death

My Condolences

imageOne of the hardest parts of  being a nurse is comforting and supporting the bereaved family at the time of death.  Normally, family members are heartbroken, grieving at the death.  On a few occasions, I witnessed something different.  Mr. Jones, an elderly patient owned a successful insurance agency. Every morning, he donned freshly laundered silk pajamas.  When discharged,  He wore a fine finest suit, shirt, shoes, and hat and took great pride in being noticed.  He bragged of buying a new Cadillac every year, dining at the most prestigious restaurants, and enjoying a membership at The Country Club.

His son, Junior Jones was in his late fifties and had always worked for Daddy.  It appeared Mr. Jones was none to generous nor kind to Junior.  Junior dressed in cheap clothes and drove an ancient compact car.  It must have been miserable since he was so tall he had to fold up like a jackknife to fit in it.  When Junior came to the hospital to consult with Daddy about the business, Daddy was condescending, snide, and critical, never showing Junior the least respect.

One the morning Daddy died, we’d called to notify Junior his father’s death appeared imminent.  Junior came streaking into his father’s room just moments before Mr. Jones’ death.  I offered my condolences.  Junior ignored me, opened the drawer of the bedside table, dug out the keys to his father’s Cadillac, his father’s checkbook and left the room without speaking.  A nursing assistant who was a friend of the family walked him out to the parking garage.  He handed her the keys to his small car and drove off in his father’s big, black Cadillac.  That was different!  I guess he’d had enough.

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The Children’s Guide to Funerals: Lessons from Mr. Bradley

I am reposting an old post from September 23, 2014

Mr. Bradley died!! Mr. Bradley died!!

mr_bradley

This was unbelievable! I had seen people get shot on “Gunsmoke,” but I’d never known anyone who had actually died. I knew I was supposed to cry when someone died but I couldn’t manage it. First of all, Mr. Bradley was an old grouch. He wore khaki pants and shirt and an old gray felt hat with oil stains around the hat band. He was really selfish. Continue reading →

A Hog a Day Part 19

Image courtesy of Pixabay

I’ve got to end this series, since it is the basis of my next book and I don’t want to give it away but there are so many stories I want to share.  One is about a suicide and a mean Christian.

Mrs Rivers was as old as the hills. I believe she was born that way.   Widowed more than forty years, no one ever spoke of her husband.  It was impossible for me to imagine anyone could have ever wanted to marry her, as unpleasant as she appeared.  Still living in the house where  she raised her children, her son had built a house on her lot. My mother often remarked she’d be a trial as a mother-in-law as we drove  by and saw her dressed in a dark, long-sleeved dress and sun bonnet working her garden with a push plow. I’m sure she refused her son’s offer to plow her garden, because no one would have expected someone that old to plow.

Old Lady Rivers, as she was known, was a practicing Pentecostal, though she attended the Baptist Church just across the road from her house and interfered with its runnings as much as she was able.  While she didn’t have a vote, she did have opinions and battered the faithful with them as often as possible.  She was the first at services, wakes, and funerals, eager to share “how they took it” and why.  Never losing track of when a marriage was made, she was the first to predict should a baby appear to be coming “too soon.”

She was a skilled craftsman of gossip, eager to bear bad news or scandal. In the days before telephones were common in our rural community, it could be a challenge to get messages to people in a timely manner.   One sad day, a poor old gentlemen shot himself in the head out by his mailbox. His panicked wife called her son from next door for help.  The son covered his father with a sheet, but left the body lying awaiting the sheriff. A neighbor hurried to a local store to call the school principal to intercept his daughter, Alice Fay,  a school bus driver, before she left school with a bus load of children.  Sadly, they missed her by about fifteen minutes.  The principal summoned the coach and together, they hurried to catch up, hoping to spare her happening up on the grisly scene at her parent’s home, not realizing a couple of her stops had been eliminated.  He was behind her at every stop.

Old Lady Rivers heard the news before the bus was due.  She waited on the porch and puffed her way out to flag Alice Faye’s bus down.  The principal skidded to a stop behind the bus just as Alice Fay opened the bus door to see what the excited old lady wanted, Mrs. Rivers propped herself on her cane and announced, “Alice Faye, yore daddy done shot hisself in the head! God help him, he’s going to Hell for shore!”

Alice Faye reacted, as you might expect, erupting into hysterical tears as the principal and coach rushed up to comfort her and restore order to the traumatized children, three of whom were Alice Faye’s.  It was a horrendous situation.  The principal drove Alice Faye and her children home, and the coach finished the bus route on that awful day.  It was a shocking announcement of tragedy Alice Faye and her children could have been spared.

Ader’s Place Part 6

Mettie was abandoned by her mother, Cynthia, as an infant, leaving her with her own mother.  Though divorce was almost unheard of at that time, Cynthia was twice-divorced. Her father went on to remarry and took no responsibility for her.  He only visited her once, when she was the widowed mother of seven. Late one night, Mawmaw told this tale of her early years, the only time I ever heard this.

“I jist turned nine years old, ‘bout the age you are now. Me and Ma had picked some beans in the cool a’the mornin’ an’ I was a’helpin’ ‘er git ‘em ready fer canning. Ma set down in her rocker to rest jist a minute an’ I was a’playin’ with my kitten. I was glad she was a’sleepin’ a while since I didn’ want’a mess with them beans no how. After a spell, I saw Ma’s head was kinda hung to one side an’ spit was a’runnin’ out’a her mouth kinda foamy. She wouldn’ wake up. I got up to run over to git Miz Jone’s an’ seen there was a fire between our place an’ hearn. There warn’t nothin’ to do but run through it the best I could. Them flames was a’lickin’ at my feet an’ I was jist a’cryin’. I got Miz Jones, but it ain’t made no difference. When they got over to see ‘bout Ma, she was dead. They sent for Uncle Jeb to git’er buried.

I had to go to Uncle Jeb’s, then. He was awful good to me, but Aunt Lottie was jist hard down. She whooped on me ever chancet she got, an’ they was plenty. She made shore I ain’t done no sittin’ aroun’. I married soon’s I could, jist to git outta her way.

I never really had no home after Ma died.  I knowed Aunt Lottie didn’t want me around ‘lessen they was work to be done.  She’d put me out to help a woman that was having a baby, help with the canning, or help with the sick.  I never seen no pay, just worked for my keep.  Sometimes my mama would get settled and send for me, but I had to stay out of the way of her man,  so back I’d go to Uncle Jep and Aunt Lottie, till she could put me off on somebody else.  It was hard times for sure.”

Chicken-Killing Dog

A chicken-killing dog can’t be tolerated on a farm. When I was a kid, we had a young dog who started chasing chickens. Sadly, for Bowser and the chicken, before too long, he caught and killed one.

Mother didn’t want to traumatize the kids by dispatching Bowser to “live in the city” as opposed to city people who send their dog to “live on a farm.” So, she decided to traumatize the dog, by flogging it a few times with the dog chicken. fastening the dead chicken to Bowser’s collar

It took about three days of shame for Bowser to rid himself of that stinking chicken carcass. Bowser was a pariah, outcast from human and dog companions. Forever afterward, he cut a wide circle around anything chicken.

The Sad Saga of the Beakless, Tailless, Gizzard-bobbing, One-leg Hopping chicken

Repost of an earlier post.

Being a farm kid is not for sissies and cowards. The dark side of the chicken experience is slaughtering, plucking, cleaning, and preparing chickens for the pot.  I watched as Mother transformed into a slobbering beast as she towered over the caged chickens, snagging her victim by the leg with a twisted coat-hanger, ringing its neck and releasing it for its last run.  We crowded by, horribly thrilled by what we knew was coming.  It was scarier than ”The Night of the Living Dead”,  as the chicken, flapping its wings, running with its head hanging crazily to one side, chased us in ever larger circles until it finally greeted Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.  It looked horribly cruel, but done properly, a quick snap of the wrist breaks the chicken’s neck instantly, giving a quick death. Of course, this is my assessment, not the unfortunate chicken. The chickens always looked extremely disturbed.

Afterward, my mother grabbed the dead chicken, plunged it into a pot of boiling water, plucked the feathers, slit its pimply white belly, removed its entrails, cut off its feet and head, and prepared it for dinner.  I was repulsed  when Mother found  unlaid eggs in the egg cavity and used them in cooking.  That just didn’t seem right.  I was happy to eat the chicken, but future eggs….disgusting.  It kind of seemed like genocide, or chickenocide, to coin a new term.

Mother looked out one day and saw one of her chickens eating corn, oblivious to the fact that her gizzard was hanging out, bobbing up and down merrily as she pecked corn with all her lady friends.  Apparently she had suffered injury from a varmint of some kind.  Clearly, she wouldn’t survive with this injury, so Mother and I set about catching her.  At least she could be salvaged for the table.  Well, she could still run just fine.  We chased her all over the yard with no luck.

Finally, Mother decided to put her out of her misery by shooting her.  She missed.  She fired again and shot the hen’s foot off.  I knew I could do better.  I shot her beak off, then hit her in the tail.  By this time, we both felt horrible and had to get her out of her misery.  Her injuries had slowed the poor beakless, tailless, gizzard-bobbing, one-leg hopping chicken down enough so we could catch her and wring her neck.

All chickens didn’t end life as happily.  The LaFay girls, Cheryl, Terry, and Cammie raised chickens to show at the fair for 4-H, with a plan to fill their freezer with the rest.  Late one Thursday evening while their widowed mother was at work, they realized tomorrow was the day for the big barbecue chicken competition.  Mama wouldn’t be in until way too late to be helping with slaughtering and dressing the chickens.  After all the time and effort they had put in on their project, they had no choice but to press forward without Mama’s help.  They’d helped Mama with the dirty business of putting up chickens lots of times.  They’d just have to do manage on their own.

Cheryl, the eldest, drew the short straw, winning the honor of wringing the chicken’s neck.  She’d seen Mama do it lots of times, but didn’t quite understand the theory of breaking the neck with a quick snap.  She held the chicken by the neck,  swung it around a few times in a wide arc,  giving it a fine ride, and released it to flee drunkenly with a sore neck.   The girls chased and recaptured the chicken a couple of times, giving it another ride or two before the tortured chicken managed to fly up in a tree, saving its life.

Acknowledging her sister’s failure, Terry stepped up to do her duty.  She pulled her chicken from the pen, taking it straight to the chopping block, just like she’d seen Mama do so many times.  Maybe she should have watched a little closer.  Instead of holding the chicken by the head  and chopping just below with the hatchet, Terry held it by the feet.  The panicked chicken raised its head, flopped around on the block, and lost a few feathers.  On the next attempt, Cammie tried to help by holding the chicken’s head, but wisely jumped when Terry chopped, leaving the poor chicken a close shave on its neck.

indian-dress-and-henBy now, all three girls were squalling.  Cheryl tied a string on the poor chicken’s neck, Cammie held its feet and they stretched the chicken across the block.  By now, Terry was crying so hard so really she couldn’t see.  She took aim, and chopped Henny Penny in half, ending her suffering.   Guilt-stricken, they buried the chicken.  Defeated, they finally called their Aunt Millie, who came over and helped them kill and dress their chickens for the competition, which they won.  All’s well that ends well.

Angus B. McDonald Obituary

The grim reaper came for me on Friday March 25, 2016.  I bought the farm.  I bit the dust.  So I guess I’m off to the promised land eh?  The promised land!  Imagine!

Anyway, I was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Glace Bay on Nov. 26, 1948.  Of 13 children in the family, I was the sixth born.

I was predeceased by four brothers, Lawrence 1943, Pat 1990, Kevin 1999, Allen 2010.

I am survived by my OG Brenda, Tower Road; my three children, Tyler, Stratford, Ont., Lawrence and his wife, Lisa, St. Mary’s, Ont. and Coady, Tower Road and my grandchildren, Nicole MacDonald, Glace Bay, Charlise MacDonald, Stratford, Ont., Hayden and Nathan MacDonald, St. Mary’s, Ont. and Haille and Lukas MacLeod, St. Mary’s, Ont.

So anyway, I think I was a pretty nice guy, despite being a former punk and despite what some people would say about me.  What did they know about me anyway?  I loved my family and cared for them through good times and bad;  I did my best.

I had some serious health problems the last few years, but survived them (up till now anyway) with the help of my wife, Brenda; my granddaughter, Nicole; my sweetheart little dog, Scarlett, and my rescue kitten, Dolly.

Elaine and Sonya and all the other nurses from the VON and the doctors and nurses at the Cape Breton Cancer Centre, the Palliative Care nurses and doctors, Dr. Archibald and doctors and nurses at Glace Bay hospital.

My little dog Scarlett died Sept. 2013, and there really are no words to describe what a total destresser Scarlett was for me.  So I guess if there’s a place in the after-life where little dogs and old dawgs go, then that’s where you’ll find me and Scarlett.  Maybe I’ll see you all there sometime.

Besides my wife, children and grandchildren, the single most wonderful event in my life was spending three years at UCCB, now CBU where I earned my BACS Degree, 1992 grad.

I don’t want a funeral.  A funeral is a waste of harrrrrrd earned and harrrrrrd saved money that my family can use now.  

I was a very private person in life, so I don’t want to end that life with people gawking at me while I lay in a coffin.

I’m being cremated and my ashes are being scattered (somewhere).  So instead of going to see the great creator, I will be going to see the great cremater.

Memorial donations may be made to the Palliative Care Unit at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital

For those who would like to express condolences, visitation will take place on Thursday, March 31, 2016 from 1-3 p.m. in Patten Funeral Home, 71 Union St., Glace Bay, with memorial service to follow at 3 p.m.

Happy trails!  Love Angus B. MacDonald.”

Funny Obituary

Danny Lloyd, aka Rooster, aka Winston, aka Pizza Pop, passed away on April 25th at the age of 64, “to avoid having to pay taxes for the past year and to avoid another year of his New York Yankees not winning the World Series.”  

 A celebration of life will be held at 5:00 pm on Sunday, May 20, 2018 at Davidson Funeral Home in Lexington.  The family will receive friends following the service.  

 Danny is survived by his sons, Frank Callicutt (Beth) and Chris Lloyd; daughters, Abbie Callicutt and Heather Lloyd, all of Lexington and five grandchildren; Mary Lloyd, Annabell and Abbie Callicutt, and Liam and Charlie Blackerby.  He is also survived by three siblings; James Lloyd (Tanya), David Lloyd and Suzie Lloyd.  He was preceded in death by his parents, Charles and Barbara Kimball Lloyd.

 He was a generous man – giving away many of his possessions in the months before he died.  He even left his car to twelve different friends, depending upon who visited him last.  He was a life-long ticket scalper and broker, or as he called it “a facilitator of supply/demand economics.”  Once when asked about any regrets from his ticket sales, Danny confessed, “There was that time I told a Carolina fan that he needed to buy my ticket immediately if he wanted to hear Dean Smith sing the National Anthem.”  

 Danny was cremated – for two reasons:  There could be no viewing since his family refused to honor his request to have him standing in the corner of the room with a sign saying “Buying Tickets” in one hand, and in his other hand a sign saying “Selling Tickets” so that he would appear natural and life-like to his visitors.  

 Because his brother played football for Wake Forest University, Danny was a lifelong Demon Deacon fan, and he had respectfully requested six Wake Forest pall bearers so that the “Deacs” could “let him down” one last time.

 Danny has informed Hampton Inn that they can finally reinstate their pledge to not charge anyone who is not 100% satisfied, as he will no longer be staying there.

 For those attending his memorial service, please ignore Danny’s scalper friends who might be offering to upgrade your seat for a small price.  To any crooks reading this:  None of the family and friends attending this service have anything of value.  Remember, he gave his car to a dozen of us.  And one of his sons is Chris “Country” Lloyd, so it is certainly not worth the risk. 

 Danny Lloyd loved his siblings a little bit, and his children even more.  But those grandkids…they stole his heart.  They were the reason he lived his final 4 years with a sober mind and a giving heart.

 We loved him.  And we already miss him.

Aaron Purmort

Full Obituary

“Age 35, died peacefully at home on November 25 after complications from a radioactive spider bite that led to years of crime-fighting and a years long battle with a nefarious criminal named Cancer, who has plagued our society for far too long.  

Civilians will recognize him best as Spider-Man, and thank him for his many years of service protecting our city.

His family knew him only as a kind and mild-mannered Art Director, a designer of websites and t-shirts and concert posters who always had the right cardigan and the right thing to say (even if it was wildly inappropriate).  

Aaron was known for his long, entertaining stories, which he loved to repeat often.

In high school, he was in the band ‘The Asparagus Children’, which reached critical acclaim in the northern suburbs.  

As an adult, he graduated from the College of Visual Arts (which also died an untimely death recently) and worked in several agencies around Minneapolis, settling in as an Interactive Associate Creative Director at Colle + McVoy.  

Aaron was a comic book aficionado, a pop-culture encyclopedia and always the most fun person at any party.

He is survived by his parents, Bill and Kim Kuhlmeyer, father Mark Purmort (Patricia, Autumn, Aly), sisters Erika and Nicole, first wife Gwen Stefani, current wife Nora and their son Ralph, who will grow up to avenge his father’s untimely death.”

A service will be held on December 3, 2014.