An Easter to Remember

A co-worker with the preschoolers yesterday during the morning worship service asked me how many were at our house. I went blank and realized I had no idea. People were coming and going, so I really could not keep up with them.

Since Tara had phoned Thursday night that they and the three little boys would be leaving Aurora soon and would arrive around 2 a.m., I decided to follow her instructions to go on to bed and not wait up. I was almost in bed shortly after midnight and heard people in the house and was confused since I knew the Archibalds could not have gotten here that quickly. When I saw the edge of a blond head, I thought maybe Leslie had arrived, but it was Brianna and also Trent. Their dad had brought down their new camper and was sleeping in it outside although it was not completely set up yet.

When I woke up the next morning, not only were the Archibalds there, but Vickie and Geri Ann had also arrived and had picked up Leslie at Nashville. Jeannie, Elijah, and Cecelie had come in also around 3 a.m. Everyone has to take responsibility to find a couch and linens when the bedrooms ran out.

Jeannie although sleepy was ready to go biking if the weather had cooperated. She and Leslie went shopping instead. Afterwards, they ran by to pick up Sam, who wanted to get out here with the other cousins, and David had Leslie bring Sam to the farm in David’s car so the teens had an extra car.

There was a softball double header on Friday at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, so several were headed over there. Jeannie went with her dad, and after the game, she helped him finish up the last-minute grocery shopping for me. When the teenagers took off for the Dairy Queen in Marion, little Aidan who had stayed behind just to play with them, might have been upset. But Leslie put aside her home-work book and entertained him so well that he did not miss them. After all, he had an exclusive date with a beautiful blond giving him all her attention.

After rain cancelled the Saturday noon game, two groups had left to shop and/or meet other relatives, and I realized as we sat down for lunch that there were nine of us at a table that only sits eight. Gerald went downstairs to listen to Georgia’s game at Fayetteville, Arkansas. That game series was keeping Gerry away from Woodsong, and a track meet in Freeport prevented Rick from being able to join us.

Brian had gone back to Springfield area on Friday, and he and Mary Ellen came down late that night travelling through terrible storms—Brian with a trailer of farm equipment behind his pickup and Mary following in their car. (The plan was for Brian to plant this week and to stay down until he finished, but the continuing storms made that impossible.)

Because everyone had to leave Sunday afternoon to get back to school and work the next morning, Gma Shirley (Vickie’s mother and that set of grandkids’ other grandmother) was kind enough to have the Johnson family Easter celebration on Saturday night.

It was a full weekend and lots of fun and with some scary moments as well. We thought one of the visiting dogs had run off after two stray dogs in the storm when searches could not find her--actually she had crawled back in her bed after hiding from us. Aidan woke up with pain sobbing on Saturday night and told his mother his jaw hurt. Very bad. This is a child with a very high pain tolerance and who never complains even when seriously hurt. It was after midnight when Tara drove to town to get Tylenol for him and much later when he finally got back to sleep. By the next morning, he was no longer in pain, and we all relaxed and assumed it was perhaps a tooth coming in.

Gerald was kept busy giving Maddux tractor and boat rides. Payton, who is in a clinging-to-his-parents phase, made Gerald’s holiday by putting out his arms and going outside with him and riding the tractor also. Although just not quite five, Aidan is already blending in with the older teen cousins, and they are great to include him in their activities. The teenagers died the eggs and decorated the Easter bunny cake this year. I’d boiled extra eggs to make deviled ones since I know Erin especially likes them. Jeannie made those eggs for us Sunday morning before church. Leslie and Elijah sang for our village church’s morning service although none of us made it to the sunrise service. Somehow Mary Ellen and Brian arrived home from church before the rest of us and turned down the oven and saved the ham, dressing, and scalloped potatoes before they burned. Mary Ellen’s made the green bean casserole and fixed her store-bought corn casserole (not as good as her own) and the mac and cheese casserole for the kids (that we all liked) in the oven in the camper.

I think by now you understand why I did not know how many were at our house. But there were twenty-one for Easter dinner. Vickie and Geri Ann had taken Vickie’s mother and gone to her brothers’ church at Stonefort, so she brought Gma Shirley to our house to extend their visit with her just a bit. Erin, of course, had been coming and going after the Saturday game was cancelled and she had Easter surprises for her three nephews. David and Katherine were finally able to come out despite the rainy weather, which of course made placing her in the van more difficult, and despite a cancellation of an aide to help that morning. She and Shirley are special friends and were happy to be together. We were able to sing “Happy Birthday” to Katherine since her birthday is tomorrow. They were on their way to another family dinner with David’s family, so Elijah drove their car loaned to the teens back to the Cedar house in town as the Eilers left for Freeport.

We won’t forget this weekend, but neither will the many in our river region called “The Land Between the Rivers.” Although our lake has never been higher and is running steadily out the emergency overflow pipe, we are on a hill and have no danger of the house ever flooding. Yesterday was very frightening, however, for many in the Ohio and Mississippi River bottoms as the rivers rose. Some highways are closed, and the flooding has started. I am praying that levees don’t break. I was supposed to tell the story of the Trail of Tears to school children this week at the Forest Service Stewardship Week in the Dixon Springs area. This is an outdoor event. The first two days have been called off, and I expect Thursday and Friday will be also. Ten inches of rain down there in seven days has the ground saturated and some areas closed, and heavier rains are predicted.

Gerald had an eye appointment this morning, but I was able to go to a neighbor’s funeral held in Carterville. We have known this farmer’s four sons ever since we moved here, and then watched as these boys grew up and married. Now we know most or the grandchildren and some of the great grandchildren. His wife Mary died a year ago after 64 years of marriage. It was raining again as we left the funeral home. Although a beautiful sunshiny day for a funeral is helpful, I always think that nature is weeping with a family when the rains come.

After the funeral, family and friend were going back to the G. B. Morris home for a final dinner there in a now empty house filled with memories and the vibrations of years of family gatherings. A house where grandchildren and visiting neighbors were always welcome. For the past decade, the sons and their wives have kept careful watch and finally a constant vigil as the two parents grew progressively weaker and incapacitated with numerous serious health problems.

Three sons live in houses on land on the farm and one son lives in nearby Marion. Often twenty-four seven care was needed, and these families supplied it by taking turns when hired help was not available and by coordinating and cooperating with the outside help when it was. The sons’ wives have had care responsibilities with their own families during all their time as well. It has been a challenging and demanding responsibility for the four couples as they have lived through their own health problems and surgeries and with their own growing families.

As someone from down the road a ways and only vaguely aware of all the illnesses, problems, and stress they have endured, I am inspired by their faithfulness in dealing with the pain and suffering even as they rejoiced over all the good things and the good example that their father and mother provided them.

Changing Plans

We thought we had the next two weekends all planned out. In fact, I wrote an email to our immediate family last night telling where we would be when.

However, our daughter-in-law Vickie’s grandmother here in our community died last night. Her visitation is tomorrow and her funeral is on Saturday. Consequently, people away from here are making plans in order to get here quickly.

Grandma Borum was a very dear lady, who has cared for many years for her adult daughter, who is handicapped and continued to live with her. Not too many years ago we enjoyed her and her daughter Janice’s company at all the wonderful family parties that Vickie gave for birthdays and various celebrations. As Mrs. Borum grew older and developed health problems and Janice’s health deteriorated, Vickie’s parents, who lived next door, pitched in more and more to help.

After Vickie’s father died, her mother has continued caring for her two loved ones with help from her brothers. Everyone has been amazed that she was able to handle all of this caretaking, and we knew it was only because of selfless love and dedication to her mother and sister that she endured always putting them ahead of herself. Fortunately someone had been trained to help very recently.

In the morning, Vickie and Geri Ann are driving up from Georgia and picking up Erin from the Nashville airport, so that Erin can attend the visitation. Gerald will be taking Erin over to Columbia, MO, after the visitation tomorrow night for the two games that have been rearranged for Saturday since rain is expected on Sunday.

Our granddaughter Tara and two baby boys, who were just through here last Sunday, will be coming down from the northern end of the state. We are grateful that her husband Bryan can come also to drive. I haven’t touched the bedroom where Tara had three hours sleep Sunday before driving north, so I guess you can say it is waiting for her.

With all this going on with the people we love, I will not be blogging again for awhile. We covet prayers for our family’s safety and health during all the traveling that is necessary during this time of sorrow. I’ll talk to you later.

Sadness

I really did come downstairs to my computer to blog Wednesday night. But first I checked the emails, and there was a paragraph I wrote to a speakers’ newsletter that had been picked up by another writer. (The speakers’ newsletter is free, but we are supposed to “pay” for it with a tip occasionally, and I had sent my first tip to the newsletter.) Excited that someone had liked it, I forwarded it to our kids.


We have a family yahoo group, where all of us get our emails. A couple of our children were online and started emailing in response. This is one of my favorite things because usually it is late at night and everyone is a little slap happy. Naturally I think my children are very witty, so I love it when they start emails flying back and forth amongst us that crack me up.


After a couple funny responses, suddenly our son came online and asked if we knew that Mark Mocaby had had a massive stroke and died in Tupelo, Mississippi. The flurry of emails increased but went from being silly to being very sad. Mark, 47, was in Jeannie’s class, and she had thought so much of Mark. Evidently everyone did—the kids in the classes above him and below him in age. Mary Ellen remembered that all through high school, Mark had been in love with Mary Ann from Mississippi—much to the dismay of the local girls.

Once again I was tired and now sad and I forgot all about blogging. Our email grief expression was still continuing today. Mary Ellen, who had wanted to come to his funeral, had found out it was in Mississippi tomorrow, but Mark would be buried here at Mt. Pleasant up in the Poor-Do neighborhood, but we don’t know when.

Then as Gerald and I were finishing lunch, our next-door neighbor Scott phoned. A terrible accident had happened in our neighborhood. Scott and Sonja saw the fire truck, ambulance, and Air Evac helicopter go by, but Gerald and I had not. They had followed and like several other neighbors had been led to our dear friend Chester Turner’s farm. Chester, a widower who lost who only son shortly after the Viet Nam War, is a community favorite.


At 90 plus years, he still rides his horse to the Sikeston Rodeo over in Missouri each year. (Of course, he has some assistance and watch care from his very special horse-riding buddy Robin Roberts, who despite having her hands full with her in-laws’ illnesses and her photography studio, cannot stand the thought that anyone can not still ride if they love to do so as much as she does.)


Estes Hosman, a friend of Chester’s son and now like a son to Chester, had come over to help Chester cut down a bad limb from a tree in the back field. Chester was urging Estes to stop and let the wind complete the job when Estes said he would make one final attempt to cut through. He succeeded, and the limb somehow someway bounced up and hit him and killed him.

Neighbors and friends were pouring in throughout the afternoon knowing they could do nothing to ease Chester’s grief but at least he was not alone with it. Some, of course, were going to be with Estes’ wife Cheryl. Our neighbor across the road, who had gone through school with Estes and Cheryl, phoned sobbing to make sure we had heard the sad news.

In a small rural community like ours, one of the things I have observed is that everyone has so many connections to everyone else. Thus, when a tragedy like this happens, a multitude of people are deeply affected. Not just Estes and Cheryl’s classmates, but all of the classmates of Estes and Cheryl's two daughters, Jamie and Lori, will be grief-stricken for their friends.


Just as the entire community was devastated a few decades ago when Estes’ father was a victim of a coal mine disaster. Other miners in our community risked their lives trying to get his body out until they were forbidden to continue. He remains entombed there. And then we were grief stricken when Chester and Maribel’s only child was killed in a car accident after safely surviving Viet Nam. Later the community was saddened when Estes’ mother died of cancer. The ties and relationships between people in a rural community are varied and deep.


Our Mary Ellen had to call her friend Stacia in Oklahoma because Stacia used to baby sit Estes and Cheryl’s daughters. Of course, she was saddened for her classmate Bruce, Estes' nephew. Our son Gerry, who was friends with both Chester and Estes, immediately said he must arrange to come home even though he was at the airport getting ready to depart for California and fly back tomorrow. Oddly, before he got on the plane, he had a text message that the tournament was called off, and suddenly he was free to drive back home and absorb this loss and see if he can work it out to come up.


Crab Orchard community is a sad place tonight, and I am only too aware that life is often short and very precious to those who love those lives.

Death and Sadness Are a Part of Life

For the last 13 months, we have lived with the knowledge that Gerald’s brother Ken had leukemia and would not be expected to live as long as we had previously taken for granted. Their dad lived a long life; and at 75, Ken was working every day and was extremely strong, in spite of suffering from arthritis that no longer allowed him to coon hunt or play softball. Many years ago he had had heart surgery, but you would have never known it.

Doctors advised that chemo would be difficult and might not be worth it at his age--if he even lived through it. Ken and his family took the challenge and went through rounds of treatment first at Barnes and then at John Cochran V.A. He went into remission and looked good and was back on his bulldozer doing work he was good at and loved. Then the leukemia returned.

Again doctors said that to try further treatment with chemo might kill him. Again Ken and his family chose to fight this disease. Just as she had during the months of previous treatments, his wife Opal stayed by his side night and day for the 44 days he underwent yet another round of treatment at John Cochran V.A. Hospital. He was hampered by a heart attack there when doctor’s orders for a transfusion were not followed promptly, but he seem to recover from that blunder rather well. Yet by Christmas Day, the family was concerned that he was not doing well. Still when his brothers went to see him that day, he assured them he had had Christmas there in the hospital room when a son-in-law read the Christmas story to him.

On January 8, he had a bone marrow test, and he and Opal were told that this final treatment had not worked. His sister made her third trip from Wyoming to visit with him. On January 10, he was told to go home and that the doctor had called in Hospice. We were all saddened at the prediction that he would not live until his 76th birthday on January 20. When he did, we all rejoiced, and a stream of people who loved him flooded their house all day long. Then he admitted that he would really like to see his expected great granddaughter. He not only lived to see Josie but to hold her and love on her many times. Again we rejoiced at this and wondered why the doctor had said this still strong man was going to die. Obviously the doctor was wrong about the expected length of time.

Adding to our illusion was a dispute between doctors when one saw the pathologist’s report and found out that person had not discovered leukemia cells. (This local oncologist said, however, that Ken that two infections that could kill him.) Nevertheless, we had an evening of hope—though a false one. The next day, the first oncologist assured the family that he himself had seen the leukemia cells and had been able to make a more accurate report than the pathologist had the tools to do. Still we had to wonder as Ken maintained life and good humor and his family fought for is recovery.

Finally the serious deterioration started. Back in the local hospital, the continued fight against the infections did no good. Ken wanted to go home, and he did. Once more people streamed into his home to show love and concern. Surrounded there in his bedroom by his wife and children, on Monday, he went into a peaceful sleep-like state. Hospice assured the family that Ken could still hear them.

If he could, he heard many vows of love and praise and appreciation. He felt loving arms and kisses. He heard prayers and favorite Bible scriptures read, which were chosen just for him. He heard his daughters singing the hymns he loved. And then after his sister called from Wyoming for a final expression of love with the phone held to his ear, he heard his wife and children's final farewells. And then he heard the angels.

Lynn Delores Dillow Borde September 26, 1933 - December 7, 2007

From the sad email from our mutual friend Lois and the sad phone call from Lynn’s son Lance, I learned that Lynn had lost her battle with what she had first written the doctor was calling pre-leukemia.

After that news, a Christmas card came from Lance and his sister Pamela “PJ” Brown. The inserted memorial sheet had five pictures of Lynn from her baby picture to an adult picture. In between was an adorable formal studio photo of a gently smiling child of around four when she was still living in New York. Then a bathing beauty photo. Next, a sophomore high school class picture that I remembered, and a young adult picture I am not sure I had ever seen. Folding the precious insert back into the card and envelope, I told myself I would have to think about it later. Yet I knew what was inside that envelope, and I could not keep from thinking about the loss of my childhood friend.

During that pre-Christmas season with Lynn’s photos hidden inside the envelope’s darkness, we already had plenty to grieve because our lives were full of sadness and pain for family members and their illnesses. I did not want to face the loss of my first writing friend and faithful and most-fun friend. Since she was in California and I stayed in Southern Illinois, she was not in my everyday life. Although we wrote long letters as young adults, those had trickled off some years to only Christmas cards. She talked of coming back for a visit in retirement, and I had looked forward to that. However, with the pre-leukemia letter, I faced the end of that plan and dream.

Lynn left SIUC the first quarter we were there to fulfill her ambition of joining the Air Force. We wrote faithfully and shared our adventures. Later she married, and she and her husband came back on G.I. bills and were in the area briefly before returning to California.

There they remained although there was one brief summer trip back here in the 1960s. We both had young families. I remember I had laryngitis and could not really talk, which I considered a terrible irony since all Lynn and I ever wanted to do was talk--for hours on her front porch in Jonesboro where she lived with her grandparents and where we grew up, for hours when we took a walk from her house to and through the nearby Jonesboro cemetery and giggled as young people can when death is far away. For hours on the telephone as teens talking about cute boys and what to wear to the basketball games in the A-J gym. For hours as we read to each other from our journals when she was Lyndee and I was Suzie. We spent summer evenings at the ballpark and in the Tropics, our teenage hangout. We could make a nickel coke last all night.

After that 1960s visit at our ancient farm house plagued by laryngitis and busy with the care of our little ones, we did not see each other again until 2001 when we went to California to see our granddaughter Tara play softball and stayed at Lois and Tom’s house in Oakland. We arranged a visit with Lynn in her Concord apartment and met her cats that she loved, and we all went out to dinner together.

This week I opened the haunting envelope again. I have kept her photos on my desk and allowed myself to know I won’t see her again during this life. I signed a sympathy letter to Lance and Pam and included the name Suzie. I won't ever sign my name that way again.

Christmas is a Time for Sadness--and Expressing Love

Sunday we learned that our neighbor G. A. White had lost his long struggle with cancer. Wednesday night we stood in line three hours as the line swirled and turned in and out of the rooms of the funeral home. It seemed most of the community was there wanting to pay their respects to this man and his family that so many loved. As we waited, we visited with those in front and behind us as well as those in the crowded lines parallel to our line. Yesterday we watched as his funeral cortège passed our house as the long train of vehicles attending the hearse traveled with him to their farm where he was buried.

Yesterday morning’s Southern Illinoisan carried the story of the terrible airplane crash 30 years ago when the University of Evansville basketball team, coach, and others were killed. Most of us recall very clearly the horror of that news. Twenty-nine people died. Recently 29 seconds of silence was held in remembrance in the Duff-Kingston Gymnasium at Eldorado named after the two players from Eldorado: Mike Duff and Kevin Kingston. Greg Smith, a player from West Frankfort, was also killed in that crash. Thirty years has not stopped the grief.

At noon, I received a message from a high school friend Lois Ferrell Doctor in California that our mutual friend Lynn Dillow Borde has died December 7th. I had sent various cards, silly notes, etc. ever since I learned Lynn was diagnosed with pre-leukemia, and I faced the fact that she would not make the trip back here that she had planned for in retirement. In fact, I had mailed a note on Monday feeling regretful that I had been negligent in recent weeks. After reading Lois’ note with the news she’d just received from Lynn’s daughter, I walked upstairs to fix Gerald’s lunch, and Lynn’s son Lance phoned telling me again of our loss.

In Spring 2002, Gerald and I visited in California at Lois and Tom‘s house. They took us to attend the SIUC softball games to watch our granddaughter Tara. We also took Lynn to dinner and had a wonderful visit in her apartment. That was the first time the three of us girl friends had been together as a trio since we said goodbye to each other in the fall of 1951 when Lois left for California. But we kept in touch, and Lois and Lynn lived close enough for occasional visits.

Tonight Katherine forwarded the column by Jimmy Dean in the Marion Daily Republican telling of the struggle for life that Gunner, the 7-year-old son of the Marshall County High School high school coach Gus Gillespie is making at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, TN. Jimmy Dean had been down to Murray to see his daughter Kara. He’d made the trip with friends including Rich Herrin. They’d stopped in the Draffenville, Kentucky, high school gym on the way down, and they’d met Gillespie as Ron Winemiller, a manager for Herrin’s at SIUC, was now assistant coach there.

Only later before they returned for the prestigious Hoopfest did they hear the bad news about Gillespie’s son. Jimmy Dean wrote how he learned 17 months ago how unimportant sports and everything else is when you are praying for a miracle for your child. Our region will always grieve for the terrible loss of Dean’s son.

Many people around the world are praying for miracles for their loved ones this Christmas season just as we are for Gerald’s brother Ken, who is in intensive care as he fights his battle for another remission of leukemia. He was better this morning, and we are hoping he is soon back in a regular room.

Jimmy Dean urges us to use this season to tell our children and loved ones how much they mean to us. A friend told me this morning about a young adult nephew who claims he doesn't believe in love--he meant any kind of love. To love and be loved are the greatest gifts we can have at Christmas or any other time. Let's not be stingy with these gifts.

Blessings and Troubles Then and Now

Sadly Gerald lost another cousin--his second this year. So tonight we went to Anna for the visitation for his cousin Clarence Lee Glasco. We again saw many of his relatives, who had also been at the funeral for his cousin Charlene Givens. Cousin Wilma, who was so ill at her sister’s funeral, had recovered from her cancer surgery and looked great. She had been helping and sitting with Clarence during his illness, in fact.

A problematic fact of modern life is that we often only see relatives at funerals and weddings. Yet in the early part of the last century, people who lived as far away as Marion is from Anna would probably not have been able to make the trip to a cousin’s funeral visitation. Despite the high gas prices, most of today’s population can afford such trips now more than people could a century ago in Southern Illinois when travel was mostly by horse-drawn vehicles or trains. Trips to area towns often took the entire day if one did not go by train.

However, we should not forget that there remains too large a percentage of us who cannot travel freely today. Not just because of the price of gas, but because many cannot afford a car in the first place. When I worked with families in this area, one of the first problems I ran into was that single mothers usually did not have a car. Without a car, it often was impossible for them to find a job. Few jobs exist here within walking distance.

Often worse were the problems that owners of a car ran into when the car had problems. It seemed to me that an ancient-looking car with a tail light out invariably was stopped for a ticket. For a single mother on a tight budget, a ticket could spell total disaster for her family’s hope of getting out of crisis. I was never sure what could be done to lessen these problems, but certainly good public transportation, such as the trains that used to be available, would help.

When I drive through the cluster of houses that make up the village of New Dennison near our farm, I almost always think that here was once a railroad center. People caught rides from there to Marion and Carbondale. The late Marguerite Lashley, who had returned to live in her childhood home there, told me how her physician father would pick up the Presbyterian pastor who rode the train over from Carbondale to New Dennison. The doctor’s family in their horse and buggy would take the preacher on to Shed Church. Then the family would return for the Sunday dinner Marguerite‘s mother prepared, and the pastor would catch a train back to Carbondale.

Not only do we lack that convenient public transportation today, but we endure dangers these early citizens did not. On our way to Anna on Route 146, Gerald braked rapidly when a large buck started to cross in front of us. Fortunately, the buck turned. No one was behind us, and Gerald thought he could have missed him if he’d continued. We were glad we did have to find out. His cousin Barbara Houseman had just driven in from a meeting in Springfield and told me she left tire marks on Route 127 coming to the funeral home. Her deer was standing in the middle of the highway. Since November is the month that most highway deaths in Illinois are caused by the deer, two Glasco cousins were blessed with escapes tonight.

After the visitation, we went with Gerald’s brothers Keith and Garry and our sister-in-law Ginger along with nephew DuWayne and wife Vickie to the local restaurant we used to call Dino’s. There we all enjoyed supper together and had the opportunity to visit and still drive home for an early bedtime if I had chosen to go to bed instead of write this blog.

And though we were watching closely, we did not see a single deer coming back to the farm. I hope the hunters see them this weekend. Then their families will have venison for the winter stored in their freezers for hearty meals that few families could have enjoyed in 1907.

Bun, Charlene, Collin

Instead of writing here on Wedesday night, I keep getting later and later in the week. When Audrey Biby phoned Saturday afternoon with the sad news of her father's death--just after he had fixed Audrey and Alan hamburgers for lunch and they had had a good time together--I thought I would write after his Tuesday funeral about the good life of William Martin "Bun" Handkins.

How Gerald has enjoyed visiting with Bun and hearing about his work in the coal mines as a very young man--being in charge of the mules down there. Of course, he stayed in the mines through all the later technology. Gerald never came home from Bun's house without having his spirits lifted. Bun would insist on feeding Gerald cashews or something and getting him a drink of ice water. Gerald would try to tell him to let him do it, but Bun wanted to serve him that water--even though the walk to the kitchen sometimes made him shaky.

The last time I visited with him, he was admitting that maybe he needed to accept Audrey and Alan's repeated invitation to come live with them. "If you can't keep care of things, maybe you better move on," he explained. But by the time Gerald visited him next, Bun thought surely he could stay one more winter in his own home that he loved so well.

He would have been 94 at the end of this month, and he still was going up and down the stairs to the basement, riding his tractor, driving his pickup to town, and relishing life. His niece down the road checked on him every afternoon and fed him many home-cooked meals. Gerald will miss hearing Bun brag on brother Kenny's expertise on the dozer and on our son-in-law's crops and straight rows. Not long ago, Bun had made a special stop by McDonald's just to check up on Kenny. We will miss his dropping by the farm. A good life well lived continues to be a joy.

On Sunday afternoon, we got a call about the death of Gerald's first cousin Charlene Givens. She was 79 and had been quite ill for a long time. She was always a favorite. We were saddened all over again. However, like Bun, Charlene had lived a very useful and full life and had loved many people and made many of us happy with her enthusiasm and concern. I will never forget her smile nor her laugh.

Then, however, we learned of the death of a young man in a truck accident on Sunday morning. He left behind a wife and baby girl. Although we had never met Collin Petty, we knew his parents and sister. When our granddaughter rented his grandmother's former home, Collin had been kind to her. We had prayed for Collin's daddy when he was so ill.

Many years ago, we had grieved the tragic accident of his aunt's young husband Joey Rumfelt down in the Ware community in the Mississippi bottoms. Joey was Ken and Opal's nephew and the cousin of our children's cousin, and he too left behind a young wife and baby. Ware Baptist Church was so crowded with mourners that I remember thinking what if the floor caved in.

Now this family had to go through all this again. Our hearts ache for them. The death of those of us who are at the end times of our lives is both appropriate and expected, and we often consider it a good thing even as we grieve. (When my adored father died, I really was not even able to allow myself to fully grieve for a couple of years because when I would start to grieve, I would feel selfish for wanting him to stay on earth.)

But it is much more difficult to process the unexpected death of a young parent and a beloved son who we feel has so much to live for. We have had too many of these difficult accidents in our area as well as the loss of our young service people in Korea, Viet Nam, and now Iraq. When I work on family history, I do not feel sad about the deaths that I record of older people. Oddly, I don't think we ever quite get over the sadness of those who die young.

We find ourselves still grieving for Charlene's mother who died of a stroke at age 26 when Charlene was only four. I still grieve for my mother's mother who died when my mother was six. No, that is not exactly correct. I grieve that my mother and siblings had to grow up without their mother. It meant so much to Mother when she visited Uncle Henry in the Mt. Vernon hospital and went in to help a patient in the next room who was calling for a nurse who did not come--and Mother found out that elderly person had known her mother! Such a small tie--but it meant a great deal to one deprived of a mother.

I still grieve the death of Gerald's uncle Oard Glasco, who was murdered before any of us were even born. A bunch of rowdies crashed a teenage party. (And I sometimes grieve for those rowdies, who were never convicted but had to live with this knowledge all their lives.)

Our children always grieved the death of Gerald's baby brother Clay, who died before Gerald or his siblings were born. Elijah Clay Eiler carries his name. I comfort myself that those who die young do not usually have to experience the grief of death of their loved ones--nor any other of life's hardships or illnesses they might have had to experience if their adulthood continued. It is important to realize we better express love and appreciation while we can. Those are the memories we cherish.