Sinus infection

Stop the world!  I am getting off!   I haven't left the house in two days and I feel lousy today!  So I am staying in until I feel human!

A Clogged up sink...

Yesterday, I got up and decided to clean out my freezer and get rid of stuff that I could not identify.  But the plastic containers were new and good so I decided to defrost the contents and send it down the sink drain so I could have the containers.  Good planning to save three plastic containers.  But the drain backed up into the double sinks and try as I may--it took almost the entire day using drain opener and a plunger, I just kept refilling one side of the double sink.   And the nastiness of it all.

Finally at 4:00 I called Mark, who works for me.  He came at 6 and took him all of thirty minutes but he was nasty from it all.   So what did I do yesterday --worked on a nasty sink all day.  But I saved the three plastic containers.

What a poor use of a day!  But, at least, I did n't get up to it again today.  Plastic containers are a dime a dozen.

A glance back at the week

Rain out in the cemetery!  First thought.  Second thought.  Getting the gravesite service done!  The thought of that stays with me.   And I move on to what I can do today.  Right now I have nothing on the agenda for today and I am comfortable with that.   When an animal is wounded, he finds a place to rest and sleep and deal with his injuries.  That is what I did yesterday afternoon and what I could do the entire weekend.

And maybe I will do just that.  I will join the animal world again when I am ready!

Sikeston Hospital interview

Marcie Lawson, director of development of the hospital at Mo Delta in Sikeston, asked me if I would come down and be interviewed by Capital Quest and I agreed!  I did that this morning and did it off the cuff!  Funny!  I could have given her the Questions also and the answers change rapidly depending on the age and experience of the responder!

I don't know if she learned anything from me or even if my answers had any validity!  But one thing I know about development is this:  If you do not tell your story, then soon people will not think you have a story to tell!  

Thanks, Lily Berlyn

Having Faith

I am reading "Christianity after Religion"  by Diana Butler Bass and it gives me thought after thought.  Today was no exception:   "Jesus's followers did not sit around a fire and listen to lectures on Christian theology".  No, they did not.  They did something and they became better someones for the experience.  Churches of today who grasp at every straw out there to attract a crowd should take notice.   Give the people a message and turn them loose to do something that is worth the doing!

All around us are messages of the decline of the church  --but there has never been more reason for the people of the "church" to live in mission.    Never has such need existed everywhere -- pick up the paper and turn on the television.  What is the "church" doing to carry the message of Christ to the world that is hurting?

The Aftermath

This morning I got up and talked to my sister, Julia, and then to my best friend, Harriett Small!  Both thought that the rain did nothing to hurt the occasion of the burial and I agree!

So it's onward and upward!  I went out to lunch with Mike Richey and we talked about families and living with unresolved difficulties!   It is good to talk!  It's amazing sometimes what you hear coming out of your own mouth!

Graveside service for sister

We had a wet graveside service for my sister Jennie today and the sky opened up and poured!   Betty and I both spoke and no one heard us for the rain!

Somehow I think Jennie was laughing her head off!

Buying a slide scanner!

I have a closet full of slides that have not been moved in 20 years; in fact, the closet door was stuck and I had to pry it open!    What was there was mountains of slides in slide trays carefully catalogued by me!   

So with my assistant's expertise, we went to Best Buy and bought a scanner for slides and we are putting them on DVDs for each of my children!   That ought to make for a great Christmas present!

When you are divorced, you hope that family times were fun times and worth remembering!  When I held these slides up to the light, I remembered and reflected on the good days!

Lucas Presson, my grandson by choice

I have known Lucas Presson all his life!  I knew his parents and his grandparents since they were from Charleston!  Then he came to work for me at the University and I said to him, "You are a conservative and I am a liberal!  Let's keep politics off the table ! ". And we did and it amazed everyone around us!

And it still does!  We go out for breakfast once a month and we talk about everything!  But politics--that is verboten!

I am so proud of Lucas!   He keeps me in his life and thoughts and makes me think he needs me!  Lucas, you did one great job on Semoball Banquet last night!  As  Rachel Crader said in the paper, you envisioned this night !  You did yourself proud!  And I am so proud of you!

Jane Stephens and friendship

Yesterday I went to lunch with Dr. Jane Stephens, former University provost, and long time friend of my recently deceased sister, Dr. Jennie Cooper!  We talked for over two hours about everything including Jennie and trying to make the pieces of both our lives fit together again!  Life is filled with Humpty Dumpty days!

Diana Butler Bass, the theologian, writes:  "Grieving people try to connect, to remember who came before and what the past means for them as they go forward!  It's about discovering who you are after loss!"  And she adds, "It is a very normal thing to do!"

So we will keep remembering and learning how we want to "reframe" the memories!  Some I intend to remember so long as I have memory. Like when she was the drum major at Charleston and how she could clear the dance floor when she got up to jitterbug!  

Old friends mean everything to me!

I love my friends!  There is not a day that goes by that I don't see or hear from them!  Especially my office friends!  Yesterday I went out to eat with Susan Burton and we chatted like magpies!  I came home and flowers were delivered to me from Monte Seabaugh who had called the day before from Kansas City about Jennie!  I felt the love from both of them!

It is great to go out with people who know your faults and make fun of your flaws to your face!  I am truly blessed!

This is a teaching moment!

Yesterday Matt Porter from Baptist Student came by in his red truck and we went to lunch!  He is running a camp in Greenville this summer and I had some checks to give him for A b Cooper Memorial Meals!  Every dollar counts and we all have put our shoulder to the wheel to keep it going!

These international students depend on these meals to keep going !

Margaret Oliver death

I read in the paper that Margaret Oliver had died at the age of 98.  I was shocked because I have this problem of remembering whether people I do not see regularly are still living.  Margaret Oliver was special to me as was her daughter, Rosalie, one of my best friends, who died some years ago.   She was a saint --they both were and they were "happy" girls.  

I cherish their memories today and love the photograph!  RIP  Margaret.   You had a life worth living and well lived!

Slow getting up day!

It has started out to be a slow driving day! My back hurts and my knee hurts and I find out Boots Tenkhoff has died and I am not running to meet the day as yet!

I'll get with it but not without some effort today!

Mondays suck!

Been up going at full speed!  Debbie has been here to do my hair and Gary Peters has been here to wash my compressor!  I have had telephone calls and conferences with Terry Parker at McMikle Funeral Home about Jennie's Committal service and followed up with email reports to everyone as well as phone calls to insurance packet sent to me by mistake and a lawyer who can't have lunch tomorrow and the department chair of science to tell him about a search and the videographer about more tapes needed and a speaker who I have a tape for!  And it is 10:58!

Now I need to get my thoughts together for my 12:00 luncheon!

A Fatherly Connection

My dad never went to seminary.  He went to Ouachita Baptist College where they had a Dept.of Religion and he went from there to Brinkley, Arkansas to begin his preaching career.   Seminaries were not stressed back then but he promoted the study of religion in his churches and in his private study.  It carried over to me and years later, I finished my seminary degree from Midwestern Baptist Seminary.   Did I use it?   Everyday!  I was the Sunday School director at First Baptist for many years and yes, I used it there.  But I used it in my work at the University.

And the connection beat goes on.  This week, my daughter, Sara Jane Stacy Dyer, turned in all her work to complete her seminary degree in Ohio.   So the beat goes on and the work and study go on.   I think it's a nice thought on Father's Day for a man who gave his all to his ministry.  I hope that some day someone says that about me!

Flag Day....and Laurie Stacy's birthday!

My daughter-in-law, Laurie, has a birthday today!   And did I get a wonderful gift when I got her!   She is a gem of a person.  Loves Jim, loves all the family, works at the Museum in Madison, Wisconsin and you just feel better when she's around!   She is a gentle soul but you get the feeling that she would come unglued if she felt someone was attacking our family!  

It's really simple:   I love her!  I'm so glad she came into my life.

Happy Birthday, Laurie!

Sam Duncan -- friend of the family

I got in the yellow convertible today and drive down waving to Bella Italia with Sam Duncan, my beloved friend!  We have all kinds of connections. He was a student of Jennie's and spoke at her service last week and he worked with me at the University!  When he went to Southeast Health I gave a piece of David Crowes photography to the hospital in Jim's memory!

So there are many ties and we instantly were talking non-stop!  And we have fun together!  And that car stopped traffic!

Graveside rites in Charleston

And the time is set for June 24!  And the placing of the ashes for my sister to take her place in the family plot with her parents and her siblings!  It is fitting and closure!  It wasn't that she needed it but we need it!

No man (or woman) is an island!

Katie OFarrell is open for business!

Yesterday I made the scene with friends and restaurants!  Bev Hickam took me to lunch at Casa Gallardo and we talked about all our years together of devout friendship! 

Then last night Sandy Moore took me to Katie OFarrells (which used to be the New Orleans) and it was so nice!  I had the shepherds pie!  Sand helps on A b Cooper meals and is a new friend!  She bakes the cookies!

So on with living! And grateful for old and new friends which make my world spin!

A Touch of Normalcy

After I visited with my lawyer yesterday, I went out to lunch with Jason Schrumpf from Missouri Delta Hospital and we talked fundraising!  Then I talked to my three kids and I began to return to my own world-- the one I choose to live daily in!  I have been enmeshed in my sister's world because of its press on me by her death!  And no matter what else, she was my sister and I wanted to do for her what I could!  And the same goes for Betty, Julia and Rose Marie!

Matt porter came over last night and I felt ease and comfort!  I had on a robe and was ready for bed and I felt no discomfort in my appearance!  Nor did he!  We just talked about the events of the week!  He didn't try to get me to brag on his work in the service or make me feel guilty because he had so much extra to do!  He just wanted to know if I was pleased and if I was dealing!  I am thanks to support from him and others and the feelings of normalcy invoked by Jason!

Monday's Child works hard for a living

Had a quiet day yesterday and raring to go today!   I have decisions to make today about health and welfare and financial well-being and I need advise from people who know their stuff.  I have to remember that I am not a doctor or a lawyer or a tax accountant and I have to use the people I have hired or gone to to take care of these matters.    I have my stacks all made out on the counter and I am waiting for Debbie to come do my hair and Mark to come to drive -- and yes, I have to have my driver's license renewed and my dentist and doctor appointments made.

So yes, I have miles to go before I sleep.  And lunch with my friend, Mike Richey.

Let the dead bury their own dead -- Luke 9:60

I have always been challenged by this Scripture.  Christ was calling people unto him and one man said, "

Lord, let me first go home and bury my Father".  (It doesn't say if his father was even sick!)  But Christ said, no way, Jose!  The dead can bury their own dead  ---as for you, go out and proclaim everywhere that the Kingdom of God is here!

Here's what I think that Scripture mean!  Every day we need to pick priorities and pick well.   There are many things we choose to do that other people would and could do but there are some things that we should choose to do and stick with it.  Otherwise, that part will go down the drain for us!   I don't always remember that --sometimes I want to do nothing and I can do that well.   Sometimes, I spend my day so upset by stupid things around me that I lose that day in my life's work.   Last week, Susan Burton (who I worked with for thirty years) said to me, "You can take everything and deal with it except when it comes to your relatives and then you are scarred by every little slight and unkind word they say or do".

And that is the truth  --I'm not proud of it but I have let so many months go by while I was angry or resentful or giving one of them the silent treatment because I could take no more.   Let the dead bury their own dead!  No matter if they are relatives, strangers or friends.  I need to use every day and keep my eye on the real purpose of this life.

A new day is dawning

Life goes on!  We cope with it or we don't!  Christ commanded us to greet each new day with a joyful expectation and make the most of it!  Jennie did just that!  She took people on as projects as she was taught by Daddy's daily example!   (Don't think we didn't get tired of being invaded by people "down on their luck" as kids!  The trouble is that it influenced each of us).

And that was a good thing!

The Celebration Rocked!

What a wonderful celebration we had yesterday as we said goodbye to my sister, Jennie Cooper!  It was like the service you always want to go to when you go to a funeral:  warm with life and love! Packed house, great music, great speakers and great food!  And so we said goodbye but we threw the door open with remembering!

In Memory of Dr. Jennie Cooper

Thanks for all of your kind words of sympathy in the death of my sister Dr. Jennie Cooper.  To those of you that have asked we are having a Celebration of Life Service for her on Campus this Thursday June 5th at 4:00 PM at the Baptist Student Center followed by a dinner for everyone that can attend down in the lower auditorium.

In Memory of Dr. Jennie Cooper

It is our sad privilege to tell you that Jennie Cooper died this afternoon June 2nd at her home. She had been ill for many months. She was a wonderful grandmother, a loving mother, a brilliant teacher, and a sister who knew how to stand up for herself. We all treasure her memory.