Saturday afternoon - Memorial Service
May. 3rd, 2003 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivecatsThis afternoon we went to a memorial service for the wife of my friend who died last Sunday. The woman officiating was the woman who had married them 20+ years ago.
It was a very brief service. There was a call for people to come up and share their memories of her but only 3 people chose to do so. We sat in the far back where it was hard to hear, but there were several people around us who were clearly too broken up to have gotten up to speak in front of everyone.
We ended up in a line to talk with my friend and his daughter after it was all said and done. The line was like a surreal receiving line at a wedding, only this was comprised of people who were going to express condolences.
My friend looked like he was holding it together better than he was earlier in the week. Bonnie thought he looked like he was having a hard time, which I'm sure he was, but he was still far more together than when I'd last seen him. The difference, I believe, is that when I saw him he was without his daughter, probably for the first time since the accident. With us he didn't have to keep it together for her sake. At the memorial service he was, IMHO, clearly keeping himself together for the sake of his 16 year old daughter
It was good too see so many people there from work. Not only were there a number of us tech-types, but a number of people whose computers he supported.
He says the job is toxic to him and I believe that for him. I'm just not sure he's aware of how many people's lives he has touched for the better at work. I have had the chance to work pretty closely with him at times and to count him amongst my very small circle of expressly trusted friends. Of course I'd show up and I'd expect several other people (the guys he shares an office with, his "boss" on the government side) but there were a number of other people who had driven a long way from the other side of the triangle to express their sorrow at his loss and to show him that he's been important in their lives.
At one point during our conversation earlier in the week he had said he wanted to have a wake for himself one day, but to be around for it. He wanted to hear what people thought about him the way he was hoping to have people talk about his wife. I hope he learns one day that he was given a glimpse of that this afternoon.
When we arrived we were handed pieces of paper and pens. Early in the ceremony we were asked to write about a memory of his wife for he and his daughter to be able to read later. I had only met her once, and that was while Bonnie and I were doing CenterFest in Durham. The thing that struck me about the three of them as a family was how close they were and how comfortable they were with each other. They truly loved each other and loved being there together as a family. I see lots of families walking by at shows and they're rarely together with their kids in a relationship where everyone really just wants to be hanging out together. They were different. Unique.
He's very scared about being a single parent without his wife to lean on. Having seen them together -- and then seeing he and his daughter come back alone to check on an opal necklace Bonnie made -- I could tell the love between father and daughter was genuine and long-lasting.
I know these are hard times for them both. I have been praying for them both daily, but I also know that they have a bond that is deeper and stronger than these hard times and that will see them through this.
So that's what I wrote them.
...
It was a very brief service. There was a call for people to come up and share their memories of her but only 3 people chose to do so. We sat in the far back where it was hard to hear, but there were several people around us who were clearly too broken up to have gotten up to speak in front of everyone.
We ended up in a line to talk with my friend and his daughter after it was all said and done. The line was like a surreal receiving line at a wedding, only this was comprised of people who were going to express condolences.
My friend looked like he was holding it together better than he was earlier in the week. Bonnie thought he looked like he was having a hard time, which I'm sure he was, but he was still far more together than when I'd last seen him. The difference, I believe, is that when I saw him he was without his daughter, probably for the first time since the accident. With us he didn't have to keep it together for her sake. At the memorial service he was, IMHO, clearly keeping himself together for the sake of his 16 year old daughter
It was good too see so many people there from work. Not only were there a number of us tech-types, but a number of people whose computers he supported.
He says the job is toxic to him and I believe that for him. I'm just not sure he's aware of how many people's lives he has touched for the better at work. I have had the chance to work pretty closely with him at times and to count him amongst my very small circle of expressly trusted friends. Of course I'd show up and I'd expect several other people (the guys he shares an office with, his "boss" on the government side) but there were a number of other people who had driven a long way from the other side of the triangle to express their sorrow at his loss and to show him that he's been important in their lives.
At one point during our conversation earlier in the week he had said he wanted to have a wake for himself one day, but to be around for it. He wanted to hear what people thought about him the way he was hoping to have people talk about his wife. I hope he learns one day that he was given a glimpse of that this afternoon.
When we arrived we were handed pieces of paper and pens. Early in the ceremony we were asked to write about a memory of his wife for he and his daughter to be able to read later. I had only met her once, and that was while Bonnie and I were doing CenterFest in Durham. The thing that struck me about the three of them as a family was how close they were and how comfortable they were with each other. They truly loved each other and loved being there together as a family. I see lots of families walking by at shows and they're rarely together with their kids in a relationship where everyone really just wants to be hanging out together. They were different. Unique.
He's very scared about being a single parent without his wife to lean on. Having seen them together -- and then seeing he and his daughter come back alone to check on an opal necklace Bonnie made -- I could tell the love between father and daughter was genuine and long-lasting.
I know these are hard times for them both. I have been praying for them both daily, but I also know that they have a bond that is deeper and stronger than these hard times and that will see them through this.
So that's what I wrote them.
...
