Sunday, June 22, 2008

A Death in West Virginia

Josh and I arrived safely in Ft. Worth on Thursday Evening....well really it was in the very wee hours of Friday morning. It took us a very long time for us to find a hotel with any vacancies -- a convention of some type was in town and they took up all the available rooms in close proximity to downtown. It so happened that we wound up a little bit away from downtown in a wonderfully quiet COURTYARD by Marriott not far from the base that my son will be working on.

He checked in and as it turns out, is not required to fully report for duty until Monday morning. In the meantime, he and I have been having a good time just hanging out and exploring his new environs. He's about the age I was when I moved to the DC area...so I can relate quite well with all the stuff he is probably going through emotionally.

Laura, from Nashville, went to see her grandparents in WV this weekend. She arrived on Friday evening and is going to be returning this afternoon. She phoned me yesterday to say that one of my dad's three surviving siblings passed away yesterday...and he is taking it pretty hard.

This was my Uncle John, who had been in pretty poor health for quite sometime. Here recently he's been shuttling between a nursing home and the hospital. In some respects, his passing is probably a relief to all his immediate survivors. His son Johnny died last year. This means that he only has one daughter surviving him. My goodness, my heart goes out to her.

All this leaves me to wonder about whether I need to go to the funeral with my dad. I'd fly home tonight....get in the car tomorrow.....and drive back there....and stay a day or so.

I'm pretty exhausted from having spent so much time on the road this past week. I just need to find out when the arrangements are scheduled.

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