Dusting Myself Off

Four long months, two fast weeks. Four months ago tomorrow my father-in-law entered the hospital and two weeks ago tomorrow he died. I know the last two weeks passed rapidly for me because so many things had to be done quickly. This included two memorial services, one in Fort Collins and one in Denver, as my father-in-law lived in Fort Collins for only the last eight years of his life and in Denver for decades before that.

Something happened during the Fort Collins memorial which will stay with me even though I did not witness it. My father-in-law's World War II uniform jacket, along with the American burial flag he received for being a war veteran, lay on the steps leading up to the altar. When the services ended we, the family, were led out of the sanctuary and then the other mourners followed. One older man did not follow but headed toward the altar and when he got there he stood at attention in front of the uniform and saluted. Two other older men saw this and one at a time they also walked up to the altar, stood at attention, and saluted. It was a wonderful gesture that causes me to tear up as I write about it now.

The memory that will stay with me from the second service again happened after the service was over. The second service was shorter and ended with my husband's father's ashes being interned with his mother's ashes at the family church in Denver. We the family were the only people still there when the crypt was sealed and the old memorial stone replaced. My husband's sister-in-law read the old stone and said she had not remembered that her mother-in-law had died on Halloween. The man who had resealed the crypt and replaced the stone said his mother had died on Halloween, too. Then we discovered, not only had his mother died on Halloween, she had died the same night as my mother-in-law. As you can imagine, this bit of information caused us to pause and wonder just who brought us all together so many years later.

So, live is slowly returning to...I was going to write the word normal but death is a normal part of life so I won't. My life is slowly returning to the rhythms it operated at before my father-in-law's illness and death. My memories of him are now embedded in the fabric of my life which means, although he is physically gone, he will always be a part of me. I feel honored to have known him.