1. Everett's Celebration of Life this morning was months in the making. Christy devoted countless hours to very carefully setting the date and time, deciding on the music she wanted performed, making decisions about the music that played before the service began, sorting through hundreds (thousands?) of pictures and assembling a slide show, planning and executing the service's display at the front of the church, purchasing flowers, going over the details of the reception, especially with Carol, assigning pews to family members, printing a program, and planning all the other details of today's service and reception.
As today grew near, my anticipation grew and so did my fervent hope that everything would fall into place.
It did.
Today's service was a perfect memorial to every facet of Everett's life.
Everett was a devoted Christian and the service vibrated with prayers speaking to Everett's faith, gospel music, and testaments to his faithfulness. The service paid tribute to Everett as a father with stories and pictures and a poem Christy wrote that attested to his love of his children, and, in turn, his love of grandchildren and great grandchildren. We had some good laughs, too. Everett loved to tell jokes and say funny and clever things. If it's possible to capture the whole of a person who lived as fully and as long as Everett did (90 years), I think this Celebration of Life came as close as humanly possible to helping us all relive Everett's love of so much in his life: the Lord, his family, Christy, the many animals in his life, his many labors, being in the outdoors, making people laugh, being of service to others, country and gospel music, his memories as a young guy growing up in the Methow Valley and Chelan, and more.
I'm not quite ready to post the service's program, Christy's poem, the prayers I gave, bible passages I read, nor the eulogy I gave. I need to do a some light proofreading of my electronic copies. When I do post them, I'll announce I've done so on Facebook and will email the link to all the subscribers to this blog.
2. On Friday, when I attended Norman Knott, Jr.'s service at the Greenwood Cemetery, the sunshine was edging toward brutal. All of us in attendance gravitated toward any shade we could find.
I bring this up because, on Friday, I was feeling some low level anxiety about the early afternoon reception planned in Carol and Paul's back yard after our celebration of Everett's life.
Oh, my! Was that bit of anxiety ever a waste of feeling!
Not only is Carol and Paul's yard handsomely shaded by trees, the early afternoon sky featured a light cloud cover. The sun was out, but the clouds filtered both its glare and its direct heat. Not only that, the weather granted us further reprieve with a series of refreshing breezes. In other words, it was a perfect afternoon outside.
I loved being in the company of so much good cheer.
I loved being in the company of Everett's family, the many graduates of Kellogg High School, of a variety of ages, older and younger than Christy and me, Professors Walter Hesford and Elinor Michel who are longtime friends of Christy from the Univ of Idaho, some friends of Christy and Everett's from her days teaching at Inchelium, cousin Lura and her husband Lyle from the West/Baugh branch of our family tree; I was very happy that stepson Patrick and his girlfriend, Meagan drove from Portland to pay their respects and it was fun to have Carol and Paul's whole family present with Zoe, Cosette, and Molly on hand.
I thought the service, even though it was a Celebration of Life, opened up ample room for people to weep as they mourned the loss of Everett and gave people in the mood to celebrate Everett ample room to do that. The reception continued the spirit of celebration with plates of ham, turkey, and beef slices, croissants to use for sandwiches, a wide variety of salads (provided by members of PEO), other food items, and a generous wine bar, as well as plenty of water and lemonade. The peak of the reception occurred when Paul raised a toast to Everett in remembrance of his firm handshake. To Paul, it was as if Everett were passing his strength on to the person whose hand he shook and, at the same time, assuring the other person that things were going to be all right.
Once again, Christy, with Carol and Paul's help, put many hours of thought and planning into this reception and all that work was rewarded by seeing how happy the attendees were with the food, wine, and one another's company.
3. It turned out that officiating Everett's service wore me out, in a good way. I came home from the reception and took a very satisfying nap. I'd thought about going to Coeur d'Alene to purchase a crowler or two of Kellerbier at Trails End Brewery, but I just didn't have the energy to do so.
At six o'clock, family gathered again in Carol and Paul's back yard to feast on reception leftovers.
Zoe baked delicious herb seasoned bread to make sandwiches with and Carol baked an awesome strawberry rhubarb pie served with ice cream. Lura and Lyle added to the delicious offerings with a container of blackberries.
Taylor and Cosette live together in Moscow and Taylor has a daughter named Sapphire who is a month shy of turning five years old. She had turned Zoe's makeup bag into a medical bag and used its contents to give medical and dental care to anyone at this gathering who needed a checkup or some medical/dental care.
And, guess what? The weekend of spending time together isn't over yet! As we enjoyed the late afternoon and early evening air cooling off and as we told stories and made wisecracks to make each other laugh, Carol composed a menu for a Father's Day get together at 2:00. Christy, Tracy, possibly Patrick and Meagan, the Roberts family, and I will reconvene at that time for more good food, good cheer, and, I'll bet, a lot of further winding down as this epic weekend comes to a close.
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