and a very pretty bouquet it was. The man said he wished to talk to John H., Lura Kay, and Robert, too, if they would, and John H. told him they would be glad to. He wants to know how in the world we can say that we know David was ready; he just can’t accept that, but wants to talk with them and learn how they can react to the calamity that struck them with such graciousness and charity.
The driver came out of his coma Tuesday, surprising everyone. When this man was 14, his uncle--mother’s brother, I believe--took him to a stock car race and helped him get drunker’n a skunk. He’s been an alcoholic from that day to this. The parents got into a terrible fight about it, with the uncle joining in...the mother and uncle thought there was nothing wrong with it; every kid is going to start drinking, where better than with family. The mother called the police, and the police sided with the uncle and the mother and told the father to leave the house that evening. How do ya like that!
The father moved out, and they eventually divorced.
Robert’s sermon was from Ecclesiastes 7. He especially expounded the first verse, which says, “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.”
In those days, precious ointment was just that: precious, or costly. People used it to give themselves a pleasant aroma, and it was important to their culture. So, we might say that the ‘precious ointment’ was for the exterior of a person--akin to a reputation, or what others think of someone. The ‘good name’, on the other hand, speaks of what is on the inside of a person, for the word ‘name’ in the Bible is almost always synonymous with ‘character’. So, which is worth more?--what people think of us, or what we really are inside?
Well, of course, it’s what we are that counts. A good reputation is fine, but good character is better. Further, this ‘good name’ speaks of our name--when it is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life--that is, when we have been born again, and Christ has recorded our name in His Book, so that we will receive eternal life.
But how in the world can anyone believe that the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth?
Well, look at it this way: when a new baby is born into a home, loving parents look at that precious little child, and hope beyond hope that they will be able to teach that little one properly, that he will turn out to be a fine, upstanding, righteous person, with all sorts of commendable qualities. But no matter what they do, the future remains uncertain. No one can accurately predict how any one individual will turn out.
However, at the day of one’s death, it is over; everything has been said and done. Now, that day can be better than the day of birth only on one condition: and that is, if that person’s name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and he has lived for Christ. Then, and only then, can that statement possibly be true.
As for David, there is no disagreement: he lived for God, he loved his family, he worked diligently, he was fair and square in his business dealings, he was more than generous with his workers, he was honest and kind and good-natured and humble. So you see, on the day of his death, there are pages and pages of wonderful things we can say about him that we never could have said on the day of his birth.
The Bible is infinitely more comforting in times of sorrow than anything man can ever write.
At the luncheon following the funeral, we learned from Janice that Larry’s cousin James’s daughter Joyce had been admitted to Children’s Hospital in Omaha. Two or three weeks ago, she started taking some sort of penicillin for strep throat. But she was allergic to the medicine, and had a very bad reaction to it. She was taken to the hospital at least twice because of the reaction to the penicillin. But then, since she had to stop taking it, the strep throat has come back full force, and they cannot find anything to get her over it. She is quite sick, and everyone is awfully worried about her.
We also learnt that Monday night a boy Joseph’s age, Ryan, had splintered the knuckle of his thumb while helping hitch something to a tractor. He was kept in the hospital that night, so that he could receive an IV of antibiotics, because they were worried about infection on account of his hands being dirty when the accident occurred. The next day, surgery was done on the thumb. A wire was inserted to hold things together; it will stay in the thumb permanently. A pin was used, too, to keep everything in place, but it will be removed in six weeks. If all that doesn’t work, they will have to fuse the bones together, and if they do that, he will never again be able to bend that thumb. Oh, that would be too bad. I remember what pain Teddy was in from his cut finger, and how we worried over whether or not he would be able to use it properly thereafter. We are thankful that it has healed very well indeed.
Then, on top of all that, we found out that the little girl who has scoliosis and has had multiple surgeries on her back, Mary Clarice, had her tonsils and adenoids removed, and also had tubes put in her ears. Two hours after the operation, she had a bad reaction to the pain killer they were giving her, and stopped breathing. Her throat was constricting, and she couldn’t draw in enough air. Her pulse slowed clear down to 17. She would have died, had there not been monitors on her, and someone nearby. The nurses got her breathing again within seconds, and no harm seems to have been done. By the next day she was asking for food and behaving normally, and everyone was greatly relieved.
Rebecca, one of Christine's sisters, gave me the video of the testimony David gave one Sunday night when I was staying with Mama. I watched it Tuesday night. And cried over it. What a gap is left in our lives, with David gone!
Christine gave us a big, beautiful bouquet to take home. It is still on our hearth, and still pretty.
That evening, we drove out to a little dilapidated farm near Silver Creek to give the man the title to the Bronco. Six small children came spilling out of the little house, part of which sports two stories. They have been working on it, for the siding has been removed and new silver SomethingOrOther is showing. When we drove up, the man and his younger brother were diligently doing some welding on a go-cart. The wife seemed a mite disgruntled, whether from the children all tumbling out of the house, or because the go-cart was getting more attention than house or children either one (to say nothing of wife), I cannot say.
Wednesday, Victoria and I went to Shepherd’s Staff Christian Book Store for a big Noah’s Ark coloring book for Victoria to give Mary Clarice. While I was there, wandering around getting sidetracked here, there, and everywhere, it suddenly occurred to me: it was Joseph’s birthday!--meaning, it was Aaron’s, too!
Aauugghh! I’d forgotten all about it. I’d walked past Joseph a legion of times that day, ordering him to “Do your schoolwork!” “Take out the garbage!” “Pick up that stuff on the floor!” “Etc.! Etc.!”
The poor kid! I immediately grabbed a book for him, ‘Heroes of the Faith’, and ordered ‘Heroes of the Faith Volume II’. I then got several little board books for Aaron (‘Fire! Fire!’ [Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego], ‘Jailbreak’ [when the angel let Peter out of the jail], ‘My First Book About Jesus’), and a couple of small stuffed animals holding miniature board books (‘Moses in the Bulrushes’ and ‘Noah’s Ark’).
We then hurried to Wal-Mart, where we got Joseph a pair of tan pants, a gold Pilot pen, a four-color set of double-tipped permanent markers (so that he quits borrowing mine), and a digital alarm clock. I’d also bought him a silly-looking piggy bank, with the pig grinning stupidly and holding a handful of bills, gold coins all around his feet, at the Sapp Bros. truck stop in Fremont. Sapp Bros. truck stops have just about the nicest gift stores of just about anyplace around these parts. We gave him a $5 bill to go with the pig.
We also got gifts for David and Christine’s children: modeling clay and art projects for Michael; a fat little ‘book’, of sorts, holding shiny, sparkly stickers, little pencils, colorful papers, and doodads of all sorts and shapes and sizes for Lynette; stamps with the names ‘Sarah’ and ‘Daniel’ on them; fat colors and a pickup pulling a trailer with a tractor on it for Joshua; and mechanical pencils, erasers, Winnie-the-Pooh pencils, colors, and coloring books for all the children.
Victoria picked out a box of colors and then Lydia found a little clear plastic purple purse full of flowered rings and beaded bracelets that she thought we just must get for Mary Clarice.
For Aaron, I got a Fisher Price truck that, when a cord at the front is pulled, vibrates good and proper; two short overall outfits, one with embroidered lions on it, the other with embroidered bugs crawling out of an embroidered jar, and a shirt with the words ‘I love bugs’ to match; and the softest tan and brown teddy bear I have ever felt in my life. There are enough stuffed animals, big, little, and in between, at Aaron’s house; but he needed this one, he really did.
I happened to spot one of those funny animals on a pedestal, who, when the base of the pedestal is depressed, collapses in a heap of a hundred pieces. When the base is released, the animal pops back upright. The goofy-looking dog, we had to get for Ryan. We would tell him it was for the purpose of exercising his good thumb.
That ended the shopping. We hastily took Joseph’s book to him, along with humble apologies for being so forgetful, and promised to give him the rest of his gifts when his father came home from work, which was an error, since, when Larry came home from work, we weren’t home yet, and by the time we got home, a scant few minutes later, Larry was traveling into Never-Never Land in his faithful recliner.
I started recording David’s testimony, preached on the night of Victoria’s birthday, onto a cassette for Ryan, and we took Mary Clarice her things. Victoria was delighted that I let her take them to the door all by herself.
Next, we took gifts to Christine’s children. Poor little sweethearts; it’s so hard on them, and so hard to see them suffering from their great loss. They are all sweet as they can be. Christine’s back hurts her if she is up much, and she can’t pick up anything of any weight at all. She was sitting in her hospital bed in the living room.
Delmar Tucker’s masonry crew was working outside, collecting all the broken and reusable bricks, and so forth. The bedroom is all cleaned out and bare. The china hutch has been set back up in the dining room, and unbroken things put back into it. Not all of the dishes broke. Christine found out it was Joseph’s birthday, so she sent Dorcas into David’s study to get a book by Charles Spurgeon--Evening by Evening--to give Joseph. She wrote in the front of it that she hoped Joseph would read it each evening, and she hoped it would help him. “We have prayed for you often,” she wrote. “God’s Word will not return void.”
We went home, and I started dubbing the cassette I’d made onto another, the better to keep the original--and some time later discovered that I was trying to duplicate a 90-minute tape onto a 60-minute tape, which presents a bit of a logistical obstacle.
AAArrrggghhh!!!
It was getting too late, so I gave up and took the original to Ryan, determining to try again with a 90-minute cassette.
Joseph, Victoria, and I had a very nice visit with Ryan and his parents; they are wonderful friends. Ryan’s older brother, Curtis, had gone to Omaha to see Joyce. They’d just started dating, having had only one date, and then Joyce wound up in the hospital.
Goodness! I’m throwing so many names at you that you really will begin to feel like Piglet did when Owl was telling him about an accident that nearly happened to a friend of one of his relations.
We left our friends’ house, drove around the corner--"There’s a cat!" cried Joseph, sliding forward on his seat to look at it.
I slowed down. It was a young cat, and it was sitting calmly in the left lane of the street--until I was almost even with it, at which point it suddenly took a notion to dart directly in front of me.
I stomped the brake pedal all the way to the floor and held it there.
The Suburban stopped.
Joseph did not.
When Larry cleaned the Suburban Tuesday, he used some sort of leather cleaner on the seats that made them especially slippery. Joseph discovered just how slippery when he went slithering rapidly out to the very edge of the seat, whacked his head against the ceiling directly above the windshield, and gave himself a doozy of a chiropractic treatment on his neck.
But the cat escaped unscathed. I hate to run over animals, especially one that is somebody’s pet. (Not that I prefer to behead my offspring, you understand.)
Home again, I gave Joseph his presents, and he opened them while Larry slept through it. So I might as well have given them to him earlier. Humbug.
Hannah called. Bobby was getting into a ditheration about the bed or lack thereof for Jennifer and Sarah McDonald to sleep on. As you may remember, they are Hannah and Dorcas’ long-time pen pals from Canada who visited us one other time, when Bobby and Hannah were married. Since then, Sarah has corresponded with the daughter of one of Larry’s cousins, Jolene, and she had invited Sarah and Jennifer to her wedding.
Anyway, Bobby was making noises about buying a cheap cot and putting an air mattress on it.
“No, no!” I exclaimed to Hannah on the phone, “Don’t worry; tomorrow Daddy and Teddy will bring you a bed from Grandma’s house, and everything will be fine.”
I was still talking to Hannah when Dorcas called to say she and Mama both had something to give Joseph; I promised to tell him. But then I went back to Hannah’s call to finish what we were saying, and after that I talked to Teddy and Amy, who were here wrapping Aaron’s present...and I am such a fleabrain, I forgot. Luckily, Dorcas called 15 minutes later and reminded us.
Thursday after school, Hester and Lydia got their money from their savings accounts, and I took them to the bike shop to get new bikes--and discovered that the man had sold the bike Lydia had picked out not five minutes before we got there. And they’d put it together especially for her! But we found another one that she liked just as well, and got it. They put it together, checked Hester’s over, and brought the bikes around 9:00 p.m. They took mine back with them, so they can fix the shifting apparatus.
Larry and Teddy then went to Mama’s house to get the bed. Larry repaired something on it, and it was ready for use.
Lawrence and Norma brought jeans for Joseph while I was wrapping Aaron’s present. They’d forgotten it was Aaron’s birthday, and soon left in order to get him something.
Off we went to Hannah and Bobby’s to give Aaron his present. Larry swept and vacuumed, Joseph dusted a few things, and I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, finding myself quite in the way each time Larry and Teddy came through with the mattress, box springs, bed frame, and so forth. They set the bed up, and it looked quite nice.
Aaron opened his present, and immediately decided he liked the two little paper-page books the very best, even better than the vibrating truck, as I’d suspected he would. Why do babies like ‘big-people’ books so much better than their own little board books, I wonder? Just think: my little grandson is one year old already.
When we got back home again, I remembered the strawberries I’d been planning to slice, and there they still sat in their bowl on the counter. I decided to make strawberry pie. I started getting all the ingredients from the cupboard.
There was no sugar.
None.
Not one solitary crystal, not even in the sugar bowl. Furthermore, we were fresh out of sugar beets and sugar cane, both, so I couldn’t process and refine it real quick-like, either. Also, my centrifuge was out of balance, so that left that option out, in any case.
Further, the sugar maple tree out front isn’t big enough to have an adequate quantity of sap to produce the sugar I needed. Did you know it takes forty gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup?
So off I went to the store for milk, sugar, and light bulbs (so I could see what I was doing, you know). I paid for my groceries and started out of the store--and suddenly I spotted a white china teapot with a bright brassy-gold handle and spout and a Thomas Kinkade painting on the sides. I came to a screeching halt, snatched it up, and trotted back through check-out. It was just what I wanted for John and Jolene’s wedding gift, for the bright-gold brass candlesticks, pretty, heavy sticks made by Baldwin, matched the handle and spout perfectly.
We left for Omaha at 2:00 p.m. Friday to collect Sarah and Jennifer at Epply Airfield. They were coming ostensibly for Jolene’s wedding, but Jolene was running out of time on account of all the upheaval earlier in the week, so they would spend their visit with Hannah and Dorcas. Hannah and Aaron came along, but Dorcas couldn’t, because Sarah, who’d planned to stay with Mama so Dorcas could go, is helping her daughter Christine every day.
I only got mixed up and took the wrong road once--in Columbus. I must’ve been heading for the Denver International Airport, instead of the airport at Omaha. ha! Luckily, I realized my mistake just as we crossed the Loup Bridge and, although I could’ve gotten to Omaha that way, I saved more time by turning back and heading out of town east, rather than south. I hoped to goodness Teddy was not looking out of the window at Precision Auto-Body as I went past, first south, then north, or I would never have heard the end of it. Bad enough, with Joseph knowing!--but he, you understand, was sitting in the passenger’s seat allowing me to proceed the wrong way, and hadn’t noticed; so he couldn’t say much.
After Fremont, I took Route 31 to Route 36, and then worked my way through North Omaha without a fluff straight to Epply Airfield, which is the approximate size of Rhode Island, only with more options.
The first thing I had to decide was where I wanted to park. Did I want to park in the
a) eight-story parking garage
b) long-term parking lot
c) drop-off and pick-up area
d) timed parking
e) day-long parking
f) parallel parking
g) upside-down parking
h) illegal, tow-your-vehicle-away-and-blow-it-up parking zone?????
Unable to decide exactly which one was right for us, I wound up going completely around the spinney, after which I had another chance to decide all over again. I finally opted for the short-term timed parking--and pulled into a toll booth whose clearance was only 6’10”.
I drive a Chevrolet Subdivision whose clearance is 6’10” or thereabouts, depending on how many urchins are within, and how much they’ve had to eat that day.
The machete-and-9-millimeter-caliber-Uzi-toting Guerrilla Warriors immediately assumed I was on a rampage to destroy all their 6’10” entry portals and then proceed right on to their airplane clamshells with hand grenades and Howitzers and missile launchers and such, and they promptly called in an elite Green Beret division, who came parachuting down, Gatling guns ablaze.
We calmly waited till they blew out our tires and then, with the Subdivision a convenient several inches shorter, drove neatly under the 6’10” trimtram and on into the short-term parking garage, first floor.
No, really, the nice guards at the gate watched carefully to see if the Suburban was going to fit underneath, and then, when they discerned that it would, waved me cheerfully on through. I ordered everyone not to hiccup, and drove under--slowly, just in case. That way, if the men were wrong, and we really didn’t fit, I would peel the top off slowly, rather than swiftly, which is a much better way to peel tops, I think.
Well, we pulled up to a ticket prompter-patooer, which promptly said, “Patooey!” and patooed out a ticket.
I took the ticket and drove into the first floor of the garage. We passed a few parking places, after which I saw that there were fewer and fewer empty parking spaces, after which I decided that I’d better park, quick, in the very next space I found, unless I wanted to wind up on Level 8, which was where Caleb and Victoria wanted to park. I would have liked that, too; I always have liked to be at the very top of things--including hotels, motels, and dog stacks--and further, when there is an earthquake and the parking garages come tumbling down, the top layer doesn’t wind up quite so squished as the bottom layer. But time was flying by, and we needed to get ourselves into the terminal and find Sarah and Jennifer before they came to the conclusion that we’d forgotten about them and started hitchhiking their way to Columbus.
I pulled into the very next parking space. We jumped out, locked the Suburban, and found the pedestrian exit. Crossing the busy arched roadway, dodging shuttlebuses, taxis, and misguided Lear jets, we stared in amazement at the blocks-long terminal, which sported such a vast selection of doors as to leave us in a stupor of indecision. But a chilly wind was whistling down between the buildings, and Aaron didn’t have a very warm jacket, so we gathered ourselves together and simply dashed into the nearest revolving door.
Amazingly enough, it happened to be the very door into the waiting area for Northwest Airlines, the airline on which Sarah and Jennifer were flying.
We had not quite gotten to the door when Hester said, “There they are!”
She had seen them through the window. And they had seen us.
We stepped through the door, gladly greeted each other, collected luggage, stepped back out, crossed the roadway to the parking garage, walked the few feet to the Suburban, climbed in, drove out, and that was that.
We decided to drive to Lincoln before heading home, thinking that perhaps we would take a quick tour inside the Capitol Building. But the day was getting windier and colder, threatening to rain; it was almost suppertime, and we knew Dorcas would already be at Hannah’s house fixing something to eat; so we merely drove around the governor’s mansion and then around the Capitol, before heading for home.
This little excursion delayed our arrival by an hour or so, and everyone was tired and hungry by the time we got home. But Dorcas had pizza and banana bars ready when I let Hannah, Aaron, Jennifer, and Sarah out at Hannah’s house; and their bed was ready and waiting. Dorcas stayed there, too, ensconcing herself on the couch for the night.
They ate more of Dorcas’ scrumptious banana bars for breakfast. After supper the next evening, Hannah said, “Well, I have no dessert except banana cake; would you like some more?”
Jennifer shook her head. “I’m all banana-caked out,” she said, making everyone laugh.
When the children and I arrived at our house, Larry was there, having come home from work not long before. He’s been working long hours, 14 on Friday alone, for David had 42 jobs set up, and the crews are trying hard to keep to the schedule he had planned. Also, they lost three days or so after David died, and are trying to catch up. Charles, my niece Susan’s husband (Charles is Esther’s brother; Susan is David’s sister), will take David’s place in such things as bidding jobs, billing customers, and so forth, until David’s boys are old enough to do so--and that will be a long time, for the oldest, Michael, is only nine.
Everyone is determined to do all they can to hold that business together as successfully as David has done, for the benefit of not only David’s family, but also for the many men who worked for him.
Jolene’s father, Jerry, who, you may remember, owns a body shop, provided a car for Jennifer and Sarah to drive while they were here: a purple Suzuki X‑90. It’s a funny little car that looks like a cross between a Jeep and a Volkswagen bug and a Fred Flintstonemobile. It seats two, and has a T-top whose side windows can be removed.
We spent most of Saturday cleaning and scrubbing our house in anticipation of the family all coming for dinner Sunday. I made Dairy State apple pie, one of our favorite apple pie recipes, and jello/graham cracker/cream cheese dessert. The apple pie wasn’t done until the wee hours of the morning, and I thought the apples were still a little too crunchy, so I turned off the oven, put the pie back into it, and went to bed.
That was a mistake. The pie was then too done. Bother! All that work...and it was soooo good before I did that... Everyone said it was still good, but they should have tasted it at 3:00 a.m. Rats!
Sunday morning, I stayed with my mother. When she learned that my family was coming to my house for dinner, she exclaimed, “Oh, my goodness, you shouldn’t be here; you should be home cooking dinner!”
I laughed. “But Mama, if I wasn’t here,” I told her, “I’d be at church; I wouldn’t be home fixing dinner in any case!”
She laughed, too; but the minute my brother and his wife, Loren and Janice, arrived from church, she all but shooed me out the door. So I went home and fixed dinner.
Larry helped, and it didn’t take long...but I was having such enjoyable conversations with our guests that first I boiled over the milk, water, and butter for the potatoes; and next I boiled over the gravy.
We turned the stove vent on high and Larry scrubbed off the stovetop, and soon everything was set to rights. Neither the potatoes nor the gravy burned, and the buttermilk biscuits turned out perfectly. The green bean/cream of mushroom soup casserole came out just right, and the hard-boiled eggs for the lettuce salad weren’t undercooked like they were the last time we boiled eggs. I should have put more graham cracker crumbs into the jello dessert, but other than that, everything was peachy (unless the guests didn’t care for the menu...but if they didn’t, they were too polite to say so).
When dinner was over, Larry, Victoria, and I dashed off to Wal-Mart to purchase a pair of purple tapers for the brass candlesticks we were planning to give John and Jolene that evening. We hurried back home, and I wrapped their gift: the candlesticks and the teapot with the golden spout and handle.
And I forgot to put the candles in the package.
Larry found them late that night after we came home from church. Fortunately, some of the family were still at the church, so I trotted the candles over to one of Jolene’s sisters, assuring her that it could not possibly have been my fault. She laughed and promised to put the candles with their holders.
It seemed strange to be attending a wedding so soon after David’s funeral; but life continues. This old world keeps right on turning, even when our hearts are sorrowful. I remember thinking about that last Saturday morning when Larry and I were leaving the hospital--and in the trees surrounding the hospital, robins and finches were singing away.
The Christian often finds himself in a paradox, isn’t it true?--there are many things in life to give us heartbreak; but, nevertheless, there is always a deep joy within us that nothing can take away, for “they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35:10). Of course, that verse is speaking specifically of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it certainly can apply now, too, for our hope of eternal life surely does take away the awful sorrows we often face.
John and Jolene’s wedding was lovely, and I took lots of pictures and video footage, which I will share with my sister, Lura Kay, who stayed with Mama during the service.
Monday, Jennifer and Sarah had to be on the 5:15 p.m. flight from Omaha to Detroit. From there, they would fly to Montreal, then take a smaller prop plane to Ottawa, where they live. If all their planes were on time, they would be home at almost the same time we would.
At the terminal, we went up to the second story to a hallway with rows of windows on either side. There we watched planes taking off and landing for almost an hour before the girls decided they’d better bid us adieu and check in. Jennifer bought a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to share with us, and Dorcas bought a small bottle of water for $1.75. Yes, that’s right; I didn’t make a typographical error; it was $1.75. We went into the gift shop and looked at exorbitant price tags on everything from stuffed animals to pewter thimbles, and then tiptoed back out again before we broke something.
Back at our post by the windows, we watched as people greeted loved ones arriving on a Midwest Airlines flight. A little girl of approximately three years of age went all the way down the long hallway hopping with all her might and main, kangaroo style. Aaron, standing near us and supported by Joseph, who was on one knee holding his little nephew under the arms, observed this procession solemnly; then, as soon as the child was past, immediately hopped up and down in imitation.
An elderly lady wandered along, reading lighted signs and advertisements on the walls. She inadvertently strayed into the restricted area where incoming passengers exited the terminal, going right past big signs printed in red, “DO NOT ENTER!” and “EXIT. STAY BACK.”
A computerized voice said, “GO BACK. DO NOT ENTER. GO BACK. DO NOT ENTER.”
She drifted on, not noticing a thing.
A security guard called to her, “Ma’am! Come back, ma’am! MA’AM! COME BACK!!”
She rambled farther, oblivious.
Lights and sirens came on with a loud “WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!!”, and Aaron whirled around and parroted, “WHOO! WHOO! WHOO!!” right on tune.
The woman strolled along calmly.
It was only when several people began calling her at once and someone ran to escort her back that she stopped and looked around, entirely surprised that she had caused all that commotion.
After leaving the terminal, we stopped just across the highway beside Carter Lake. There, Hannah fed Aaron his supper while the children played Frisbee. Speedboats and jet skis plied the lake, and people were fishing from every dock. A little farther along the shore, we came upon a Canada goose near her nest. There was one big, white egg in it.
While we were there, we saw the Northwest Airlines plane that Jennifer and Sarah were on take off, climb quickly into the sky, and disappear over the bluffs along the Missouri.
We stopped at a Wendy’s in Fremont for salads and sandwiches. Have you ever noticed that particular phenomenon wherein no matter what you get, your neighbor’s food looks better?
Home again, we found Larry and Teddy having themselves a feast on yesterday’s leftovers. I sent the children off to the showers and poked my videocassette into the VCR to show Larry...but it wasn’t long before a long, stealthy snore told me I was watching it all by myself.
And now it is time to tuck Victoria into bed.
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