Yesterday Was A Bit Bizarre -- Even For One Of My Days

After Ginny left for work Friday morning I edited about 20 pages of the Civil War soldier’s diary. But by midday I encountered two unusual situations: one involved romance; the other, my death.

Love comes first.

This is not a tale of long lost love, but of postponed romance.

Long ago a guy, lets call him Alex, and a girl, lets call her Ellen, grew up near Jacksonville and went to the same high school where they were sweethearts.

Both are now over 80 years old.

After high school they went separate ways: he into the service, she to college in another city. They met other loves, married other partners, and raised families. Alex and his wife were married for 55 years; I’m not sure how long Ellen was married.

Then each of them lost their respective spouses.

He lives out west; she, up north..

A chance phone call. A renewed acquaintance. Romance bloomed again.

My friend Barbara brought them over to my house to meet me and stroll through my garden. I had never met them before; they are visiting Barbara in the old folks home where she lives.

Alex and Ellen are visiting Jacksonville on a sort of pre-honeymoon vacation trip together.

“We may get married legally, or we may exchange private, personal vows and live in sin,” Ellen told me using her fingers to put quote marks around that last phrase.

I sympathize with their dilemma.

They face tough choices.

No particular Scripture appropriate to their situation pops into my mind, only a phrase from Shakespeare’s sonnet:

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments”.

And these folks face plenty of impediments.

The couple is thinking of marriage but they face problems concerning social security benefits, health insurance, property, input from grown children, financial arrangements, tax issues, etc.

If they marry legally, each will loose all kinds of benefits.

Benefits they can ill afford to loose.

Oh well, even for the young, love is costly.

It was a pleasure meeting the happy couple, giddy with new-found love.

My friend Barbara and the couple all got to talking about what they were each doing back in 1950. My only contribution to the conversation was that in 1950, I’d been sent to the Principal’s office. I was in 4^th grade!

Yes, lunch with them felt a bit odd because I was the youngest person at the table!

That’s a switch.

And it brings me to the other odd situation of the day:

The four of us went to a Chinese restaurant where I have been going off and on for years. There I ran into my friend Peggy, a beautiful young woman whom I have not happened to see for four or five months.

Seeing me walk in the door stunned her.

As I entered the restaurant, Peggy gasped and ran to hug me. She acted delighted to see me again. She trembled as she told why she was so startled to see me.

Until quite recently Peggy, who is considerably younger than me or Ginny, worked as an aid at a local hospital, a massive facility that covers a couple of city blocks.

Among her duties at the hospital she delivered supplies to the upper floors and wheeled patients who died down to the morgue.

About two months ago, in delivering supplies to the cardiac floor, she noticed that some equipment was for a John Cowart in Room so and so. She noticed on the papers that the man’s wife was Ginny.

Cowart is not an uncommon name here in the southeast, but what are the chances of another John Cowart also being married to a lady with the same name as my wife, Ginny?

Peggy assumed that I was the patient. She intended to visit Ginny and me, but work kept her so busy that she did not get up to the room.

Two days later, her supervisor told her to pick up John Cowart’s corpse from cardiac and wheel it down to the morgue.

Peggy just could not do it. She broke down and cried. She told the supervisor that she knew that patient and asked if someone else could pick up my body so she would not have to look at me.

“I just could not stand to look at your body,” she said.

(When it comes to girls, that’s the story of my life).

She cried and cried and mourned for me. She felt ashamed and guilty about going to comfort Ginny because she’d been too busy to visit me in the hospital room.

For ages Peggy has owned a copy of the book I wrote on prayer, but she’d never gotten around to reading it. She said she got out her copy of the book and read it cover to cover weeping at various reminders about what a nice guy I was.

So seeing me walk in the restaurant shocked her. Her hands trembled as she told me about this. She felt so flustered to find me still alive when she thought I had died..

I felt flattered and honored that this young woman mourned for me so.

But the only thing I could think of to say about her tale was, “I’m sorry to disappoint you”.