And a perfect example of why life isn't permanent

This morning, like normal, I walked into my office, threw my things down, hung up my coat on my plastic hanger, and walked into the break room to grab a coffee.
Because my boss from Boston is in town, we celebrated her visit with Einsteins bagels and strawberry whipped cream cheese, or the not-so-fun light plain cream cheese if you were me.
We really go all out at my office. That's not entirely true. We had a pretty extravagant lunch yesterday and probably will again today. Caloric intake seems to rise significantly if you live on the company's dime or are high on the totem pole.
Incidentally, and excusedly because my boss mentioned that she wanted to meet Sarah, my lively, perspicacious four year old who goes to preschool right across the street from my building uptown, came in with me for the fancy breakfast. Everyone would have eaten her up instead of their everything bagels, had she been on the official menu.
Because Sarah was there, I waited to check my phone messages. I don't mind putting work off in most instances.
After I walked the Biscuit to school, I scuttered back to my fluorescent office so that I could really start my day of montonanous tasks and unending phone calls to financial advisors and despised SalesForce entries.
Entering meetings into SalesForce is an arduous and time-consuming task that I'm passed from another boss who despises the impending duty more so than I do. I'm not sure, but I think he can hear me cussing all the way in California, when I am doing the loathed entries, which I'm convinced render totally useless and are counterproductive. But because I am not the boss, and have no access to the REAL boss, the REAL decision makers, the movers and the shakers who make up the rules, be-those mindless or not, I will do the work with my mouth shut, except for the frequent cussing under my breath and occasional blurt, maybe groan.
Upon noticing that the light on my Cisco IP phone was a steady red, I dialed in to check my messages. There were only 2 to my amazement. They were both from my mother, not surprising.
She had gone to Sarah's Thanksgiving lunch at her school yesterday. I couldn't go because I was busy being glutonous with my group at Mimosa Grill.
Why American's always celebrate with food, I will never understand.
Why not go bowling, and eat chips in the car on the way there? We could even go to a museum. There are plenty to choose from uptown.
I guess food is sometimes the only thing that ties people together. We all like to eat. We don't, however, all appreciate art. And most don't like wearing the questionably sanitary shoes that 500 other complete strangers have slipped or crammed their musty feet into.
The first message was complimentary of my directions to Sarah's school from my house, where my incredibly loving Mom had shared a bed with me the night before. I wonder if my snoring kept her awake this time.
I wrote down the directions in carefully neat penmanship, circling the Ls for left and the Rs for right, so as not to confuse her.
Although my family has lived in Charlotte for over 30 something years, it's not unusual for us to find ourselves lost. By family, I mean Mom and me, and probably my Aunt Linda could fall comfortably in that category, did she not own a GPS system in her over priced Mercedes Benz SUV.
My Dad would roll over in his grave, had he even been buried (we cremated him) had he heard me say that. He prided himself on being the consummate giver of directions, not the asker of them.
In his spare time he made maps for orienteering. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to get somewhere. I think it drove him bonkers when I didn't. Add my mom to the mix, and he probably felt somewhat inadequate and responsible for her directionally challenged mind, since they were a longtime duo.
Forty-two years they were married before my Dad suddenly died of a heart attack while watching a country western movie with my Mom in their "media room" as they called it.
Regretably, he couldn't have been there to share in the Thanksgiving preschool festivities with Mom, Sarah and her entire school in the church fellowship hall. I hear it was a feast fit for a princess. (Sarah is the princess. I am the queen.)
That would have been something that he would have enjoyed. He was very good with kids, in fact with all people. He wasn't the overly outgoing type that talked too much or kept you standing there when you really felt like bolting out the door to your car in a sprint that would make a Kenyan Olympic runner resemble a turtle. He was enticing to know because he kept his ideas to himself, unless he was asked for them. We were polar opposites in that respect.
The next message, again from Mom, was not as warm and fuzzy.
My Mom is undeniably predictable. I have heard bad news from her on many occasions, and in messages. They mostly start with this preface: "Something really sad happened."
Instantaneously, I knew she was going to tell me that someone died. I have heard those words fall from my Moms mouth many times over, and it always ends in someone dying. There is usually a long pause after those words, while she tries to think of a good way of saying what she is about to be forced to say.
There really is no way to sugar coat death.
Even if you are presented with the statement, that your now-dead loved one is in a better place, you will most likely, if you are human, not feel a great sense of relief based on that quickly released and widely adopted common statement that many of us automatically throw out. Generally speaking, those of us who want to make eachother feel better try to by making that ever popular statement, "He's in a better place."
I'm sorry, but just because you relay to me your idea that my loved one is better off now, I will not immediately feel better. I am a woman, and I, by nature, am guided by feelings, at least, when it comes to death I am.
She went on to say that she got a call from one half of what she jovially termed, "the brothers Grimm," her yard guys, who happen to be brothers, and happen to have the last name Grimm.
Buddy let her know that his brother, David, who we jokingly said was the smart one of the duo, died last night of a heart attack.
This cut me. This cut my mom.
They are not young men as one might derive based on their choice of blue collar work. I seriously doubt they actually chose to do such back breaking labor. I'm guessing it was a fall-back means of making some money to survive. No one grows up wanting to be a lawn-mower.
They are middle-aged men who come as they are- dirt poor.
They are that family that has the carefully, although somewhat messy, hand-painted sign in their front yard offering, "odd jobs, handy man, yard work."
They are grown men who still live with their parents, who, undoubtedly are in their eighties per my Mom, who I think may have met them once. They are barely surviving on love alone.
A few times, David knocked on Mom's door to borrow money. I think she let him. I can't recall.
When I say poor, I mean poor.
They don't have a 2012 Ford F-150 to lug around their miscellaneous items, yard debris, or tools. Instead, they drive an antique, beater, as they say, probably circa 1975. It most likely doesn't have any functioning air-conditioning, and rolls around on bald tires.
I've always thought of David as a hard worker, with his Marleboro Red dangling from his upper lip, his wild, unkempt hair, and work boots, those probably uncomfortable now, and could have easily been 15 years old.
He had the best of manners, although he wasn't someone you would take to the grand ball. He would politely knock on the door and ask for my Mom, most usually for a check for their (the brothers Grimm) work. Everytime he needed to talk to my Mom, although she always was aware of his presence, he politely knocked on the door, instead of just walking in, like other handymen she has hired would rudely do.
They did odd jobs, just like the sign stated, and yard work.
One time they pruned back my moms lakefront Crepe Myrtles with ferver. I am assuming they were never accused of being too ginger. My mom came out and nicely put, "wait...that's too much."
I don't think they were too informed on the actual definition of pruning. Instead of trimming, they were aggressively chopping.
Nevertheless, David, probably only in his fifties, although having looked in his 60s most likely due to his many years of smoking cigarettes, was too young to die.
He will leave his family in a harder spot than when he was alive. He did not suffer a long and painful death, I guess. But his survivors most likely will suffer. He was the one who made things happen, the go-getter, the ace in the hole.
It will be such a sad time for his family. I feel sad for them. I don't, however, feel sad for David. He is walking with Jesus now. He is safe, healthy, rich, and Home.
His family and friends will grow in some form through his death if their minds are where they need to be, and if they accept the love that is boundless. Even if it's just one small flickering thought for a second that might linger on, someone will benefit in some way from having known David, and having lost him.
Through every excrutiating inch or mile of strife, something beautiful emerges. I know this to be true. Easy, it will not be. But doable- yes.
No one ever said that life would be easy. God didn't.
There's another reason, to be happy that life isn't permanent. More importantly, another reason to cherish those around you. You will never get the time back you lose being miserable. Choose happiness. Choose living in the moment.
The show must go on after we die our death from Earth.
When I die, please do not cry. I want there to be a celebration of my future, and a celebration of who I was, not what I will never be because I died.
David was a good man. I will most assuredly think of him today.