My Grand Adventure

I've been absent here for a while, and that demands an explanation.

My dear friend Connie Wolfe has been caring for her father for the last four years. It has been difficult to watch her struggle with his descent into dementia and becoming the "parent" to her father. However, she persevered through it all, and after he suffered a stroke, it looked like he had to go into a care facility. That was a heart-breaking decision. Ultimately, because she had suffered a back injury and could not lift him, he was placed in one, but the standard of care was not up to snuff, and Connie brought him back home. She employed one of her sons to be his grandfather's nighttime caregiver so she could get some sleep, and prepared to carry on.

Papa died on Sunday, August 2.

On Monday, after learning of the event, I called to offer Connie anything I could do for her. She hesitated for a moment, then asked if I would accompany her back to Nebraska for the graveside service. She needed me because she was going to transport her father's body to lay it beside his wife. As she understood it, she would need to drive straight through, because the body could not be left unattended. I was to be her relief driver.

A side note here. Papa had often worried that the family would not be able to afford to get him back home to be buried. Connie told him, "Dad, don't worry about it. If I have to put you in the back of the car and drive you there myself, you'll be buried beside Mom."

That's exactly what transpired. After going over the transport options, the local funeral director said, "Don't you have a van?" Connie does, so he went outside and measured the interior and declared that the casket would fit. He got the necessary transport permit for her, and then she asked me to accompany her, since neither of her sons could go.

Of course I accepted immediately. I made a few arrangements, canceled some stuff, threw a few things into my suitcase, and drove off to Mesa for the funeral on Wednesday. After a day of rest and planning, we (which included Connie's brother and his wife in another vehicle) arrived at the mortuary early on Friday morning to pick up the casket. We also learned that we COULD stop along the way to sleep, as long as the van was locked. "Unattended" applied to transporting a casket in a pickup, but especially since the van's side and back windows were dark enough to obscure the contents, there was no problem.

We were on the road by 6:30 a.m., and drove to Oklahoma City before sleeping. The next day we headed up through Kansas, and arrived in Weeping Water, Nebraska, late that afternoon. We were met at the local mortuary, where we ascertained that Papa had made the journey without a problem.

After we handed off the mortal remains of her father, I sensed that Connie was relieved at the completion of the responsibility. We spent some time at her brother's home, then drove the 20 miles to another town to our motel.

We don't recommend the motel where we stayed.

At church on Sunday, Connie learned that the graveside service had morphed into a full funeral at the mortuary. Later, at her brother's house, she asked me to sing a duet with her of the same hymn that had been sung by a men's quartet at the Mesa funeral. We decided how we would sing a men's arrangement with two women's voices, using one mini-hymnbook and a full-sized one. Then we scrambled to find an accompanist, but had no chance to practice with her that day (we're talking about a congregation being spread out over many miles in Nebraska, not like the square mile LDS wards in the Mountain West). We arranged to meet her at the mortuary a few minutes before the viewing to go over the hymn.

At the mortuary, we discovered that the organ didn't work. The funeral director called his wife to bring their keyboard from home. I don't know how far away home was, but it took almost until the end of the viewing for it to arrive. Consequently, we didn't get a rehearsal with the accompanist.

The funeral--and the musical number--went well, and everyone followed the hearse a few blocks to the cemetery. It was a lovely place, tree-shaded and peaceful.

After spending time with her family, and loading a bicycle into the van for the return trip, Connie and I were on the road again, this time heading for Omaha and further adventures.

To be continued . . .