This morning, as I sat here posting about my Aunt Sugar, with my cell phone sitting right here by the keyboard, the hospital called, twice. And my Sprint cell phone didn't ring either time. When I noticed the message and returned the call, they said she had taken a turn, and probably would not live another hour. The day has been a blur since then, racing to the hospital to find her already passed away, waiting with her until the funeral home came to remove her, calling the attorney to see how I could get all this stuff done without have any papers authorizing me to do so, going thru her apartment looking for a will, a life insurance policy, any funds to help pay for a funeral, etc. To her bank to learn that she had not put me on her accounts as she had planned to do. Then to the funeral home to start making plans. One more important stop I made was Sprint, where the phone worked perfectly every time they called it. Incredible. I miss my Aunt's call for help because of this stupid phone. Then I miss the hospital's call that she is going fast because of this phone. And then it behaves perfectly when I go in to complain about it. I wonder why Sprint is losing market share?
Please visit my Aunt's memorial page on
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=crawford&GSfn=virgie&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=23571426
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
My Aunt Sugar
She takes my phone calls and seems glad enough to gab for a few minutes. I pester her with questions about the past, she being the oldest living relative on my Mom's side. She has a remarkable memory, and she is brutally honest, doesn't hold back a thing.
But she never calls me. Never. Not once. Until December 23, 2007 at 12:44 pm. I had commented to hubby that I had forgotten to turn my phone off during church, and how glad I was nobody called during the service. After church, we went out for Chinese, and as I sat enjoying all my favorites at the Peking Restaurant, my Aunt Sugar tried to call me.
Unfortunately, my phone never rang, and she didn't leave a message. I always check my messages. Regularly. But I never check my missed calls. She is on the missed calls list.
Then about noon on Christmas Eve, NKC Hospital called to say that they were looking for kin of Virgie Belle Crawford, my Aunt Sug. My phone never rang, but when I returned the call, they informed me that she was there, brought in by ambulance that morning, and was full of cancer. Liver, breast, and lymph nodes. She probably had just a few days left. There was nothing they could do for her except try to control the pain.
Aunt Sug was so weak and near death when they found her in her apartment. They tried to ask her questions. Finally they understood she was trying to say "Claussen from Lawson". She repeated it several times. Finally she responded with my first name, and the paliative care nurse googled me. I am all over the internet, and was easy to find. At the same time, the social services fellow, David, called Aunt Sug's apartment manager to see if she had next of kin on her rental paperwork. No, but the assistant manager knew Julie, a good friend of Sug's, to whom Aunt Sug had given my phone number just a few months ago, as an emergency contact.
So, that's where we are now. Aunt Sug, the strongest and most independent of the 3 Crawford sisters, is at the end of her road. She is too far gone, and the pain medication has taken her too far away, for me to talk to her about Jesus. As young girls, the 3 sisters were taken to church by their grandparents. All 3 were probably baptized in the grandparents' church. As older youth, they briefly lived in a Catholic home and attended school there. Sug has heard the Good News; I just don't know if she ever accepted Jesus as her Savior.
Sug worked hard all her life. At hard jobs. She ran large presses and machines, doing jobs mostly considered mens' jobs. She only retired a few years ago, working well past the 62-65 age where most hope to retire.
The deaths are coming too fast, too close.
2006 May 5 Brother, Benny Lee Fox, age 50
2007 Jul 8 Best Friend, Joe Harrison, age 56
2007 Jul 20 Jason Logan, age 30, customer, friend, and "adopted" son
2007 Nov 28 Good Friend, Glenn Thompson, age 58
It has been a very hard 18 months.
But she never calls me. Never. Not once. Until December 23, 2007 at 12:44 pm. I had commented to hubby that I had forgotten to turn my phone off during church, and how glad I was nobody called during the service. After church, we went out for Chinese, and as I sat enjoying all my favorites at the Peking Restaurant, my Aunt Sugar tried to call me.
Unfortunately, my phone never rang, and she didn't leave a message. I always check my messages. Regularly. But I never check my missed calls. She is on the missed calls list.
Then about noon on Christmas Eve, NKC Hospital called to say that they were looking for kin of Virgie Belle Crawford, my Aunt Sug. My phone never rang, but when I returned the call, they informed me that she was there, brought in by ambulance that morning, and was full of cancer. Liver, breast, and lymph nodes. She probably had just a few days left. There was nothing they could do for her except try to control the pain.
Aunt Sug was so weak and near death when they found her in her apartment. They tried to ask her questions. Finally they understood she was trying to say "Claussen from Lawson". She repeated it several times. Finally she responded with my first name, and the paliative care nurse googled me. I am all over the internet, and was easy to find. At the same time, the social services fellow, David, called Aunt Sug's apartment manager to see if she had next of kin on her rental paperwork. No, but the assistant manager knew Julie, a good friend of Sug's, to whom Aunt Sug had given my phone number just a few months ago, as an emergency contact.
So, that's where we are now. Aunt Sug, the strongest and most independent of the 3 Crawford sisters, is at the end of her road. She is too far gone, and the pain medication has taken her too far away, for me to talk to her about Jesus. As young girls, the 3 sisters were taken to church by their grandparents. All 3 were probably baptized in the grandparents' church. As older youth, they briefly lived in a Catholic home and attended school there. Sug has heard the Good News; I just don't know if she ever accepted Jesus as her Savior.
Sug worked hard all her life. At hard jobs. She ran large presses and machines, doing jobs mostly considered mens' jobs. She only retired a few years ago, working well past the 62-65 age where most hope to retire.
The deaths are coming too fast, too close.
2006 May 5 Brother, Benny Lee Fox, age 50
2007 Jul 8 Best Friend, Joe Harrison, age 56
2007 Jul 20 Jason Logan, age 30, customer, friend, and "adopted" son
2007 Nov 28 Good Friend, Glenn Thompson, age 58
It has been a very hard 18 months.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Glenn's funeral
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23162464
Not a funeral really, not even a visitation really. More of a gab party. Old acquaintances reconnecting in person due to Glenn. Gayla, Camilla, Diane Goodfellow, Darlene, Louella Prettyman, Mike Tucker, Majel Ladd, Linda Grado. Disappointed that Jean Ponds, Robert Vadnais, Dennis Evans and Edna Hough couldn't make it. They all meant so much to Glenn.
Poor Janet, she is really all alone now.
Not a funeral really, not even a visitation really. More of a gab party. Old acquaintances reconnecting in person due to Glenn. Gayla, Camilla, Diane Goodfellow, Darlene, Louella Prettyman, Mike Tucker, Majel Ladd, Linda Grado. Disappointed that Jean Ponds, Robert Vadnais, Dennis Evans and Edna Hough couldn't make it. They all meant so much to Glenn.
Poor Janet, she is really all alone now.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
My friend Glenn died this morning :'(
My friend Glenn died this morning. He says we met in college, about 1969, but I don't remember him being there. It's embarrassing to have been that self-absorbed. Then when I hired on at Commerce Bank, there he was. He was a difficult person. A grumbler. Never satisfied. Critical. After getting a few promotions, being responsible for him as my employee, I found him to be a pot-stirrer, a gossip. The work relationship was difficult. After about 25 years, Glenn left the bank, and I left in 1996. Then a few years ago, I get an email from him asking if I was the Deb who used to work at Commerce Bank. And it was as if we had never had a cross word. I apologized for some of the hard times I had put him thru at the bank and he quickly brushed it aside as nothing. While he never apologized for how he acted back then, it was clear that he had changed, and it seemed it was important for me to know it. I think it was his way of saying he was sorry.
We have emailed literally every day since he found me. Sometimes just silly jokes, weather gab, encouragement for me to start walking. But usually we revealed little bits and pieces of our lives since we lost touch, and about our current adventures. He was never anything but positive, compassionate, and pleasant.
Not too long after we started emailing, I asked Glenn about God, his feelings about and relationship with Jesus. He wasn't too sure. Had a Pastor friend who had been talking to him quite a bit about the Lord. But he really didn't think he believed all that stuff. I started working God into a lot of my emails, testimonies about what the Lord had done in me, for me, and thru me. Glenn listened. Our mutual friend Jean also bent Glenn's ear about her Lord & Savior. Glenn's emails gradually became more and more pro-Christ. All of his emails for the past few months have included blessings and praises and gratitude to God. He had become a man of prayer, praise God. I never asked Glenn to pray the the sinner's prayer, but I saw real evidence of a conversion.
On 10/14, after a few days of not hearing from Glenn, I got this email "sorry i havent written i guess iam sick cancer am in hospital will write more later please pray for me i am a fighter glenn"
30 days ago, he was out washing his van. Today he is dead.
How long has Glenn known he had cancer? I suspect he knew 3 years ago, when he started fervently seeking out long-lost acquaintances. He found people from his old childhood neighborhood. He found his best friend from high school. He found dozens of coworkers from the 70's and 80's. He found me. And I am so thankful he did.
I am awed that in 3 short years, this man was able to totally undo all the negative impressions from the past, completely rehabilitate his image, rewrite his legacy, and most importantly, get right with God.
We have emailed literally every day since he found me. Sometimes just silly jokes, weather gab, encouragement for me to start walking. But usually we revealed little bits and pieces of our lives since we lost touch, and about our current adventures. He was never anything but positive, compassionate, and pleasant.
Not too long after we started emailing, I asked Glenn about God, his feelings about and relationship with Jesus. He wasn't too sure. Had a Pastor friend who had been talking to him quite a bit about the Lord. But he really didn't think he believed all that stuff. I started working God into a lot of my emails, testimonies about what the Lord had done in me, for me, and thru me. Glenn listened. Our mutual friend Jean also bent Glenn's ear about her Lord & Savior. Glenn's emails gradually became more and more pro-Christ. All of his emails for the past few months have included blessings and praises and gratitude to God. He had become a man of prayer, praise God. I never asked Glenn to pray the the sinner's prayer, but I saw real evidence of a conversion.
On 10/14, after a few days of not hearing from Glenn, I got this email "sorry i havent written i guess iam sick cancer am in hospital will write more later please pray for me i am a fighter glenn"
30 days ago, he was out washing his van. Today he is dead.
How long has Glenn known he had cancer? I suspect he knew 3 years ago, when he started fervently seeking out long-lost acquaintances. He found people from his old childhood neighborhood. He found his best friend from high school. He found dozens of coworkers from the 70's and 80's. He found me. And I am so thankful he did.
I am awed that in 3 short years, this man was able to totally undo all the negative impressions from the past, completely rehabilitate his image, rewrite his legacy, and most importantly, get right with God.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Long overdue
The 3 most important things I have acquired during my genealogical research are stories documented by my ancestors.
My great-grandmother Ada Belle Crawford kept a diary of the first few years of my grandfather's life. Handwritten on precious hard-to-come-by pieces of notepaper pinned together at the top, and a lock of grandpa's bright red hair (from his first haircut in about 1904) sewn to the paper, along with a scrap of the fabric from his first "dress". What a treasure!
Another cherished find was a story documented by great-grandmother Minnie Myrtle Harmon Fox about relocating her family to rural Nebraska during a blizzard, in which she and 3 children became lost, one my grandfather Harold. After being found and rescued in the nick of time, she and the children all suffered for days, the two youngest near death from hypothermia. They survived but lost all their fingers.
The 3rd treasure comes from Herm's grandmother, documenting their 1896 travel by conestoga across NE back into Iowa, where the family settled for good. Details about things like digging a hole in which to cook biscuits glitter on every page.
So, why have I not yet started documenting important stories to pass on to my descendents? Time, as always, is my best and worst excuse. Dread, of starting and not finishing. Awe, of how significant the above 3 stories are to me, yet none exceeds 10 pages. Fear, of filling volumes of cyberspace pages with details that won't mean anything to anyone but me, of appearing silly and insignificant to future generations. Concern, that I will invest time in this endeavor that perhaps nobody will ever see, when I have so many other things I should be working on.
But here we are, we have started. Who is this we? We are the Christian woman; the Mom of Travis & Trent; the wife of Herm; the sister of Ken, Ben* and Steph; daughter of Kenneth* and Jo Ann Crawford* Fox; friend to many (hopefully they all know about this LOL), T-shirt and sign business person, the community volunteer, the cattle farmer, the prairie enthusiast; owner of Little Annie (great pyrenees), Blue (blue heeler) and Red (red heeler); the genealogist, the cemetery documenter (aka Graver), the wannabe quilter and wannabe painter and wannabe grandma. I reserve the right to jump at will from one topic to another, without warning. So if you attempt to read this blog (aka diary), I guess you'll have to wear your neck brace and guess which person is talking!
So, welcome to my long-overdue blog. It will bore most of you to tears. But hopefully, something here will survive me, into the future, into the hearts of my descendents, or others who might shares some of my interests and experiences.
Praying God's richest blessings to all,
Deb
PS: * denotes deceased loved ones
My great-grandmother Ada Belle Crawford kept a diary of the first few years of my grandfather's life. Handwritten on precious hard-to-come-by pieces of notepaper pinned together at the top, and a lock of grandpa's bright red hair (from his first haircut in about 1904) sewn to the paper, along with a scrap of the fabric from his first "dress". What a treasure!
Another cherished find was a story documented by great-grandmother Minnie Myrtle Harmon Fox about relocating her family to rural Nebraska during a blizzard, in which she and 3 children became lost, one my grandfather Harold. After being found and rescued in the nick of time, she and the children all suffered for days, the two youngest near death from hypothermia. They survived but lost all their fingers.
The 3rd treasure comes from Herm's grandmother, documenting their 1896 travel by conestoga across NE back into Iowa, where the family settled for good. Details about things like digging a hole in which to cook biscuits glitter on every page.
So, why have I not yet started documenting important stories to pass on to my descendents? Time, as always, is my best and worst excuse. Dread, of starting and not finishing. Awe, of how significant the above 3 stories are to me, yet none exceeds 10 pages. Fear, of filling volumes of cyberspace pages with details that won't mean anything to anyone but me, of appearing silly and insignificant to future generations. Concern, that I will invest time in this endeavor that perhaps nobody will ever see, when I have so many other things I should be working on.
But here we are, we have started. Who is this we? We are the Christian woman; the Mom of Travis & Trent; the wife of Herm; the sister of Ken, Ben* and Steph; daughter of Kenneth* and Jo Ann Crawford* Fox; friend to many (hopefully they all know about this LOL), T-shirt and sign business person, the community volunteer, the cattle farmer, the prairie enthusiast; owner of Little Annie (great pyrenees), Blue (blue heeler) and Red (red heeler); the genealogist, the cemetery documenter (aka Graver), the wannabe quilter and wannabe painter and wannabe grandma. I reserve the right to jump at will from one topic to another, without warning. So if you attempt to read this blog (aka diary), I guess you'll have to wear your neck brace and guess which person is talking!
So, welcome to my long-overdue blog. It will bore most of you to tears. But hopefully, something here will survive me, into the future, into the hearts of my descendents, or others who might shares some of my interests and experiences.
Praying God's richest blessings to all,
Deb
PS: * denotes deceased loved ones
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