Memorial Day

My last blog post came 4 days after a life-changing phone call: Mom's voice saying that she was too weak to get up the stairs of my childhood home. By midnight she had passed through the front door for the last time en route to the hospital; within four months her life was complete.

During that time her heart muscle slowly died but in a more important sense her heart did not. Mom was the quietest kind of tough. She endured continuous discomfort without complaint. On the day that the doctors said there was nothing more they could do to reverse her decline, realizing that her life was now measured in days and not weeks, she matter-of-factly said "I guess there's nothing left to do but just wait." Her composure was unsurprising, coming from a woman who once underwent a colonoscopy without anesthetic.

As the heart fails, so do the kidneys, releasing toxins that slowly ebb a person's clarity of mind. I remember the last of our lucid conversations together, nearly a year ago today. I sensed that this would be the final time we said good night to each other. We kissed, and I lingered an extra second in the doorway of the hospital room, making eye contact and waving with a smile.

Mom passed away as she'd hoped, at a wonderful hospice in Barrington (JourneyCare). It was absolutely fitting, a clear spring day with an open window and gentle breezes, the temperature nearing 70 degrees by 9am.

The world keeps turning, and my first year as the oldest McDonald has found me sifting through generations of mementos. From time to time I may post some of them here.

I'd been planning to dive into this project once the school year ended. While I haven't necessarily aspired to return to regular blogging, the last 15 months have been filled with significant events.

June 2016: Sold our Bloomingdale home.

July 2016: Debuted as Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast at Community Players Theatre, a show which broke records for attendance based on % seats-filled. Vacationed at the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

August 2016: My first day as Instructional Assistant Professor at Illinois State University. My first long-term substitute teaching assignment, for David Hallatt of Normal Community West High School.

September 2016: A new record for long-term substitute teaching, for Kate Lawrence of Normal Community High School (5 weeks).

November 2016: Began attending Board of Trustee meetings at the Normal Public Library.

January 2017: Selected to the Search Committee for ISU's Assistant Vice President of Finance and Planning.

May 2017: Completed my 2-year term as Chair of Leadership McLean County's Leadership Skills Committee. Selected to play Grimsby in Little Mermaid at Community Players Theatre. Jack proposed to Kate Willson. Invited to train as instructor for Dale Carnegie Institute.

"Life is short, have fun." How many people from 100 years ago are remembered for even a second today? Buildings and bloodlines eventually end. The goal of lasting personal significance is mostly futile, the prospect of eternal afterlife debatable. And yet there is great truth for me in the thankful celebration of today and the past. I believe that life will be longest and happiest by focusing on today rather than tomorrows.

This Memorial Day, I remember and thank God for my parents Jack and Judy, my grandparents Johnnie, Peg, Frank and Lue, my great uncle Joe and aunt Mae, and the generations of parents before them who sacrificed both here and abroad to provide this life. I intend to make the most of it.