ROGER AND BARB REMEMBERED

This morning I was up bright and early and then off to the stadium to assume my volunteer ticket taker duties at commencement exercises.  I believed someone who told me that it was going to be sunny and warm and dressed accordingly.  It was cold, cloudy and blustery.  As always seems to be the case, I had some strong memories of way back in 1964 when I received my M. A. Degree at the stadium and Lyndon B. Johnson was the speaker, not too long after he had succeeded the assassinated, John F. Kenney.  On that occasion he announced his War on Poverty.  A sweet, happy time in spite of our sorrow over the killing of John F. Kennedy.  Gwen was there, as were my folks, maybe other family members, I don't remember.  

Today was different.  There were probably in excess of 40,000 people in attendance, and many of them hadn't read the rules posted outside the stadium and in an e-mail sent to them; specifically the rule about purses not being allowed in the stadium.  Maybe the cold and my being terribly under dressed for it contributed to  the insight I had while patiently explaining to a matronly  woman that, "yes, I'm happy that you and your husband contribute much to the university, and it's only a small purse, and it's such a long walk back to the car, but, these are the rules that all must obey."  No Purse.  Usually people are understanding, and the husband or boyfriend always gives a cursory "I told you so," and they head back to their cars. In this instance the woman and her husband left in a huff, taking into question who my parent may have been, and promising to talk to someone about this.  As they left, the insight arrived: "You have a Masters Degree and a Doctors Degree from this university, and here you are, shivering in the cold, being insulted by a well-intentioned but misinformed person.  This makes no sense at all."  Perhaps it's time to reassess where I will put my volunteer efforts in the fall.  I'm quite certain I'll be watching UM football on TV, not as a volunteer usher.

The nostalgia for the past that I experienced while at the stadium prompted other more recent memories.  On my walk back to my car I remembered Roger and Barb, who were in the first support group that Gwen and I attended in the year after she was first diagnosed.  Roger is a retired UM professor, and Barb was a retired teacher with the Ann Arbor Public Schools.  We became quite good friends with them, and this morning I remembered a chance encounter with Barb in a hardware store a couple of months before she died of ovarian cancer.  We attended her funeral, and afterwards I was moved by a little story that Roger told about the  night Barb died:

ROGER AND BARB REMEMBERED

 At the funeral, Roger told us a story

about how, on the night Barb died,

he was driving home from the hospital,

when he saw a deer, on the side of the road.

He stopped to let it cross the road.

Traffic piled up behind him.

I imagine car horns were blown.

Roger told us how, when he got home,

he rushed into the house,

anxious to tell Barb about the deer.

Then, he told us that,

of all the people at Barb’s funeral,

he was most glad to see us.

We were part of his and Barb’s life.

We would understand his story.

We did.

  

John A. Bayerl

July 26, 2007

Those now precious times when you were with me, Dear, are such a source of warm memories, even though they make me cry.  I can see us sitting at a table in the church basement listening to Roger tell that story in his geeky, birdwatcher way. We both cried then.