KevinCole509.com

-Note- Due to the rather delicate nature of the content, I waited three months after I wrote this to post it.  I just thought it would be good for some time to pass for the family involved before hitting “publish.”

Life is full of pop quizzes. If you wing it instead of take time to prepare along the way, you’ll never be ready. But you can only prepare for so many different specific things, not EVERY eventuality.

That’s why you learn and practice principles, rather than memorize pat answers. I was reminded of that today when a friend walked in the door and told me that his son – just in his early 20s – passed away suddenly this morning.

He was passing by the office and had to get away from everything that was going on. He knew it was safe so he came in. His walking through that door today was one of the most sincere, heartfelt compliments we have ever received.

I was in the back, up to my eyeballs in bookkeeping, when he dropped by. I had twelve seconds to figure out what to say before I got to the front.

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May was hard.

Never been so glad to see Summer arrive.

Autumn has always been my favorite season. Except for maybe “Summertime is Here” by War and the Charlie Brown Christmas CD, the best songs are written about Autumn.

Before my Mom’s passing in May started a couple of blog posts down paths not originally intended, I had just finished a post that made it sound like I had given up on community/communities, but promised that the NEXT post would provide a few concrete positive things that anyone could do to make this “getting worse all the time” society a little better. The next post, however, was about losing Mom.

More than three months down the line Dad is doing well, but I am still not up for getting back into that discussion (soon, I promise!) so onto other things – for now…

I have had two weeks to process the fact that my Mom will never answer the phone or open the front door again. She is gone and a recording of her voice or a picture of her is of little comfort – what mattered was her presence. And she’s present somewhere else. Not here.

One sobering thing about reading the Bible is that you find out what it actually says. When you rely on someone else writing their interpretation of someone’s idea of what it could possibly mean if God didn’t really mean what he said but might’ve meant if he were a really ENLIGHTENED God like they have in California or some TV channels, then there’s a lot of wiggle room and you can make the book fuzzy, warm and comfortable.

There are all kinds of little secrets waiting for you if you really read the actual book. Like this one: God doesn’t owe you an explanation.

Seriously.

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So yesterday was “someday.”

Not a happy someday, but we’d known it was coming for quite some time: the day that the aneurysm my mom carried at the base of her brain finally cut loose and she left us.

The thankful, appreciative, mature side of my brain is saying, “We got five more years – and very important years – that not many years ago would’ve been lost to loved ones. Thank you, Lord. Appreciate that gift.”

The rest of me – and it’s a bigger chunk than I’d thought it was by now – is still sucking air. Or trying to. It doesn’t feel like there’s much to be had.

I got the first call around 1PM if I remember correctly. Dad had a FAST message for me. “Mom collapsed at lunch. Rick and Kitty are here. The medics are taking her to Holy Family.” I asked, “Is she okay?” He said, “She’s stable.” I said, “Be right there.”

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…you will be thirty years paying off the construction loan.

I know. That isn’t how you thought that would end. The usual – thanks to a goofy movie of some years ago, is “If you build it, they will come.” A really cool, vaguely mystical, cheerily hopeful statement. But largely a stack of dog poo from a real world standpoint.

I live in a community that has a lot of that “vision/mission yourself into a new future” BS going on. It’s led to some ridiculous prices being demanded for real estate and a lot of borrowing/spending that has kept the local economy propped up – so far.

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