Just ten years ago.
If I thought the last year went fast. Well, the last ten have gone by in a whoosh. All those cliches about time healing -- they're pretty true. Mostly. Maybe not healing. Softening might be better.
On Monday, October 28, 1996. 4:55 pm
I got the 5 minute phone call that changed my life.
My nephew call me at work.
Why would he be calling me at work. At 5 o'clock?
He was calling to ask if I knew anything about the accident that put his dad, my brother, Tom, in the hospital. I knew nothing. But, boy, would it all be revealed.
Here's a recollection from 1999:
Today. Perfect. Weather wise. The kind of day that makes Minnesota worth sticking with. Perfect light. Trees glowing. Ground covered with leaves. Made certain spots luminous with light. Oh, to be able to capture it with a camera.
- Three years ago this week, my brother was lying in Ramsey {now Regions} Hospital, Intensive care, dying.
Now, a full ten years later, it's not any easier to write about it, or to think about it.
Tom's life was intense and hard -- so far from perfect. Filled with work and working out problems. Divorce problems. Money problems. Caring for his boys, filled with exuberance and energy. Trying to always do the right thing. Trying to get ahead, but never quite making it. Dying, for Tom, was just as hard as the living.
A beautiful fall day in Minnesota. Working outside. Energetically clamboring up the scaffold to help a buddy. Forgetting safety first. One misstep. A fall. A second to wonder what happened.
Ipsis, Domine, et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis, ut indulgeas, deprecamur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ, grant, we pray thee, a place of refreshment, of light and of peace. . .
As The Feast of All Saints (November 1) and All Soul's Day (November 2) approach, let us remember those who have gone before us and sleep the sleep of peace.
Listening to: The Chieftains
posted by MadgeMc at 9:47 PM
3 Comments:
Thanks for your post-- all teary at work now. But essential to remember.
I had just arrived at college, a freshman in DC the month prior. I flew home as soon as I could. He was a special man (uncle, dad, brother, son). It was crazy to me to be with my dad and try to grasp that his brother was gone.
It still is.
It's good to have our family.
xo justine
wow, way to get me all teary eyed at work! The pictures are great. I actually remember being on the dock with my little finggie in the water trying to get the minnows to come up.
I'm with you, Margaret--so strange the coincidence that 10 years ago--Oct. 25, 1996--I received a phone call from my dad, who said, "Tom died." I fell on the floor--I thought he meant my brother Tom who was in the Air Force. But he meant my uncle, my godfather, who died of Leukemia at age 51.
Ten years goes so fast. I miss my Tom too.
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