Oh Death, Where Is Thy Victory?
I never met the elderly lady who took two hours of my day today. She lived alone in a small trailer set in a small yard in an older section of town at the foot of our mountain. Her trailer was heated by a small wood stove. Her husband is in a nursing home where she probably should have been, too. In the front yard, an old Ford pickup was parked at an angle with hay in the front seat and spilling out the slightly opened door to the ground. Bushes crowded close in around the walls of the old trailer so thick it was hard to walk around the trailer.
Now I never will meet her, for you see she burned to death this morning, and there was nothing I could do to help her, nothing that I or any one of the dozens of firefighters and crews who responded to the scene could do. Death apparently came suddenly before the fire actually started burning her body so the Lord apparently allowed her to mercifully die before the fire touched her.
There were more high-ranking police and fire officers than I have seen in quite a while. Her death brought her more attention than she probably received in her lifetime.
Was she ready for her life to be taken? I certainly hope so - and I hope we are, too.
Dad's Gone, Part 1
Many commentators have written that 2005 has been an unusual year - of course, it is not over yet. But some reflections about the year might be in order. It's been a year of unusually large storms, surging waters, shaking earth, and personal tragedy like the death of my father.
Our tragic set of events began with a call to my dad from a lady "friend" who wanted him to pick up something for him at the store. He got in his little green Dodge Neon and whisked down the mountain. He went around a curve on Highway 30 leading to Dayton about 50 mph when to his horror he noticed a car driven by a 92-year-old lady, a Mrs. Glenn, swinging into his path. It was over in a matter of minutes. His Neon was hit on the driver's side, the air bags deployed, and he heard his neck snap. The Neon was slammed into a third vehicle waiting at the entrance to the back road to Graysville; it slid 87 feet down the ditch and came to rest.
The police came, and so did the fire brigade, our sister fire unit 765. Dad was transported to the hospital where he complained that his neck hurt. Meanwhile the son of a former Laurelbrook staff member, Jose Zamora, saw the wreck and called the school. My wife Nancy answered, realized what was going on, collected our son Donnie, and headed for the Rhea County Hospital. Donnie and Nancy saw my dad before he was loaded onto a LifeForce heliocopter for a quick trip to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. He would not leave the hospital alive.
I first saw him in Erlanger's Shock Trauma ICU unit that evening. Doctors had his head in a brace with pins going through the skin to his skull. An intern carefully explained to me in the office what had happened to him and showed me the x-rays. The doctors seemed upbeat about his condition.
For the next 2 1/2 weeks, our daughter Annette, Donnie, and Nancy and I visited him along with his personal pastor (Wayne Coulter) and my pastor (Larry Owens). The nurses were great, and things seemed to be going well. We heard that the hospital had gotten him up, that he might be transfered to a nursing home providing skilled care, that it was a matter of time before he would be better.
That euphora ended on a Wednesday evening. His lead doctor had requested that I call or set a time to come down as they had some matters they wished to discuss with me. We set a time for that Wednesday evening so it wouldn't interfere with our teaching schedules - after all, the hospital had made a matter of little urgency. I requested we have a private conference with the doctor first to get an idea of what was going on and then talk to Dad afterwards. When we got there, the nurse ushered us into Dad's room where the doctor awaited us. With no warning, the doctor started answering questions Dad had asked that we didn't even know existed.
The answers were a shock. Basically, Dad was paralyzed from the neck down, could not breathe on his own, could not feed himself, and probably could not talk. As the doctor continued to talk, I took his nurse into the hallway outside the room and asked what was going on. Then the doctor came out, and for the next 45 minutes I struggled to find out what was going on. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternal argument, the doctor mentioned that Dad wished to die and have our blessing on his wish. I found out later that as the heir I could override his living will if I so choose.
We all went back into the room, and each of us assured Dad that we would honor his wishes. Annette assured him that next thing he would know would be the sensation of standing in heaven next to his beloved wife Celia May. As I left, I told him good-bye.
The next afternoon Nancy and I went down to the Coulter-Garrison Funeral Home in Dayton, found out how much it would cost to have Dad cremated, withdrew the necessary amount ($1380) from his bank accounts (I had power of attorney at that point), and made the final arrangements. It was one of the very few times that I have known Nancy to voluntarily skip classs in order to do something. At this point, we didn't know when or if his death would occur. All this time I had been updating the school's web site as to his condition - we didn't know how many would be interested.
That evening as I was working on the computer, Nancy took the phone call from Donnie. His grandfather had passed away at 7:15 that evening.
The next day we completed the arrangements for the cremation. Then we began to make plans for the service, which was finally held on November 15 in the Laurelbrook church. We also took his will down to the courthouse to have it probated as per instructions from the Georgia-Cumberland Conference Association attorney. We were told that we had to have an attorney and go through a formal probate because he (1) owned real estate (i.e. a house), and (2) had made bequests to Laurelbrook and to the Decatur church where he was a member. We tried to find an attorney, thinking that light paperwork was involved. It wasn't light as we found out when we finally engaged an attorney and met with her December 15 (we had passed up an appointment on November 14 in order to have time to think it over). Meanwhile we closed out his accounts and made arrangements with the veterans affairs people to get a flag, to get a headstone, and to get any benefits he might have coming to him.
Nancy meanwhile had been in contact with Allstate Insurance, the insurer for both Mrs. Glenn and Dad. At this point, we have been told to expect the medical bills to be paid, the car to be paid for, and a "substantial" amount beyond for Dad's loss. Of course, this doesn't bring him back.
One of my duties at Laurelbrook involves helping oversee student activities every third weekend. This past weekend - December 17 - the remaining students were to go to the Ogden Road church just down the road for a musical evening in which some of them would participate. Unfortunately, Mrs. Glenn chose to attend.
