Perspective

Tonight I attended the visitation for a colleague of Sam's and mine.  He was a father of three young children, and he passed away on Thursday.  I had heard that he was ill a few years ago, and then one semester we taught in the same classroom.  His class began after mine, and I was sometimes still wrapping things up on the lectern computer when he came in.  I remember that rather than stand there while I packed up and we chatted informally, he needed to sit down.  His face bore the signs of his struggle; his eyes were sunken in the (I shudder to say) cadaverous way of those in the end stages of such a battle--yet his eyes were lively and kind and determined.

I think maybe I was pregnant with Gillian at that time?  In any case, that was a few years ago.  Then I saw him this past fall, and he looked so well--I would never have believed that someone could look so well after having looked so ill, and it was so moving to see what appeared to be his abundant health (it was at a faculty meeting, and I found myself crying when I saw him.  At the mercy.).  But apparently on the last day of classes, as I was shepherding my capstone students through their rehearsals for their presentations and wishing I had had time to bake but buying cupcakes and at the same time feeling like only one of my classes really deserved baked goods anyway and then being surprised that my seemingly less (let us say) scholastic class seemed to be warm and happy on the last day--just then, he'd gone back to the hospital and things had gotten very, very bad, and he was gone by Baccalaureate.

And I'm so, so sorry for his wife, and for his young children.  He had them at the same age that Sam was when we had our children, so it would be wrong not to recognize that my sympathy for the wife has a kind of horrified identification in it (widowhood being one of the things I most fear/dread in life.  I'm not at all a dependent wife, but my happiness and security in life is quite bound up with my identity as wife, I must admit.).

Even as this is going on, though, I have to say that I've also been touched by how our friends have gone out of their way to look out for me and the kids while Sam is gone.  To be honest, I hadn't really thought of it as that big of a deal--of course I would miss Sam, but in a given week, I handle each part of the kids' day on my own at various times, so in my mind, it would be just a matter of stringing those together.  But today our dear friend and benefactress (in so many ways!) A came over just to provide companionship, hang out with the kids, and help out in any way, and she stayed with them while I went to the visitation.  Another incredibly kind colleague is going to mow our lawn on Saturday, since that was the one task that I really didn't think I could manage myself and we hadn't been able to find a service.  I'm especially grateful for this favor because lawn mowing is all at once something I detest and something that would be logistically very hard to pull off with three small children including a non-walking baby (what would I do with them while I mowed?  I was seriously considering having to do it at night, but for the condensation . . .).  JS has offered (not really the right word--"learned of my need and insisted upon" is better) burning some precious vacation hours to watch my children so I can attend a conference--not to mention hosting my now-sizable brood for 5 days over the holiday weekend.

In all, it was a day to make even a pretty distracted person pause to be humble and grateful.