Family Memory (IV) – 7/25/93

Recently, I had a friend whose father died.  Having been there with both parents, I’m well aware that there is little that can be said which can offer consolation.  Basically, you can say ‘Sorry’ and offer support.  Little else helps.

It made me think of something though, something that I was told that comes from Australian aboriginal tradition–though my memory plays tricks and it could be African instead.  It is the belief that the departed are not really dead or gone until they are fully forgotten and that as long as at least one story exists and is told (or read…my interpretation), then that person is not really, truly dead.

With that in mind, there’s a woman who deserves remembering.

Julie and I got married on July 24, 1993, a day hotter than all get out in southern Illinois.  The next morning, as per tradition, we gathered at her parents’ house to open wedding gifts.  I only remember two of them–a clock from my friend Jeff who has disappeared off the radar of everyone…and a silver platter.  The platter is the biggie.

It was the gift of a woman who had been dying for months and passed away exactly one month before our wedding, Esther Phelan.

Mr. and Mrs. Phelan had owned the house that became our home in 1970, moving to the smaller house next door and becoming our neighbors.  They were great.  She was a nurse at Mercy Hospital across the street.  On weekends, and later once she retired, if she had cookies, she’d let us have some.  I remember my parents spending time over there just talking to the Phelans in the summer.  I have absolutely no bad memories of the Phelans.  None.

Mr. Phelan (Walt) died in 1989, leaving Mrs. Phelan alone.  By that point, I was ‘grown’ and away from Davenport far more than I was around, but I still made sure to say hi and talk with her whenever I saw her.  My mom and step-father always talked with the Phelans, watched out for her after Mr. Phelan died.

In late 1992, Mrs. Phelan was fighting cancer–it wasn’t a winnable one.  By the time summer, 1993 came around, she was in the hospital and was not going to be able to leave it.  I didn’t realize this at the time–I was in Ohio most of the time and the rest was with Julie as the wedding neared.  I only found something out after she died when my mom called to let me know.  If there was a ‘saving grace’, it was that Mrs. Phelan was 82–it was a full life with grandkids and great-grandkids to boot.

So we are opening gifts and one of the last handed to us is from Mrs. Phelan.  I knew she had died and the gift was shocking and unexpected.  I teared up then and it is hard not to now typing this.  We opened the gift and it was a silver tray, something usable with a dining set.  It was classy or if we try and lighten the mood, “the good stuff”.  Along with it was a note from Mrs. Phelan’s daughter.  We have it somewhere still, even after multiple moves…I just don’t know where.

Her daughter’s note said that even as Mrs. Phelan lay dying in a hospital, she’d seen the days counting to our wedding and knew she wasn’t going to make it, so she made her daughter promise to go and buy a gift, to make it something good, something worthy of a newly-married couple, something good enough for a girl good enough for Jimmy (she is one of the few permitted to call me that).

On her death bed.  She thought of me, thought of my wife.

I thought about that today while reading the news, while looking at Facebook and a dozen different hateful posts, made public for no reason other than stir up anger.  This woman with little time remaining, she thought of me.  I had no idea she’d continued to ask about me all the time or was so happy I was getting married.  Dying–She. Thought. Of. Me.

When you read this, I hope you get a sense of how special that sort of person in life is to have around.  Somewhere around you, you have a Mrs. Phelan.  For someone, you ARE Mrs. Phelan.  Take time today to look for the good people.  They are quiet, but they are there.

I hope you remember this story so that Mrs. Phelan’s light , wherever she is, burns brighter now.