Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

We made it through today. I’ll get the negative out of the way first; we had a reception for an hour prior to the service. A very bitter, angry relative arrived and when I saw they were not greeted or greeting anyone I walked over to them. Their backs were to me so I placed my hand on this relative’s shoulder. Moved my hand just a bit so that I would make sure he knew someone was there. Seconds ticked by. I tried again. And again.

Did I mention that he’s a very angry, bitter man? I doubt he knows why either. It is his character.

Still no response so I called his name; TWICE. He finally turned, took a step back and as the daggers came out of his eyes he sneered, nodded, spoke just my name and took a step back before turning away. OK, this is HIS problem, not mine. Later we did compare notes to see whose reception was the coldest by him. It varied between cold and frigid. I’m glad he did come though and hopefully it will help him have closure.

I was shocked when a Delaware friend arrived. She drove 4hrs to be there to support me, and she did just that.

The church service was beautiful-even though I told myself that I was not going to cry—crying was never an acceptable form of expression with my parents. But I cried as soon as the music, Beautiful Savior, started. Music does that to me.

Pastor Greg had a beautiful sermon and it really was helpful. He spoke of how we were there to remember Dad but that it was fitting we also remember those persons who lost their lives six years ago on September 11th. (My immediate thought was, where the heck is he going with this? He also did not know that for most of 9/11 I thought my DH was on one of the planes. I thought of that morning while he went on.) How these men and women had faced an evil that day in NY, and DC and over a Pennsylvania field. He spoke of evils for a bit, fictional ones and quickly mentioned discussions he had with ScienceKid two weeks ago regarding a science fiction book SK is reading. (They did have some lengthy book conversations so it was nice how he tied that in, but I was still wondering where he was going with this) .

Then he moved to how he only recently learned that Dad had been a medic in WWII and toward the end of the war liberated concentration camps. That he had seen and faced an evil young in his life but though few knew of this, it greatly affected the man we all knew. He spoke a bit about Dad’s character before pointing out that when faced with the evil of cancer he fought. He did not just give up (that very angry, bitter relative had urged Dad many times to do just that) but he fought with all he had, prayed for a miracle, knew one would come and recognized the little ones that came along that gave him more time to be here, continued to fight this battle and only relinquishing his fight quickly when all was lost. (ahh, thank you I said, he did fight with all he had because ever giving up was not what he taught us)

We had a luncheon at the church for all those folks there and then my sister had all the out-of- town folks back to her home for drinks and deserts. We did a bit of sharing family stories and connecting with each other.

I can’t remember all the folks who came to me and commented on how wonderful ScienceKid and MilitaryKid were; how pleasant and polite nice young men they are, what a wonderful job we are doing raising them….and the comments about ScienceKid (most from school teachers no less) OH MY!!! One woman told me “it is not often where we see such a bright child, and a child who is also able to communicate and converse to adults; and to have the two together!   His social skills are excellent, and even more so for someone his age.” Another told me, “he started a conversation with me and it was such an enjoyable conversation. He is such a pleasure and delight to be with.” …… Ahhh, makes up for all those years and years of negative comments about his lack of social skills, about hs’ing ruining him, how I didn’t know how to parent……… You all know these things but for me it is an area where I know these things too, but it is reassuring to have the confirmation about these things from acquaintances. They didn’t need to seek me out to tell me these things, but they did and it was a wonderful way to finish a difficult day.