Feb 2017
My dear
Family,
Last month started out with a funeral,
don’t panic, it was no one you would know.
In fact, I didn’t know him either.
A 6’ 5” built like a giant (l-a-r-g-e shoulders, overweight, long feet)
40 year old black man lived in South Carolina but his family was from
here. He died unexpectedly from a heart
attack and his family wanted him buried in CT.
Of course. I would want my
children close to me. The interesting
thing was that he was the only member of the church in his family. His bishop in SC contacted our bishop for the
favor of taking on this task of doing a funeral for someone no one had ever met
and our ward was happy to do it. Bob and
seven, yes seven, other men were asked to dress the body. His temple clothes had been sent and it took
every last one of them to lift and turn.
The funeral director even had the men help him put this man in the
casket. Usually there are larger caskets
for larger people but this was an ordinary casket so they ended up bending the
knees and turning him slightly to the side to position him just right. For some reason I was put in charge of the
meal after the funeral. That was fine. My RS president had put out a sign-up genius
list and people were very supportive.
The day of the funeral one sister called to say her children had gotten
sick so she could not provide a crockpot of soup or the rolls she signed up
for, the person that was going to help me set the eating area up left a message
on my phone that she had not slept well the night before and so could not help,
the table clothes in the cabinet were all mismatched and dirty and wrinkled and
two of the crockpots were half full of soup.
Originally we were told that there would be about 25 people that needed
to be fed but at the funeral we counted over a hundred people. Oh, great.
My RS president is a woman who sees things clearly so she asked me to
bring back a crockpot, carrots, onion, crushed tomatoes, spices and bullion
when I came back with my iron. She ran
to the store to get some meatballs, French bread and white plastic table
clothes to go over the stained cloth ones.
I ironed all the tablecloths I could find, made the soup during the
funeral and set up as many tables as I had cloths for. We ended up feeding 54 people on four
crockpots of soup with not even a ladle full to spare, there was three scoops
of salad and four cookies left after all was said and done. The best part was the appreciation of the
family. They were so gracious and
appreciative of what the church had done for them. Bob found a baptism program in his temple bag
where he had been the baptizer.
Obviously it had meant a lot to him.
From the comments made by the bishop it sounded as if this man was very
loved by his ward. I hope people feel
that kindly about me at my passing.
Guess I have some improving to do.
Now that we have a temple we get to have
ward temple night. It is wonderful. Our first date was Jan 13th and I
was so looking forward to it. When the
day actually came I felt very distraught and out of sorts. My brain found too much to glom onto and I
was a fitful mess. I couldn’t stop
crying. That was the beginning of the
flu for me. I think this was the real
flu and not just an intestinal thing. I
couldn’t teach my marriage class on Sunday; I did the prep work, handed it over
to Bob and said, “You’re on! And thank
you very much but I need to get back to bed.
Just leave the ginger ale and crackers on the night stand.” I had to babysit Monday for the other
nanny. I took the kids to a playplace at
McDonald’s and let them exhaust themselves.
Rest time in the afternoon found me dozing. In the afternoon we came to my house so I
could make dinner and see Bob (he had taken the day off). I leaned on the counter a lot. After talking to Chris and seeing a chance
for a little therapy, I talked her into getting me a buddy pass and I flew to
Georgia for a week to help her organize her home in preparation to her putting
it on the market.
Thank you, Chris, for helping out my head
and heart. I flew to Georgia Thursday
morning and we were working by the afternoon starting in the basement. We decluttered the bedroom, emptied the
closet, patched holes, cleaned out the food closet, toy closet which got moved
to the family room, furnace room, took down the old TV holder off the wall and
hauled stuff to the car or the upstairs.
It was a great day for me. The
rest of the time was spent in kind with lots of trips to donate to a recycle
prom dress shop, dress-ups for the high school, and things to a second hand
shop. When I left the attic was
organized and sectioned off for things Ruth wanted to sell at a garage
sale. We went from bottom to top. There shouldn’t be much for Chris to worry
about. Oh, I needed that.
Bob had a birthday, shout hurrah! He is one year older and wiser, too. I couldn’t come home until the day after his
birthday but I made sure he got his birthday cake. He couldn’t eat it the first day, but the
second day he found it to his liking. We
were hoping he would miss out on getting sick from me, but the day before I
left he started coming down with the chills and nausea. Before I left for Georgia I had tried to make
some meals he could eat while I was gone but he felt awful. The whole time I was gone he would go to work
for a few hours and then go home and sleep, eating a yogurt for all his
nutrition for the day. Poor man. The flu took forever to get over and we were
glad to send it on its way.
Emma has changed jobs. Same company, different work. The Toyota dealership she works for asked her
if she would like to move to another department where she would be getting
people’s cars ready for them to pick up and “delivering” them, which just means
you do paperwork, teach them about the car and hand them the keys. She wanted to know if this meant a pay raise,
they said no, so she said, no thank you.
They came back to her a few days later and said, okay, we will give you
a dollar more an hour, and she said, yes.
So now she dresses up each day to go to work. I think she likes that instead of wearing one
of their T-shirts and a pair of black pants each day.
I have rambled on too much. We have had a mild winter this year so
far. Teaching the Marriage and Relations
class has shown me more flaws that I need to work on. I am not discouraged but hopeful that I may
be a more pleasant person to live with.
I am grateful for the Lord and the gentle ways he keeps encouraging me
to carry on, don’t give up, I am here to help you. I love you all and am grateful for your
strength and example of perseverance.
With the Lord’s help we are going to be just fine.
Love,
Bob, Ruth
and Emma Jane-Jane
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