random.on purpose.

One More Update

One more "Chris" post, and then I'll move on...

In case you thought I was making it up that Chris was a "footprints in the heart" kind of guy, consider this: His calling hours were from 4:00 to 8:00 Thursday.  We got there just before 5:00, and there was a line out the door of the funeral home of people waiting to go in.  It took us over an hour to wend our way through the two rooms where they had pictures and videos of Chris and the receiving line of his family - brothers and sisters, wife, son, stepdaughter, parents.  When we came out, the line was twice as long as when we went in.

Every fire department in our county and the surrounding counties sent a contingent of firefighters in full dress uniform (white gloves and all) to pay their respects, as did every single ambulance unit.  People that he's done work for came, and all of his friends (many, many, many of those).  They had to have policemen directing traffic and stopping traffic for pedestrians to cross, because they had to use the parking lots of all of the surrounding businesses - the funeral home didn't have enough room for everybody.

I have never, ever seen that many people turn out to pay their respects to someone who wasn't famous.  It was incredible, and yet not surprising.  Chris just had that effect on people.  Never a harsh word for anyone, an open-door policy at his home, ready to help anyone who needed it.  At the services yesterday his best friend was speaking, and mentioned that several of Chris's friends actually moved to be closer to him (himself among them).

Greg and I are moving into acceptance.  Greg said the hardest part for him was seeing the obituary in the paper, and he sort of turned a corner after that.  He's pretending that Chris just moved away and is working at a different job, so he doesn't feel so awful when Chris doesn't show up to work with him.  He still has moments, though, and probably will for a while.  Example: yesterday he was dismantling the deck because the people who built it didn't do what needed to be done to control water, and there is significant rot where it ties into the house, including the sill and ledger board of the house itself.  As Greg was surveying the situation, he looked up at the sky and said, "Chris, what do I do?", then looked at me with a shrug and an expression like "...and so it begins"...

A lot of how this was affecting me tied into how it was affecting my husband, so as he gets more philosophical and accepting of this, it makes it easier for me to move into that frame of mind, as well.  Tears still come at random times, and there will be repercussions work-wise for some time, but we can talk about him with laughter and fondness, and that helps the healing...

Hey, Thanks...

Just a quick little post...

It's amazing how the smallest of things can help:  I was worrying somewhat that I would lose the few subscribers that I have because of all the boo-hooing lately, and lack of creative sharing (I did have one person un-sub, as a matter of fact), but had many reassurances via comments and emails that you all are hanging in there with me - thank you!

Today I went to my Feedblitz email folder to see whose updates I'd missed, and I have a new subscriber!  I'm always pleased to see someone else join us, but to have someone like what they see well enough to subscribe in spite of the downer turn lately, is really heart-warming!

The calling hours for Chris are this afternoon, and the services are tomorrow morning, so I had to get a sympathy card to take along.  That has to be THE hardest card purchase ever!  The one that said exactly what I wanted to say was all flowery and purple, and had the name of the person who wrote the sentiment plastered all over it, so I put it back in the rack.  I think I read every single non-religious sympathy card there (I'm not sure what Donna's affiliations and/or beliefs are and don't want to assume).  Do you know how hard it is to keep your composure while going through this process?  I was in a very crowded store and had all I could do to maintain before I reached the privacy of my car.

I asked Greg yesterday why it was so much harder losing Chris than it was losing my parents, and all we could come up with is that I knew for quite a while before my parents passed (my mother from leukemia, my father from complications of Alzheimer's) that it was coming, and with Chris it was so sudden and he was so young.  I almost feel guilty that this is the case, but there it is...

I asked Greg if he wanted me to clip Chris's obituary to save, and he said no - it was hard enough for him to see it in the paper the first time.  I figured that would be the case, but I had to ask... 

I don't know if this is what happens when any firefighter dies, but the fire department in the town where Chris died escorted him to the town line where they met the next fire department, and they joined in, and when they reached the next town line, that fire department joined in, and they went on that way all the way back to where Chris lived.  Pretty darn cool...

Okay - just wanted to point out a couple of bright moments in the bleak landscape - thanks again!  Gotta try to get some work done before Greg gets home to clean up for the calling hours...

For Real...

Well, I guess there's no hope that it's a prank now - this was in today's paper:

Christopher A. Olson

September 18, 2009 Christopher A. Olson, 40, of Clay, passed away Friday from injuries sustained in an ATV accident. Chris worked for Tom Albanese Const. He was a captain and an EMT with the Clay Vol. Fire Dept. and was a member of the Onon. Co. Dive Team. He was a former member of NAVAC. Chris was an avid hunter who loved camping, four-wheeling and spending time with family and friends. He was a devoted husband, and father to his beloved son, Nick. He is survived by his loving wife of five years, Donna M. (Stebbins) Olson; son, Nicholas Olson; step-daughter, Felicia Otts; parents, Arlene and Richard Olson and Violet Draves; brothers, Tom (Patricia) Olson, Fred (Tammy) Stuter and Jamie Salvage; sisters, Sue (Matt) McDonald, Laurie (Randy) Soeder, Jeanne Olson, Sherry (Brian) DeForest and Sharon Paninski; 13 nephews; nine nieces; and many close friends whom he considered family. Services will be 10 a.m. Friday at New Comer Funeral Home, 705 N. Main St., N. Syracuse. Burial will follow in Pine Plains Cemetery, Clay. Calling hours will be Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the funeral home. Contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the Nicholas Olson scholarship fund, c/o M&T Bank. To leave a special message for the family online, visit NewcomerSyracuse.com NewComer Funeral Home.

 

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We're still really struggling here...  Fine one minute, reeling the next...  I spent the day painting to help finish a job that Chris and Greg have been working on for several weeks - too weird,,,  Greg finds himself periodically reaching for his phone to call Chris to ask him where a tool is, or the best way to approach an aspect of the project, only to stop himself - "Who am I calling?" he asks himself.  It's reeeeaaally hard to stand by and watch my rock of a husband struggling to grasp this and to know how to move forward, especially since I'm struggling, too, and I only saw Chris several times a month, and not every day like Greg did... 

 

We're both trying to stay occupied so we get distracted, but this golf ball in my throat keeps showing up, and I have ZERO patience for the mundane details of my life - nothing really seems very important.  I'm washing clothes because we're out of clean ones, and I'm working because bills need to be paid, but underneath the going-though-the-motions, I'm pissed that the normal, daily stuff is still there requiring my attention.  I'm not returning phone calls or emails and I'm not caring that I'm not returning phone calls or emails and everything seems drearier and more boring than it did just four days ago.  All I can say is that Chris is/was one of those people that left footprints in your heart - he'll never, ever really be gone...

?!?!?!?!

I am shocked, stunned, appalled, devastated, and - surprisingly - pissed off!  This has to be the most whacked-out summer I've ever had.  The past two months were stressful in the extreme because of the whole house-buying/closing fiasco, but also because our friends keep dying...

First our friend Sam's wife passed, then Brenda was killed, then Wednesday we got the word that Greg's friend and former bandmate (Greg is a drummer, Tommy played bass) had succumbed to the cancer he's been battling for awhile.  All that was bad enough, but this morning Greg left fairly early to go to Home Depot to get some gutter for the roof, and called me:

"I have some bad news," he said.  "Chris is dead."  I thought it was a really bad prank that Chris put him up to, so I responded, "You lie!"  Greg said, "No, really - his brother Tom just called me..."  and then he went on to tell me that there was an ATV accident on Chris's annual camping trip with his buddies, and that Chris was killed.  WHAT???!!!  How is this possible?  He was just at our house a few days ago!  He works with Greg every day (or, at least, almost every day)!  We hang out with him and Donna...

I just can't get my head around this one - it's just too surreal and too raw.  It's been fascinating to watch myself be completely irrational - I'm pissed that he left us in the lurch - no friend, no co-worker, no cohort in crime.  I'm stunned that a 40 year-old scuba-diving, volunteer fire-fighting, fun-loving prankster is not invincible after all.  I selfishly wonder if Greg's boss will have to close his company because of the HUGE void left by Chris's passing, and even more selfishly wonder who is going to help us remodel parts of our new house.  I mean, we had PLANS, and they VERY MUCH included Chris!  I still keep thinking that it is, in fact, a really, really bad joke, and somebody will call us any minute to say "Gotcha!"  And yet...

Needless to say, I'm in another stall...so sorry...  Further bulletins as events warrant...

Where, Oh Where?

Have I been?  Am I now?  I'm currently parked in a friend's spare room, while my life is parked in a U-Haul truck, my husband's work van, and my Hyundai Santa Fe.  We have been officially homeless since midnight Monday, when we turned in our apartment keys.  We were supposed to close on our house "no later than Wednesday", but today's update is that our file is "second in line for underwriting, so they should look at it today..."  We're keeping our fingers (and toes and eyes) crossed that we can pull this off by tomorrow afternoon.  Can you say "frustrating"?

Not much else to tell, so I'm going to go find something to do with myself for the rest of the day...  further bulletins as events warrant...