Sunday Salon: Life interrupts grief

Flowering plums line our neighborhood streets

Weather: Beautiful spring day. The street trees are blooming.

The little sign on the table says: "Shirley is 93!!!"

The family gathers: My mother, all my siblings and their spouses, several of my nieces, and one nephew joined us a day ahead of the Celebration of Life for Dom Calata. During our time together we shared several meals including one to celebrate my mother's 93rd birthday. Unfortunately we forgot to take a photo to commemorate the event so you will have to be satisfied with a photo of Muffy and Hoppy dressed up for the day.

Cousins

Memorial Service for Deputy Dom Calata: It's been a rough but often surprisingly uplifting week as the family grappled with their grief before and during the memorial service for a beloved family member.

                                              The procession before the memorial service

As family members we were transported to the memorial service on the buses provided for us ahead of the procession. I wanted to see what the procession was like and found this hour long newscast about the procession of Deputy Calata's casket, family, and over 500 police vehicles. If you want to watch just a bit here are some highlights: At the 13 min. mark the procession starts; at 17 minutes the newscasters talk about Dom's church, which is our church; around 35 minutes the procession reaches the garrison flag held aloft by two ladder trucks (here they start to talk about traditions like the riderless horse, the bagpipe band); at 49 minutes the camera pans over the crowd and you can see three of my family members (sister Grace, Mom, and my husband); the last few minutes of the hour is a short of news highlight of Deputy Dom Calata from 2018 when he was a fairly new deputy officer. Is is so hard to get my mind around the fact that this guy, the best of the best, is gone.

Our church has been a huge support for not only us but for our community: Being around other people who not only love Dom and his wife and son but also love us has been soothing. It has been a tremendous solace spending time with them.

Memorials outside the church where people can leave prayers and offer supportive thoughts.

 
Here I Am Lord: The hymn we sang at Dom's service. The message of this hymn exemplifies Dom's life of service.

Good news worth our attention even in the midst of grief:

1. A Black man defends a Black woman and it is a thing of beauty. Here are the highlights from what Sen. Cory Booker had to say to Hon. Ketanji Brown Jackson, Supreme Court nominee. (3 minutes.)

2. Evidence grows that vaccines lower the risk of getting long-COVID (NPR)

3. Dolly Parton's new cakes mixes gets one reporter out of a funk. Fun article. (WaPo)

4. New enzyme discovery is another leap toward finding a way to dissolve plastic. (GoodNews Network)

After the service, 20 people, all family members, came over to our house to just spend time together. Some of the time was spent in tears, digesting the service and our feelings about Dom's death, but a lot of the time was spent in happiness at just being together. My sister, Grace, took this cute picture of me and my grandson. He is clearly goofing around.

Books: For obvious reasons I didn't get a lot of reading done this week, but I did manage to blog about two books. Both had symbolism which helped me out.

• Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger for Super Past Due Reviews
  
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis for Narniathan

I am working away on:

• Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Bird Poems edited by Billy Collins. A not-very-good batch of poems. Illustrations are delightful, though. 40%, print.
• O's Little Book of Happiness edited by the Oprah Magazine. Some of the essays are very sweet, and a few are funny. 50%, print.
• The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore. 10%, audiobook.

Book Club: We met this week to discuss The Lincoln Highway. It got 8 for 8 high marks. A fabulous, not-to-be-missed book. 

Book club selection with yummy Ukrainian dessert

 

One funny this week for all your grammarians out there:

 

Grief was interrupted this week by pink flowering trees, family members, grandsons, a birthday party, books and a book club meeting, and some good news.  Have a good week!

-Anne