The discovery came later in the evening as we sat around our dinning room table getting to know each other. We were with new friends and enjoying a wonderful meal in our home. It was warm and comfortable – and then the information hit us like a sludge hammer.Our new friends had told us about the impact that a funeral had upon their life this past week. It had been a great tragedy for their family. The funeral had followed a wedding that was a wonderful blessing to them. Both the wedding and funeral were connected.
A quick thumbnail description (if that is possible) may help you to understand.
At the wedding the Bride’s mother received a call that her Brother’s wife was not able to make the wedding because of an illness. She was mildly confused by this. Her brother wasn’t able to be there because he was in Dubai serving in his job as a Canadian overseas… but his family was coming to the wedding.
After the wedding the news poured in. The brother in Dubai had been killed in a pedestrian/auto accident – hit as he was crossing a fast moving street to get a taxi.
Our new friends described the fact that the new widow’s father had traveled to Dubai with his daughter to help with the expatriation of her husband’s body. Folk in Dubai will not talk/communicate with a woman in any way.
The story was very moving but it was not yet ours.
One small comment and then a question brought the story home to our table with a huge blow. The father of the new widow is our neighbor that lives 10 feet to our north. For the past few weeks our friends to the north have lived through a nightmare that few Canadians will ever see or know. Tragedy has hit very close to home with the loss of their son-in-law. We knew nothing of this.
Our new friends, sitting at our table, were cousins to this deceased man.
What a small world – but a close one. One moment it was a story… the next it was ours.
Yesterday…
I told the story of “Peterborough’s Last Hanging” and the power of the story on my senior friends at the New Friends group. In the story was the powerful part of the churches of Peterborough ringing the bells late at night for at least a half hour when some one was hanged.
I am quoting myself here…
“As I paused in that part of the story, everyone was thinking deeply. It had happened in their life time. I asked if anyone in the group had heard the bells. There was nothing but silence in our group.”
In the group of Thursday afternoon there was silence as they listened – and then considered responding.
The mark of a life well lived is the depth of the experiences each has had. The group that sits with me each week laughs and tells stories – each one having suffered a deep loss. The remarkable thing is that each started again.
Two Thirds of the group is widowed. Some were widowed early and some were widowed after many years of rich married life.
Yesterday…
Beverly Eckert, 57 years old, passed away suddenly and violently in a horrific airplane accident just across Lake Ontario in New York State. All day we listened to the reports as they poured in. 50 People had lost their lives.
For the past 7 years Beverly Eckert has lived as a widow. Her husband Sean had been killed in the disaster of 9/11 in the Twin Towers. She had been speaking with Sean on the telephone right up to the minute that he died.
Yesterday she had been traveling to Buffalo on her husband’s birthday to do something in his honor when the tragedy struck.
Dubai – Buffalo – Peterborough areas swirl in my head today.
Pause…
This morning early I was informed that I should go to the movies today with my grandkids. The world is a swirl at this moment and my mind is tired… I need a happy movie today… I really do.
~ Murray Lincoln ~
Consider…
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gg-YLC_ftKYyYuM9jEbsny3R9F9QD96AT3VO1
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/587645
Crew saw ice before crash
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/587009
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