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Deeper Thoughts
Last Sunday a driver that I used to work with back in the Elyria Center died of cancer. We weren't good friends but spoke often. The second time I was fired from my job (first time as a full-time employee), he was one of the guys who took me out and got me incredibly drunk. I liked him but didn't hang out with that group. I worked hard to get off work early and made it to the funeral home to see him and his family. There was a good showing of his fellow workers. He had retired six years ago and died at sixty-four, that seems pretty standard.
When our pension fund got into trouble, meetings were held all of us old guys would come to the hall and listen to some guy in a suit wearing an expensive watch. He would use spreadsheets and charts to show us the pension woes. At one meeting he said that the biggest problem is that retirees used to live three to five years but now were living six to eight years. Later I spoke to the man and recommended passing out bacon, cigarettes and hemlock at the meetings. He explained that we were all in the same boat. Perhaps, but it was obvious the wor
kers were in steerage class.
A few days ago I was delivering to the Mackert family. Back in the day they owned Mackert Dairy. For the past thirty years I've enjoyed they kindness and stories of the old days. My father delivered milk for them after he came back from World War II. His brother Robert worked there in 1950.
While delivering there Gladys told me she found something. She went into her study and brought out a photograph of my uncle Bob taken in 1950. There was an odd moment looking at the photograph. The last time I saw my uncle he was sitting on the edge of my bed. I was ten years old and my father had died a few hours before. I was inconsolable. He sat with me and quietly told me about my father. Then he took his time and told me that we'd be okay. I remember wishing at the time that he was my father and feeling guilty about it.
It's hard to believe that this picture was taken fifty-eight years ago. Bob died in 1970 at 41 from the same colon cancer that killed his father, later his son and even later would attack my two brothers.
The past year I've been to too many funerals. Funerals force reflection and with my job I have a lot of time for that.
Last night I had a package for an area I've never delivered before in Avon. I went there and as I was standing at the front door I noticed an odd buzzing around my head. It was so fast that it was hard to keep up with. Finally I saw the hummingbird and it's body stood still as it's wings were a blur. For a few seconds it just hung in the air but it seemed to go on forever.
Life is a series of moments, we give them meaning. The Mackerts, the dairy, my father, my uncle and the hummingbird, they all are part of my life. I have a lot to think about.