So many people enter and exit our lives — school students, roommates, relatives, friends, significant others. What a gift it is to have someone so noteworthy in our lives that their absence causes grief. At the same time, I could do without zombie apocalypse dreams, tear tracks on my children’s cheeks, and his daily absence.
There’s an obituary in our Sunday paper. If you search post-gazette obituaries, you’ll find him. That brief statement on his life cost $300 and as I was drafting it, I could hear Ken in my head, castigating me for spending money on something as ridiculous as an obituary.
While I agree with “his” protest against such outlandish pricing, I do believe his life deserves better than those brief words. I’m working on another version, which I will publish on the blog shortly. I started it with him when we first learned that he was at end stage but it’s hard to write. My heart is empty of hope and the words are in short supply.
The memorial celebration is scheduled and, as the obituary states, all of his friends and family are welcome. We’re holding the event where we got married, the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh (Morewood at Ellsworth) from 6-8:30PM on Saturday, April 29th. Our pitbull will be home alone, awaiting any and all opportunities to eat trespassers (if you’ve ever met our pitbull, you know that’s not a joke) so don’t worry that we’ve announced our absence from home in mentioning the memorial.
The memorial celebration food will be things that Ken loved — which means it is highly likely that there will be salad and broccoli, at a minimum. We’re also going to have a cookie table. Ken wasn’t much for sweets but I am! And if there was ever an occasion for stress eating cookies …. (Want to send or bring cookies? Of course, you can. Just let me know how I can help.)
We’d love to see all of you and to meet those of you who knew Ken but not his family. Come and join us: grab a plate of food, share stories, look at all the pictures we’ve already pulled into albums and put into frames, and help us celebrate a wonderful life.
