I came home this afternoon from my chaplaincy work at Whidbey General to find a half dozen frantic messages on my voicemail telling me that a beloved member of the Vashon congregation had been killed in a car wreck on icy roads this afternoon.
This elderly but vital man was a fixture on Vashon Island, a retired large-animal vet who owned huge Shire horses and lugged kids around in a horse-drawn wagon on every possible island occasion. He knew zillions of poems and would recite them at the drop of a hat, always perfectly, always something appropriate. That voice is now stilled and we are bereft.
It can't be. It just can't.
6 comments:
I am so sorry. How awful.
LE
Thank you so much.
My condolences, Ms. Kitty.
That sounds like, and surely is, a painful loss. I wonder whether your population in the churches you tend is skewed (for instance, a large than usual proportion of retirees) in such a way that a greater frequency of deaths inevitably occurs than in a mainland population with a more usual representation of different age groups. But also, a repeating theme in your comments is the greater exposure on the islands to the elements than occurs in mainland regions with alternative systems for covering the effects of weather, electric outages, etc.
In the meantime, it would seem that your role of community responder to the death might be more difficult to focus because of the broad effect of his loved activities. I wonder to what extent it is possible to enlist the community in such a case; his own community role sounds like it was a very individualized case of what we hope for in general in a community member. In the meantime, the task does come home to you (but you knew that). Although one knows that you can do it, it sounds like this one will be harder than usual because of the very vitality of the person described, and the suddenness of the event. Take care of yourself as well as others.
LinguistFriend
I'm sorry, too.
CC
You know, it's interesting to me (and a source of joy) that in times of terrible loss, people I have never physically met reach out in sympathy, understanding and feeling the pain of someone they only know through lines on a computer screen.
I am very grateful to you all.
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