The Circle Of Life

As we stood at the grave site, it was hard to believe that just 3 days ago we pulled out of Crystal River, Florida headed out to begin our Route 66 adventure.

We got the phonecall about 30 minutes after we hit the road, my daughter-in-law was on the other end of the call and said we needed to come to the hospital where her father had just had open heart surgery 3 days before.  Husband, father, grandfather and our friend had taken a turn for the worse and was not expected to make it another day.

We made it to the hospital only 10 minutes before the end.  There was a heaviness in the air as family members grasped to make sense of what had just happened.  The room full of family somehow made the pain slightly better, barely tolerable, and rapidly turning into numbness.

Three days later we buried our friend and left to drive into the night headed for the baptism of our youngest grand daughter in North Carolina.  We arrived around 3 am and sacked out.  We were back up by 7 to get ready to head to church.  The Baptism, held at a Catholic Church in Downtown Durham, was a beautiful event with all the ceremonial pomp you would expect.

Later that day we reflected on how in just 24 hours we experienced the “Circle Of Life” from the funeral to the baptism.  As I pondered how this happened as we started our new adventure I found a very small splinter of peace with it…

My daughter-in-laws father was my friend and I’d like to share a couple things about this wonderful human being.  He was the quintessential Boston Red Sox fan.  He was one of the most welcoming people you’d ever expect to meet.   He was a family man!  I thought about society today and thought for a moment that we just took a step backwards, that the world is a little less friendly with the loss of my friend.  But then I remembered the beautiful new child, my Grand Daughter that we just shared in the baptism with and felt a comfort that maybe not all is lost!