Today marks a sad day on many levels. One is the news that Richard Wallace passed away. The sad part of this news is that his wife wasn’t home with him when it happened. She’s flying in today. Richard was a great professor, so incredibly intelligent and a gift to this community. He will be missed.
Another level is more personal. I’m going to try to be cryptic because if I’m not I won’t be able to write…not that most close to me won’t be able to figure out but whatever…and I’m not even sure I should anyway because I don’t want a flocking emails and phone calls. I really am okay, I don’t need to hash things out; it’s just things tend to find their way into my brain at the most inopportune times. It’s just one of those things that happened moments ago. Anyway…
Four score, minus 9 years, minus 5 ½ hours ago at this moment last words were spoken. I think we all knew what was going to happen, but hope was trying to stay strong. It turned into a long roller-coaster weekend of emotions, ups and downs, hopes lifted, hopes shattered, and a culmination to something we knew deep down was coming but just didn’t want to let go.
The amazing thing was looking back and seeing the gift he gave us and had been giving us over the past year. It was like he was preparing us or something. He was finally doing things we had asked him to do over the years – fixing his teeth, siding the house, etc. he had been working frantically trying to finish things up. I know to a point he was sad he didn’t get to finish the house as he had planned but that worked out in the end too. The public outpouring of support and help was astounding. The final gift he gave us was doing what he had sworn he would never do…and in return we reciprocated with the only gift we could give. It still saddens me we had to make that decision, but thank goodness we had all understood his wish. Conversations previously made it much easier.
1 comment:
we read your blog and grieved with you. isn't it wierd how it surfaces at strange times? the cool thing, though, is that when it happens to me i usually come to some greater sense of peace or clarity about something, even my own grief process. it's like watching a wound heal. our minds and our emotions do the same, invisibly.
no worries here.
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