I was up an hour earlier than I needed to be.
I'm synced with the sun, and all the pruning around my house has left my bedroom windows unblocked from full sunrise.
No matter that American society has deemed fit that the clocks should manually fall back...
my body knows what time it really is.
(Sigh.)
As I told Sherry at the Big Coffee Hour, I used to dread this particular Sunday.
The names of those gone from this sweet Earth in the year since the last All Saints Day are voiced during the service, and the heartache would rise anew with those breaths.
This time, Rev. Billy had changed things up.
Rather than have everyone who had lost loved ones say those names, he would read the list of Asbury Memorial members who had died... and those would be the only names aloud.
Nope.
That didn't do it for me.
After he read those sixteen names...
which included three that had been dear to me:
his Mama, Joan Hester Byrd...
I breathed five others into the air...
Willie Smith...
I know Mother Pat's consort died two years ago, but this year is when I knew that loss.
That's the important thing: I found out he was no longer among my living.
My saying their names aloud was a balm for my patchwork heart.
Having Holy Communion was an additional balm, somehow, as if The Universe had fashioned love into those missing eight pieces.
There's a nice thought, isn't it?
Then, after church, we all dined in Holliday Hall, feasting and comforting and healing.
I stayed on, even after that.
A speaker had been arranged to talk to us of age about Medicare.
I've already decided what I'm doing with that this year, but I wanted to hear her out.
Melissa McBride-Stille is an insurance broker, and, apparently, those Asburians becoming eligible for Medicare felt the need for a voice from the darkness.
I only wish I could have spoken to her earlier this year, when I was slogging through that federal box of worms and trying to make a decision.
Actually, last year, during this open enrollment period, when I was going to seminars of the subject and trying to make sense of it - yeah, then would have been nice.
I don't really know why Linda Combs and Helen Downing were there.
They both have more than a decade of being with Medicare, but I know how beneficial it is to have a real, live, person in front of you instead of a stranger's voice on the phone.
That's why after dealing with the time delay of two remote games - voicemail tag and email tag - with Molly Aldridge about Travelers, I had gone to the physical, brick-and-glass, office in town for GEICO and spoken to Randy and Heather.
At least they were able to find an address for Travelers.
As for me, I very nearly got locked in the courtyard garden after the talk.
I park on Henry on busy Sundays, so as to not clutter up the parking lot.
My game plan had been to attend the Medicare discussion, then head out for the the 2 PM Curator's Talk about the Richmond Barthé exhibit.
Nope, that didn't happen.
I mean, my going to that didn't happen.
I had not realized that the front gate at Asbury would already be locked.
So, after carefully closing the door behind me, I found myself trapped.
I could not exit the courtyard onto the street because of the locked gate, nor could I return to the sanctuary, as that door locked behind me, and then, to my chagrin, I found the door to from the courtyard to the hall was also already locked.
Repeated banging on my part, growing a bit more desperate as minutes ticked by, finally caught the attention of Ray Ellis.
Hallelujah!
I was so flustered that I got in the car and drove home...
which is where I am now.
I've missed all three of the events for this artist at the Jepson.
At least I got to enjoy the art when Kristin was in town with her son.
Strange how the pieces fall into place sometimes.
I'm glad I had that time in October with those beautiful bronzes.
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