I Went To a Funeral Today

I went to a funeral today. The viewing was Sunday afternoon. I went to that too. There was a long, slow moving line, at the end of which was the family and the open casket. As I got closer, I couldn’t bring myself to look at my friend. She was two years younger than me. I had never seen someone in a casket who was younger than me, so I didn’t look. I didn’t want to remember her like that. But I did want to see her husband and the kids, all dear to me and all grieving an unspeakable loss. So I stood in line and struck up conversations with strangers with whom I shared nothing other than our common love for the departed. After we made it through the line, we gathered around a television screen and watched a slide show of photographs, our beautiful friend’s shining face beaming back at us. Here she was holding a grandchild. There she was holding her middle son as an infant, looking tanned in the warm South African sun. It all seemed so unfair.

I had not been looking forward to the funeral. Whenever I hear them called celebrations, I cringe. It’s like we are trying too hard to deny the fact that we have all suffered a crushing loss. As people of faith, we believe in an afterlife, we believe that we will one day be reunited with those we love. But, to call a funeral a celebration lands rudely on my ears, trite and disrespectful. Putting aside the theological ramifications for a moment, here’s what I know...the world I live in was a better place before my friend left it, and now that she is gone, it has been reduced, there is less love, less empathy, and less selflessness. I will not pretend to celebrate that.

We arrived thirty minutes early, and still had to park somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood. The church was packed to overflowing. The service was simulcast on the internet and watched by hundreds of other people in half a dozen countries around the world. My friend was once a missionary in South Africa. The friends she forged throughout Sub-Saharan Africa were the life long kind. They stopped whatever they were doing at whatever time it was over there to listen to the service.

We sat close to the front, very close to the row where the family was seated. To be seated so close to them was to feel the immediacy of their loss. Part of me wished I were in the back, far away from the pain. We watched them cling to one another. We could barely abide watching our friend’s parents, wondering what they must have been feeling as they prepared to bury their second child.

A man at a keyboard asked us all to stand and sing a song. The words were on the screen at the back of the stage. We all sang the words from memory. It was a familiar song, and these people were church people. We could have sung it with our eyes closed. Many people did, including me.

Then I watched my friend’s husband and her three adult children rise from the front row and make their way to the podium. My heart was in my throat. A hush fell over the assembly. The kids were holding on, being resolute and strong for their very brave dad who read aloud from Proverbs 31. The fact that he made it through felt like a miracle of grace. He then looked down at his bereaved in-laws on the front row and thanked each of them for allowing him the privilege of 35 years as their daughter’s husband. When they made it back to their seat, the atmosphere of the building was drenched with sorrow. Then something amazing happened...

Our dear friend, Gordon Fort rose to give the eulogy. For nearly thirty minutes, his words redeemed the day. He spoke with the perfect mixture of compelling biography, humor and the unique insights that can only be provided by intimate friends. He didn’t try to hide the shock of such a loss, even justifiably lamented that she only lived 58 years on this earth. But at the end, he looked at the family, each of them, and called them by name...Did not Kim love you well? Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that Gordon Fort is clutch.

The man at the keyboard again. This time a familiar hymn, the words, powerful and sobering...

When peace, like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,

What ever my lot, thou hath taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul...

Pam and I mingled within the mass of people slowly making their way out of the church. We saw people we hadn’t seen in months, some in years. All of us united in grief and overcome with love for such an amazing, selfless woman. We drove home in quiet reflection, praying for the family. We thought of how exhausted they all must be, how thoroughly worn out from all the hugging, the tears and condolences which probably all started sounding the same after a while. Now the family must find their way to Atlanta to lay her to rest. More tears, more embraces.

Tonight, we went to dinner with friends. It felt like the kind of night where we needed to be around friends. We ate a meal together at Brio’s, and talked about our friend. We will miss her. In a few weeks, maybe a couple months, we will recall our friend with nothing but smiles and fondness. For now, its mostly sadness and loss. But thats ok, I think. How could we not?

In the meantime, I will say a quick prayer every time D. Ray comes to my mind. I will keep Paul and Trevor and Emily in my thoughts. And I will hold on to Pam and my four adult children ever tighter, and be grateful for every day that I have them.

Fighting Back

It’s 40 degrees and raining in Short Pump for like the 28th day in a row. Practically everyone I know is grieving a dear friend who’s  viewing is coming up tomorrow, with the funeral service on Monday. In other words, this weekend promises to be the low point of 2019. Accordingly, I am forced to fight back with one of the few weapons at my disposal...cringe-inducing Dad Jokes:

1. I started a company selling land mines disguised as prayer mats.

    Prophets are going through the roof.

2. Need an ark?

    I Noah guy.

3. I’m positive I just lost an electron.

    Better keep an ion that.

4. How does an attorney sleep?

    First he lies and on side, then he lies on the other.

5. What do you call a super articulate dinosaur?

     A Thesaurus.

6. What superlative did Robert E. Lee win in high school?

     Most Likely to Secede.

7. How did the Native Americans get to America first?

    They had reservations.

8. I have a phobia about over-engineered buildings.

    It’s called a complex complex complex.

9. Napoleon may not have designed the coat he wore..,

    But he certainly had a hand in it.

10. What do you call children who are born in whorehouses?

      Brothel sprouts.

11. The guy who invented throat lozenges died last week.

      There was no coffin at the funeral.

12. What happened when the semi-colon violated grammar laws?

      He was given two consecutive sentenses.

How Come the Chemistry Program Always Gets a Pass?

It’s 4 am. Its raining. My weather app informs me that it will be raining for the next three days. In a couple more hours Lucy will insist on being preambulated in the muck. There are seven more days left in February. If I were a Frenchman, this would Le suck. But, as it is, I am an American. Therefore, I blame it all on an unholy alliance between systemic racism and global warming. In exchange for this observation, I will earn valuable virtue points, and be hailed in some quarters as woke. Others will conclude that I am a moron. In America in 2019, it is very much a mixed bag to express an opinion. 

While the rest of the country is obsessed with one of two stories right now, I would like to discuss a third. If you watch Fox News the only story that matters at the moment concerns an obscure black, gay actor who conspired to stage a racist/homophobic assault on himself by a couple of MAGA hat-wearing thugs, ostensibly to highlight how hateful that crowd is and also to earn himself even greater levels of fawning adulation than he already enjoys as a black, gay actor. If you watch MSNBC, you are horrified by a 30 year Coast Guard veteran who was arrested with a huge cache of weaponry, a hit list of liberal politicians and journalists, and a computer trail of White Nationalist sympathies. But, neither one of these stories interest me. What concerns me this morning is this...

For those of you who might not know. My alma mater is a small, liberal arts university with less than 1,500 male students. Despite this, we compete on the highest level of college athletics for basketball. Our team has had great success over the past thirty years or so, making it to many NCAA tournaments. Etc. But, we aren’t even the best team in our own city. That title has been held by crosstown rival VCU for the past ten years or so. They not only have the better team and program, but measured by fan enthusiasm and buzz, University of Richmond is like Barry Manilow to VCU’s Drake. Anyway...this billboard has popped up in recent days, giving me a shiny, gleaming new reason to be embarrassed as a Spider fan. Chris Mooney has been the head basketball coach for ten years or so. I’ve never been crazy about him, but he’s fine. But some outfit called the UR Alumni & Spider Fans has decided that the only way to “SAVE” Richmond basketball is to fire the coach. To this end, they thought it wise and worth the considerable expense involved in having this eye sore erected along Interstate 95 so that the 25,000 people who pass everyday can witness our dysfunction. To whoever is responsible for this moronic stunt, a few words...

1. It’s the University of Richmond. We have 1500 male students. We’re lucky we even have a basketball team.

2. You guys need to get a life. I’m thinking that the odds that the guy who came up with this idea has had a date in the last year are about as high as the likelihood that our next home game will be a sellout.

3. This is basketball we’re talking about here. You guys just paid God knows what for a billboard to gin up support for firing a guy who coaches teenagers to play...basketball.

4. How about a billboard that addresses the real problem at UR...Save Richmond Chemistry...Fire Professor Dunnblat.

A Special Memory

So, tonight we will bring dinner to the Davis family. Pam is grateful for the snow day off from school so she can bring all of her energy to the task. I have no idea who took the initiative to set up this meal schedule...since in our circle of friends it’s always Kim who organizes this sort of thing. Nevertheless, we have been honored with the job tonight.

Before my Mother died seven years ago, followed by my Dad two years later, I had been largely unexposed to death. I had made it through over fifty years without losing someone very close to me. I learned a lot about how community works, about just how invaluable friends are. People who you would have least expected would show up big time in the clutch to provide exactly the thing you needed most. It was uncanny, and served as reassurance that you were going to make it through the darkness after all. All of this brings to mind two memories of Kim Davis.

When Mom died in her sleep in June of 2012, all of us were devastated. The first 48 hours were a horrifying maze of funeral home decisions, worrying about and attending to Dad and no sleep. Looking back at it now I can hardly believe we made it through. Right in the middle of all the craziness and grief, Pam got a call from Kim. Kim barely knew my mother, mostly knew her by reputation. So what words or wisdom and advice did Kim share with Pam?...Pam, I know it must be crazy with everything you guys have going on...I was just wondering if I could maybe drop by your house and let Molly out to go to the bathroom.

Every time Pam tells the story it chokes me up. Such a simple, unobtrusive gift of thoughtfulness and care. Kim Davis doing what she did...the basic, behind the scenes essential things that must be done.

A couple of days after the funeral, Kim showed up at our front door with a knockout rose bush in her hand...Sometimes its nice to plant a bush or a tree when someone we love passes away to remind us of them, she said.

One of the many reasons she will be missed.

Mourning With Those Who Mourn

I walked in the door of my home last night at 6:30 after a long and tiring day. There was an odd stillness and quiet, the smell of dinner wasn’t in the air. Pam ran to me with tears in her eyes and told me the awful news about a dear friend who had passed away earlier in the afternoon from a massive heart attack. Life has moved along in slow motion ever since.

She was 58 years old. She was one of the healthiest people I’ve ever known. She leaves behind a husband, three children, and five grandchildren. She also leaves behind a grieving community of people lucky enough to be counted as her friends. One of the reasons we grieve is because Kim Davis taught all of us what being a friend really means. Almost a year ago to the day it was Kim who saved our friend Leigh Ann’s life when she found her collapsed at home. It was her calm, quick action that saved her life. For the next month it was Kim who took charge of all of the details of caring for Leigh Ann and her devastated family. It was Kim who poured out every ounce of strength she possessed to make the intolerable tolerable for her best friend. Now, in an irony that is almost impossible to comprehend, this time...it was Leigh Ann who found Kim.

Life is full of disappointments. Each of us must endure news that stings and shocks the system. When one so dear, so vibrant, healthy and full of life dies so suddenly, it serves as a bitter reminder that we all exist on borrowed time. All of us eventually, in the words of Shakespeare, will shuffle off this mortal coil. We accept this fact intellectually but seldom spent a lot of time preparing ourselves for its truth. Most of us prefer to think of death and dying as the province of old age. But, yesterday it came for one of us...and we are heartbroken. Like the apostle Paul, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed...”

Every group of friends needs someone to whom they can point and say, There is what a good person looks like. We all need to know someone who models for the rest of us what it means to be loyal, generous, and kind. We all need living examples of what real Christianity looks like in person rather than merely in theory. Although she would have been the last person to claim any kind of sainthood for herself...for so many of us, Kim Davis was that person.

Her absence will leave a gaping hole in her family’s life. She will be mourned by the friends she leaves behind. But we don’t grieve like those who have no hope. Yes, we mourn. But we also celebrate a life well lived.

Freeloader

A very rough two weeks of feeling like garbage seems to be mercifully coming to an end. I hesitate to celebrate just yet since I went for a similar head fake from this dreadful cold five days ago only to fall into an even nastier abyss of misery. This time, I confidently tell myself, it will be different. So what better way to get back into the swing of things than writing a blog about...U.S. tax policy??  Clickclickclickclick...(thats the sound of 100 of you bailing on this post). For those of you who remain...

Saw the story over the weekend where Amazon earned 11 billion dollars in 2018 on which they paid an effective tax rate of -1% ( they actually got a 129 million dollar refund). I immediately forwarded the story to my accountant with the admonition...Go Thou and do likewise! Depending on your political philosophy this bit of news either infuriates you or instills great admiration for the savvy of Jeff Bezos. As it happens I am firmly in both camps. 

Do I admire Jeff Bezos and his team of tax lawyers and accountants for figuring out a legal way to use our Byzantine mess of a tax code to their favor? Am I in awe as to how they could figure out a way to combine a series of legal credits, rebates and loopholes to obliterate their tax bill? Sure I am. When I meet with my accountant every year, I have never once said to him, Ok, Carl, listen up...I’ve had a really good year but I’m very concerned about the deficit and debt in Washington, so this year I want you to arrange it so that i fall into the highest tax bracket available. This year, I want to pay more taxes than I’ve ever paid, ok? Actually, my charge to him is to earn the exorbitant fee he charges for his services by doing exactly the opposite. Each year he saves me far more in taxes than he charges for his service, so every year, I play along. However, after all of his accounting jujitsu I still pay lots of tax. He helps me to lower the effective rate, but he never eliminates it. Ending up paying 0% has never and will never be available to me. Actually, if it ever did happen, I would feel like a freeloader. There is, after all, a price to be paid for freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Does the fact that Amazon pays 0% federal taxes infuriate me? You bet it does. Something tells me that every single one of the hundreds of businesses that they have put out of business via the process of creative destruction—-paid plenty in taxes. I hear all of the Amazon apologists argue about the millions and millions of dollars that Amazon invests all over the country, the construction projects that a burgeoning business spins off, the billions of stock options dolled out to their employees etc, etc. All of that is well and good. But, here’s the thing. I am one of those dinosaurs who still considers himself a champion of the free market. When I see the way cities and states all across the fruited plain have prostrated themselves at Amazon’s alter, all undercutting themselves trying to buy a headquarters, I recoil in disgust. Amazon has become an online retailer without equal and has generated an other worldly 29 billion dollars of profit as their reward. Why should taxpayers have to pay for for their headquarters building? This is exactly how I feel when I hear some football team owner threatening to leave the city unless the taxpayers build him a new stadium. WTF??

Of course, there is an easy fix to this problem, but neither side will even consider it...conservatives (are there any of you left?) because the current system empowers the well connected and rewards those with the most diabolical lobbyists...liberals because it isn’t sufficiently progressive (although, how progressive is a 0% tax rate for Amazon?)...and that is a flat tax, no deductions, no write offs, no fancy accountants. So instead of real tax reform, we chip at the edges of our 7000 page tax code every couple of years which only has the effect of making it even more complex and exploitable. Here’s a life lesson for all of you big government types...private sector accountants are always sharper, craftier and more effective than government accountants. Always have been...always will be. To level this playing field, you’re gonna have to put them out of business....flat tax.

“Hold My Big Mac...”

Two weeks ago, in my state of Virginia, we suffered a political earthquake that had all three of our highest ranked elected officials embroiled in career threatening controversies, which had made us the laughing stock of the country. Our Governor and Attorney General were dealing with racist photographs from their college days, our Lt. Governor, credibly accused by two women of sexual harassment. The air was thick with talk of triple impeachment. At that time I wrote the following:

Ralph knows that the people of Virginia, like the rest of America, have an attention span of a toddler. Sure, the fire might be hot for the first 48 hours, but each day after that it cools. Ralph also knows that the Press also has a short attention span. They might be in high drugeon when the story breaks, but after a few days it’s like...squirrel!!!

Two weeks to the day that all this broke, this political earthquake has vanished from the newspapers. Welcome to America in 2019.

One of the most enduring legacies of the Trump Presidency will be the magnificent cover he has provided for all manner of political misbehavior throughout government. Each day’s headlines scream out the latest outrage that would have been enough to doom previous Presidents. But, just about the time that all the players have their talking points ready, Trump has moved on to the next outrage, leaving the commentariat gasping for air and back to scribbling out talking points. I have come to believe that this is the signature genius of Donald Trump. Flood the zone with outlandish, fact-free, anti-constitutional and boorish behavior, then watch with glee your enemies trying to keep up with it all. Its fiendishly clever, and provides lesser political lights valuable cover for what would have been career ending death sentences. So, there’s a governor in Virginia who posed in blackface in his medical school yearbook, you say? Psshht, that’s so two weeks ago, bro.

So, the President has declared a national emergency at the southern border to circumvent the will of Congress, and decided to divert funds earmarked for drug interdiction from the Defense Department to fund his border wall? And this has your knickers in a knot? Somewhere in the White House the President is turning to one of his aides and saying, Here, hold my Big Mac and hand me my cell...