Bye Bye to my Sweet Daddy
I used my laptop on the plane to jot some notes to add to this blog when I got to it, which is now so I will paste it in below.
Progress on my house continues. We are suppose to have 3 sunny days in the 70's so they may work thru the weekend, don't know. The workers missed several days due to gloomy weather and of course Tuesday which is a NATIONAL HOLIDAY here. School is out, streets closed off for parades, even the state highway for a while. Mardi Gras is a BIG DEAL here in case you were not aware. I missed it being in Memphis, where no one but me even mentioned it. I wore some little gold fleur-de-leis earrings to Daddy's just to see if anyone noticed and commented about Mardi Gras. They didn't.
Funeral notes: Several church going close friends who attended the very formal service, .... who happen to also be active Christians thought the funeral sermon was a little long. They mentioned getting 'restless'. Of course I would never tell Momma that as she was delighted with it. They also thought the preacher's emphasis on Momma and Daddy's three dead grandchildren was a little over the top in terms of making a sad occasion as sad as possible. Momma told preacher and former pastor of her's , Ronnie Stephens, to "Preach the Gospel" so he made sure that he did. For about 40 min.
They also expressed frustration in not having any opportunity to see or speak to any family members. Understandable as plenty of people went to a lot of trouble to come to the funeral, and plenty from out of town too. I asked momma way back when , couple months ago, when she told me how she wanted the funeral to be handled, "What about the close friends who want to see you?" she said "Tell them to show up at the house in a couple of weeks and bring food then"...
Motorcycles are roaring outside. My next door neighbors are here from out of town in full force. Some older guys, nice guys from around B'ham mostly, who own the house next to me on Hardwood. I went out to say hi. Told them I thought it was thundering :o)
OK now--plane text pasted in:
Blogging from up on high. I'm in the air, flying back from Memphis to Mobile after Daddy's funeral. Momma had planned out the funeral some time in advance. It was just the way she wanted it but not necessarily what we children would have planned. No visitation either before or after the service, one rather formal hymn, and long on sermon. It was fortunate and unexpected that Momma's and Daddy's favorite and former pastor was in Memphis from his home in Budapest. He did the funeral which just 'made Momma's day'....
The rain and tornadoes held off so it was nice and warm and dry at graveside where only immediate family was there at Memorial Park. Momma and Daddy had gone ahead and bought a couple of plots up front near Brewer and Harry's Dad's graves.
Cary, my sister from Knoxville had flown in to Memphis a day or two before Daddy died. When his breathing became very shallow the skilled nursing dept called in the paramedics and ambulance. etc to take Daddy to the hospital but Cary stopped them from doing that. No matter how many 'do not resuscitate' and 'no feeding tube' orders you give or sign off on, if you are not on site when the time comes, they are gonna ignore your wishes. It happened twice, once in hospital and at The Village. Anyway, when Momma and Cary woke up the next morning, Daddy had died in the night. Poor Daddy was so bad off the last few months, worse all the time, so it is a real blessing that he went like this.
I am sitting next to, or maybe we are in the same seat, hard to tell, very small place, a black girl with a bad cold. But she is being considerate and facing her window for all the cold related activity and most of the flight.
I feel lucky to be on this plane. When I went over to the Village library to print my boarding pass, I discovered that my NWA reservation had evaporated. It took me a while to locate a phone number, and I had to jump thru phone hoops till I started pressing zero repeatedly and a human answered. Coming to Memphis, I drove for aN HOUR And half to Mobile and was in thick traffic when I got a call from NWA that said my flight out was canceled. I spent the day at Mobile airport. They put me on a flight out about 4:30. I tried to get them to give me some FF miles and the best I could do was getting a voucher for $10 at the airport snackbar. They were out of onions, so no hamberger or hot dog for me. They wouldn't let me get aq magazine, so I got a 25 cent bag of hot and spicy cheks-mix for $3.00 of it and two Baby Ruth's with the rest. I took those to Momma for a surprise. I sat at a snack bar table for a couple hours re-doing my address book that I brought along just in case there was an occasion such as this. It is full of outdated 20 yr old entries.Or was.
I asked the NW voice this morning that if a outbound flight is monkeyed with due to cancellation, etc..if the return flight reservation was auto-canceled and she said no, but could offer no explanation for mine being deleted. She said Shit Happens...no, not really :o) But anyway, I'll remember in future to ck in at desk and reconfirm return flight reservations if my outbound is ever canceled again.
There were tornado sirens most of all late yesterday aft in Memphis area and a slew of real tornadoes really did tear up some stuff, kill people and do a bunch of horrible damage.
Here is another tip....on this flight, just now, I found out that the male stewardess did not make w/ refreshments to the rear of the plane and he apologized on the microphone. But...I had hot steaming coffee in row two....so ask for front of plane seat on a tiny hot dog plane.
Progress on my house continues. We are suppose to have 3 sunny days in the 70's so they may work thru the weekend, don't know. The workers missed several days due to gloomy weather and of course Tuesday which is a NATIONAL HOLIDAY here. School is out, streets closed off for parades, even the state highway for a while. Mardi Gras is a BIG DEAL here in case you were not aware. I missed it being in Memphis, where no one but me even mentioned it. I wore some little gold fleur-de-leis earrings to Daddy's just to see if anyone noticed and commented about Mardi Gras. They didn't.
Funeral notes: Several church going close friends who attended the very formal service, .... who happen to also be active Christians thought the funeral sermon was a little long. They mentioned getting 'restless'. Of course I would never tell Momma that as she was delighted with it. They also thought the preacher's emphasis on Momma and Daddy's three dead grandchildren was a little over the top in terms of making a sad occasion as sad as possible. Momma told preacher and former pastor of her's , Ronnie Stephens, to "Preach the Gospel" so he made sure that he did. For about 40 min.
They also expressed frustration in not having any opportunity to see or speak to any family members. Understandable as plenty of people went to a lot of trouble to come to the funeral, and plenty from out of town too. I asked momma way back when , couple months ago, when she told me how she wanted the funeral to be handled, "What about the close friends who want to see you?" she said "Tell them to show up at the house in a couple of weeks and bring food then"...
Motorcycles are roaring outside. My next door neighbors are here from out of town in full force. Some older guys, nice guys from around B'ham mostly, who own the house next to me on Hardwood. I went out to say hi. Told them I thought it was thundering :o)
OK now--plane text pasted in:
Blogging from up on high. I'm in the air, flying back from Memphis to Mobile after Daddy's funeral. Momma had planned out the funeral some time in advance. It was just the way she wanted it but not necessarily what we children would have planned. No visitation either before or after the service, one rather formal hymn, and long on sermon. It was fortunate and unexpected that Momma's and Daddy's favorite and former pastor was in Memphis from his home in Budapest. He did the funeral which just 'made Momma's day'....
The rain and tornadoes held off so it was nice and warm and dry at graveside where only immediate family was there at Memorial Park. Momma and Daddy had gone ahead and bought a couple of plots up front near Brewer and Harry's Dad's graves.
Cary, my sister from Knoxville had flown in to Memphis a day or two before Daddy died. When his breathing became very shallow the skilled nursing dept called in the paramedics and ambulance. etc to take Daddy to the hospital but Cary stopped them from doing that. No matter how many 'do not resuscitate' and 'no feeding tube' orders you give or sign off on, if you are not on site when the time comes, they are gonna ignore your wishes. It happened twice, once in hospital and at The Village. Anyway, when Momma and Cary woke up the next morning, Daddy had died in the night. Poor Daddy was so bad off the last few months, worse all the time, so it is a real blessing that he went like this.
I am sitting next to, or maybe we are in the same seat, hard to tell, very small place, a black girl with a bad cold. But she is being considerate and facing her window for all the cold related activity and most of the flight.
I feel lucky to be on this plane. When I went over to the Village library to print my boarding pass, I discovered that my NWA reservation had evaporated. It took me a while to locate a phone number, and I had to jump thru phone hoops till I started pressing zero repeatedly and a human answered. Coming to Memphis, I drove for aN HOUR And half to Mobile and was in thick traffic when I got a call from NWA that said my flight out was canceled. I spent the day at Mobile airport. They put me on a flight out about 4:30. I tried to get them to give me some FF miles and the best I could do was getting a voucher for $10 at the airport snackbar. They were out of onions, so no hamberger or hot dog for me. They wouldn't let me get aq magazine, so I got a 25 cent bag of hot and spicy cheks-mix for $3.00 of it and two Baby Ruth's with the rest. I took those to Momma for a surprise. I sat at a snack bar table for a couple hours re-doing my address book that I brought along just in case there was an occasion such as this. It is full of outdated 20 yr old entries.Or was.
I asked the NW voice this morning that if a outbound flight is monkeyed with due to cancellation, etc..if the return flight reservation was auto-canceled and she said no, but could offer no explanation for mine being deleted. She said Shit Happens...no, not really :o) But anyway, I'll remember in future to ck in at desk and reconfirm return flight reservations if my outbound is ever canceled again.
There were tornado sirens most of all late yesterday aft in Memphis area and a slew of real tornadoes really did tear up some stuff, kill people and do a bunch of horrible damage.
Here is another tip....on this flight, just now, I found out that the male stewardess did not make w/ refreshments to the rear of the plane and he apologized on the microphone. But...I had hot steaming coffee in row two....so ask for front of plane seat on a tiny hot dog plane.
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