Brought Together

Yesterday I wrote about the weather, but there's more to say today! The wind was blowing when I was in and out of the car after work this evening, and the temperature was in the teens. The high today was only in the twenties, and I think we'll record single digits overnight. Brrrrr! A quick and intense snow shower late this morning caused some roads to freeze and there were two massive pile-ups, one on I-275 and another on I-75 north of town. I was grateful to be in all day.
Spent most of the day catching up on correspondence, handling errands related to being gone last week, and beginning to work through my to-do lists generated by our contributing editors meeting last week. I think my accomplishments would not seem that impressive, were I to list them, but I'm feeling good about progress made so far.

I met Evelyn about 5:30 at the church to offer condolences to Paul Wiener, whose lovely wife Alice passed away last week. The funeral will be tomorrow morning.
"You certainly should have no regrets," I told Paul, who had cared for her in her increasing frailty through most of these years we've gotten to know them since they moved to Mason Christian Village.
"My daughters wrote a long obituary," he told us. "And I learned things about Alice in that obituary I never knew before!" As usual with Paul, and even at a time like this, there's laughter and a wry outlook on life.
"I hope you're able to rest," I said to him.
"Oh, yes," he answered, "but I don't sleep that well. I'm up several times every night. And I've been reaching across the bed for Alice, and she's not there."
He said it matter-of-factly, but I tried to move the conversation along without showing he had brought tears to my eyes.
We had plenty of laughter in the hallway outside the chapel, though, talking with Jeff and Martha Hill and Terry and Judy Tabor, former White Oak Christian Church friends who go to church in Worthington, Ohio, now.
Verna Weber stayed overnight with us last night, because she came to town to visit her mother yesterday and this morning. She made the trip to tell her mother that her mother's only living brother had passed away. She said Mildred was sad.
We had fun catching up with Verna, though, and watching "Downton Abbey" together.
Life and death--they bring Christian friends together in unexpected ways.