As you know, my first entry this year was to mark the passing of my aunt and uncle in a car accident, as they slid on icy roads and wound up in the lake. Driving that way last week, I noticed that there is a guardrail that runs the length of the lake now, so hopefully their passing will save someone else in the future.
At the beginning of April, one of my great-aunts on my mother’s side passed away. We always just called her Aunt Lola and she lived up in Newark, down the street from my grandmother and grandfather as I was growing up. Any trip up there usually included a brief stop at her house if she didn’t come up to Grandma and Grandpa’s. She came to Thanksgiving at our house with them as well. She’d been in a nursing home for a bit as Alzheimer’s had attacked her mind and we hadn’t seen her a lot in the past five years or so, but it was still sad to know that she was gone.
Her funeral was on a Monday. That Friday, I was at our church mourning the passing of another long-time member, Bobby Rider. Bobby had been ill for a while, but was a wonderful person. I actually knew more of his second wife’s family than his, but I always remember Bobby being a good, down-to-earth kinda guy.
The day after that, I was saddened to hear about the death of another church member, John Shepherd. John was a character. He and his wife Margaret were wonderful people and a joy to be around. John would always be joking with people and he loved to talk to me about the Cardinals. Margaret was his second wife, and her daughter had been my kindergarten teacher. Her son (John’s grandson) was an assistant trainer for the Cardinals for a while before becoming the head trainer for the Cubs. Margaret switched her loyalties (at least somewhat) but John wouldn’t do it. I still remember them telling me about times where he’d be in the back watching the Cardinals and she’d be in the front watching the Cubs.
Knowing my love for the Cardinals, the Shepherds had passed a few things down to me over the years. I still remember Margaret bringing me a 2004 World Series sweatshirt that was too big for John to me while I was in the hospital back in ’06. I have about three dress shirts with Cardinal logos that John gave to me years ago as well. Perhaps the neatest thing, though, was a field jacket from the Cards. The grandson had apparently given it to John (it had his name in it) but again, John thought it was too big, so he gave it to me for my use or, if it was too small for me, to keep for Benjamin.
John’s loss was sad and unexpected, but the next death was what sent me for a loop.
There are times in your life where you always will remember where you were and what you were doing when you got some news. I was sitting in my office on a Tuesday morning when my cell phone rang. It was a church member telling me that Scott Converse had taken his life the day before. My reaction was such that it wasn’t long before a coworker came in to check and see if I was all right.
Scott was such a big part of my childhood. The Converses went to our church and had two kids. Amy was a year younger than me and Scott was a year older than my brother. We always were doing things at someone’s house or playing at church events.
I remember running around during church softball games with the two of them and other kids from the church. I still have a vivid picture in my head of the time we were playing and a dodgeball was thrown at Scott. Somehow it hit his hand just wrong and I still remember the bone poking out of the side of the finger. Needless to say, he was on his way to the emergency room soon after that.
As his sister said when I spoke to her at the memorial, we used to have a great time playing on the old Atari or with the Star Wars figures that now reside in my son’s room. I remember playing ball in their backyard or playing at the church while our parents were in meetings.
Scott’s love of film was mentioned prominently at his memorial and I do remember going to at least one movie with him. I’m not sure if we made it to see Return of the Jedi in the theater, but I do remember he and I going to see one of my all-time favorite movies, Field of Dreams, while my brother Nathan and Amy in another theater watching Ghostbusters 2.
As we grew up, of course, I saw less and less of Scott. He went to Illinois for his undergraduate work and then San Francisco to continue his education, eventually completing his doctorate. He was a brilliant guy, something I didn’t quite grasp the full extent of until his memorial, though I knew anyone that was doing work in the sciences like he was had to be advanced. He lived for a while in Washington DC before returning to San Francisco. He wasn’t in Russellville much, but I’d occasionally hear reports from his parents on how he was doing and what he was up to.
I remember him coming into town a few months ago and attending church with his parents. He didn’t always do that, so I was glad to see him. However, it was one of those Sundays where I was running trying to do too many things and I didn’t get to stop and talk to him as long as I would have liked to. In fact, Meron spent more time with him than I did, walking him to the nursery that he and I had played in as kids to see Benjamin and Sarah. You never know when this time will be the last time.
Everyone else on this list had had a full life and was taken by illness, which made for sadness but understanding. The circumstances around Scott’s death just cast a pall over the week for me, as I kept coming back to that in my mind, thinking about it, praying for his devastated family.
At his well-attended memorial (so well-attended that it had to be moved from our church to the larger Methodist church in town), there were cards placed out for people to write memories of Scott for the family. I didn’t think I could squeeze all of this into a little index card, but I wanted to make sure these memories were out there.
Scott, like all the rest in this post, will be missed.
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