Robert Armbruster's Eulogy (November 25, 2019)

     On the day that we buried my father-in-law, my wife handled herself with such grace and composure that she was almost regal.  We arrived early at the funeral home to prepare ourselves for what we knew was going to be one of the hardest days of our lives.  Tracey decided that she alone would give the eulogy, without the help of a preacher, or even another family member, and she knocked it out of the park.
    “Bob Armbruster was a man of contradictions,” she began with what was surely going to be a tear jerker.  “He was the last founding member of the McMahan Fire Department,” and one of her earliest memories was watching her grandfather, or “Pops” as he was known to the other firefighters, smoking a cigar and rolling the coins that had been collected by McMahan for The Crusade for Children.  Meanwhile, there was a picture of her father, or “Bobby” as he was known throughout the firehouse, with a three year old Tracey slung over one shoulder, and a bucket full of coins for The Crusade in his hand.  This picture hung on the walls of the firehouse for years because it captured the spirit of the generosity of the time and money that the firemen had dedicated to the Crusade over the years.
      The contradiction comes from when Grandpa had cancer when he was still in his fifties and the firehouse gave him an award for his years of service.  Grandpa beat the cancer but thought that the firehouse was writing him off by giving him that reward, so he quit McMahan to begin thirty more years of service, this time he volunteered for the German American Club.  He still loved the firehouse, continuing to listen to the scanner at night and keeping firefighter memorabilia around the house, but he was too stubborn to go back to his old friends at McMahan.
    Another contradiction was that Grandpa was an extremely private person.  When his wife died he decided to continue to live by himself at their patio home.  Bob was set in his ways and didn’t like change, but when an ice storm hit Louisville and knocked out the power to his daughter’s house, he “opened his small home to my family of five.  We ended up staying for a whole week, and it was cramped in that little two bedroom home, but Dad never complained while his daughter and grandchildren lived with him and never brought up the incident again.”  It is with this spirit of generosity that Bob Armbruster will be remembered.
    One final contradiction was Bob’s complicated relationship with money.  According to Tracey, her father would drive twenty miles out of his way to find a gas station with lower prices so that he could save a couple of dollars to fill up his tank.  He did not like to spend money needlessly.  And yet, if a friend was in need and asked Bob for a dime, “My father would give his friend his last nickel.  And then he would ask four other people to give his friend a nickel so that he would have a quarter and would no longer be in need.”  Also, he gave his grandchildren a monetary gift at Christmas every year to ensure that they would not want for anything.  The money was spent on their education, their cars, vacations, and other things that they otherwise would not be able to afford.  Every time they bought something with Grandpa’s help, they were sure to say thank you to him, and it is those three grandchildren who are the legacy of Bob Armbruster.
    At the end of the eulogy, Tracey grabbed her father’s old fireman’s helmet from the pedestal that was situated next to the coffin, held it close to her heart, and allowed herself to take a moment to cry.
    After the funeral, an old firetruck led the procession to the cemetery.  Only it wasn’t just any firetruck.  Bob had written the grant which supplied the money for the firetruck, McMahan’s first, and it was commonly referred to as the old milk truck because it was painted white and it the volunteers used to serve ice cream out of it at picnics.  Grandpa was laid to rest next to his wife in a crypt which the two used to call their “condo for eternity.”  Situated next to them are their longtime friends, the Waldrons, and while they were alive the two couples used to joke that they saw the afterlife as one big long party together.  Grandpa was not a particularly religious man, so that thought that he could spend forever playing cards and enjoying the company of his wife and friends, is not a bad way to spend the rest of time.
   

Book 3 Chapter 7 Section 5:God, the Devil, and the Warden

         God, the Devil, and the Warden
          The greatest ordeal of Andy’s life, he claimed, occurred while his mother was being committed to the nursing home.  Andy knew that his mother had gone crazy, and that the nursing home staff was close to ejecting her from the facility and sending her to a psych hospital, but he was busy with his own problems.  He was on his way to talk to God and he wasn’t planning to come back from the visit.  He was sentenced to time in jail while his mother had been committed, and his crime was possession of marijuana.  It was while he was in jail that Andy decided that he was going on a hunger strike.  “Either I am going to find my purpose in this life, or I am going to die,” he said to himself.
            Andy didn't tell anyone about his hunger strike while he was incarcerated.  On the first day of the strike he was awakened by the guards who were ordered to take him to his Parole Board meeting.  They tried to feed him breakfast, but Andy refused, preferring to pace in his cell until transport came to get him.  The guards made him shower, dressed him, handcuffed him, and then escorted him to the meeting.  The Parole Board was friendly, but uncommitted towards him.  It was a quick meeting and when it was over the guards made him take off his civilian clothes and then re-dressed Andy in an anti-suicide smock, commonly referred to by the prisoners as a “turtle suit.”  He fought putting the suit on, so the guards tasered him.  As he was rolled into the suit, Andy thought that if he kept fasting then it would take about twenty days to become comatose.  If he could resist any nourishment, then in about forty days he would become a martyr.  Then, for reasons that had never been explained to him, the guards redressed Andy back into his civilian clothes and then put him on a bus.  He was being removed from the jail and he was on his way to prison.
           Prison might be a welcome relief.  After all, there was nothing that he wanted to eat and no one who he wanted to see.  There was no car that he wanted to own or any house that he could imagine living in.  He was done.  So why not have the government pay for his room and board while he stewed in prison.  If his hunger strike worked and he died in prison, Andy hoped that one of the lawyers in the family would sue for wrongful death.  He laughed at his own joke; suing a for-profit prison to take away their profit.  All that he had to do was to not eat for forty days.
          The act of starving yourself is deemed suicidal by the prison system and the warden responded to Andy’s suicidal tendencies by putting him in solitary confinement.  The warden refused his counselor’s request to send Andy to a psych facility by saying, “We do not pass along our problems to other units.”  Andy was left to starve himself in a small cell.  As the days went by and the fast continued, all Andy wanted to do was sleep. Meanwhile, his body began to wither from the lack of nourishment as it began to feed off itself.  After the first two weeks of the fast, when there is no fat left to burn, the body begins eating away at the muscles and vital organs for energy.  When this happened to Andy, he became delusional and he began to hallucinate.
          He had a dream where he was ushered into the darkness but saw light at the center of his field of vision.  As his eyes cleared, he could no longer see the dark, and he knew that he was in God’s presence, and the Almighty was angry with him.  “Why are you here?” God said in a tone that marked his disappointment in his acolyte.  “I left you in good stead.”  In return, Andy became testy with God.  He stood up, in his hallucination, and said, “I did what you told me to do.”  He was angry at God.  “I never asked you for anything!”  This was true.  In all his days in solitary confinement, and even in his years of trying to find his purpose in life, Andy prayed the rosary, but he didn’t ask for any favors.  God, wanting to end this altercation, stated “You stand accused of living a wasted life.”  Then, suddenly, from somewhere behind him, Andy heard Satan laughing, saying, “I told you that you should have put a comma there.”  It was a joke by Satan because there are no commas in Hebrew.  God laughed too, and said, “I got you,” and then a band of angels appeared to usher Andy out through the Pearly Gates.  He woke up in his cell, crying.
           Meanwhile, the warden decided that Andy’s case was beyond what his prison was equipped for and reversed his decision about keeping Andy in his prison.  Andy was ordered to be moved to the psychiatric hospital.  If he wouldn’t eat, then a tube would be inserted into his nose for forced feeding.  The guards put Andy in a strait jacket so that his arms were strapped down to his side.  Then they put an anklet on him and, at the end of the anklet, there was a wire that was attached to a taser, just in case Andy decided to get violent.  The other inmates looked at Andy, as he was being dragged from his cell to transport, with a mixture of fear and amazement.  Here was the half-starved crazy man that they had heard so much about, and he was literally being carried away by the guards.  The inmates gave him plenty of room to pass once they saw his scraggy beard, his arms strapped to his side, and a taser attached to his leg.  Andy looked like the prophet that he always wanted to be; his eyes burning as if they were on fire and his face racked with intensity.  In reality, however, no religious would be in a strait jacket and no prophet would be carried away by guards.
        And then Andy decided that his ordeal was over.  His intent was self-harm with the goal of killing himself.  But Andy had seen the face of God and that alone was enough for him to end his hunger strike after twenty-one days.  The driver of the bus that was to take Andy to the asylum found his prisoner sitting in the holding area eating the lunch that had been offered to him.  “Andy Clark?” said the driver who had to take role before putting the prisoners on the bus.  “That’s me,” said Andy, lifting his head from the plate.  He couldn’t use his arms to eat the sandwich because they were still strapped down in the straight jacket.  The driver was confused.  “It says here that you are on a hunger strike.”  Andy replied, “Was!  I was on a hunger strike but am not anymore.  Can I have that other sandwich if no one else is going to eat it?”  Starving himself was an act of pure defiance but Andy had thought that he had taken it about as far as he could.  He was a control freak and the ordeal would be over only when Andy said that it was over.
         After the hunger strike it took a couple of days before Andy could have a bowel movement, and when he did his shit had turned black; and that was about all that he had to show for his trip to crazy town and his showdown with God, the Devil, and the warden.

Finding Inner Peace.

Inner Peace

The movies do a good job of illustrating what it must be like to reach a moment of serendipity.  In “The Bridge at Toko Ri” William Holden braced himself for the upcoming battle by facing the wind and letting the breeze hit him hard while he was standing at the front of an aircraft carrier.  Kevin Costner let go of the reins of his horse and was galloping, with his eyes closed and long hair flying, in front of the enemy lines in “Dances with Wolves.”  In the movie “Deliverance,” and the book that it was based on, a man’s last thoughts as he was shooting the rapids of a backwoods river was, “I am free!”  These are just three examples of men reaching an epiphany, or a moment of peace, right before they thought that they were going to die.  Yet I am alive, and intend to remain so for a few more decades, so I need to find a way to achieve inner peace while I live.

Sometimes I step out of the front door of our school building after a long day spent in a dark and cold classroom; I’ll feel the sun on my face, and the breeze in my hair, and I’ll feel free.  It is a brief sensation, and I have to take a moment to acknowledge it, so that I can appreciate it.  Sometimes peace comes without effort, like when I am coasting down a huge hill on my bike, or running on a track.  At other times, I have to actively search for peace while letting my troubles wash around me. After closing my eyes, I work to block out any negative thoughts and memories, and live in the moment.  This moment has happened on vacation while sitting on top of the double decker bus in Times Square, or crossing the bridge to South Beach, or standing in front of the boat in Biscayne Bay, and by sitting on the bench at Wynnewood while the rest of the family walked around to look at the art.

Jack London once said, “You can’t wait for inspiration to come to you.  You have to hunt it down with a club.”  The same thing can be said for inner peace in that you have to go looking for it.  One of the ways that I force myself to slow down is to drive my car on extended road trips.  While in the car, I know that no matter what I do I won’t be able to get to my destination quickly, so I settle in for a long ride and allow my mind to wander.  The constant drone of the car propelling itself down the road can block out all distractions, and the vibrations that my vehicle emits have a calming effect.  To ensure that I am comfortable on a long ride I sit on a soft pillow, and then stuff a second pillow at the small of my back, next to my lumbar, to avoid back pain.  In effect, I become locked into position into my seat, just like the drivers at the Indianapolis 500.  I like to drive through the night because when it is dark out, and there is little traffic on the road, I can I work myself into a trance.  Before I know it, the hours have flown by and through concentrated thought; I have exhausted myself mentally and physically.  Finally, at the end of a long road trip, I park the car, and unbundle myself from my seat.  My whole body creaks and groans as I stretch while I get used to standing on my legs again.  I feel completely satisfied.

Crossword puzzles are a good way for me to slow myself down.  Everything in today’s society comes so fast and easy but there is no way to work crossword puzzles quickly.  I have to set aside an hour and a half for concentrated thought if I hope to finish one.  Meanwhile, just when I thought that I knew a lot of information on a variety of topics, working a crossword humbles me by reminding me of how much I don’t know.  They are a good tool for learning new things but, if I am to get anything out of it, I have to have the self-discipline to look up the words that I don’t know.  Also, I find it immensely satisfying to fill in all of the blocks of the puzzle.  I always use a red pen as a stark contrast to the black and white newspaper, so by the time that I am done the paper looks as though it has been bloodied from my efforts to finish the puzzle.  The intellectual challenge affords me the luxury of forgetting myself for a while.

  A permanent peace is impossible to maintain so I have to satisfy myself with a brief respite from the thoughts that constantly plague me.  A strenuous work out helps.  Alcohol can provide temporary relief. A long bike with Broadway musicals blaring into my earbuds can take me away.    The movies can distract me as well, but only if it a good one; if it is not then I cannot concentrate on the film and my mind goes back to whatever it was that had been troubling me.  Aside from these ideas, I’ll snatch a few moments of peace from where ever I can find it.  If I can’t find a way to rest my brain then I become impatient and my temper is likely to flare up, just like in the old days, and that wouldn’t be good for any of my relations with anyone.

To give up on inner peace is to give up on happiness.  It is worth the effort so I do things that I never thought that I was capable to calm myself down.  For example, I attend the ballet so that I can concentrate on the beauty of dance.  In the moment, the ballerinas represent the best of humanity and I admire them for the precision of their dance and their athleticism.  The plot or drama is unimportant to me as all I want to see are the dancers in their beautiful white dresses.  The pride in the faces of the individual dancers, and the synchronicity of the company when they dance as a group, can uplift my whole day and gives me something to reflect on for the following weeks.  Life can be bleak, and humanity is sometimes selfish, but to share some time in the same room with the best of us is well worth the effort.  

Inner peace has always been elusive for me; a goal to strive for but to never win permanently.  Yet to give up on inner peace is to give up on hope and happiness; to fall back on the self-destructive behaviors of my youth.  It is tempting to stoke the hot coals of my past, which are now dormant below the ash, and allow my old anxieties and insecurities to flame up.  But I refuse to take that step backwards so I continue to fight against depression and for happiness.  The struggle is worth the effort.  Before I can be a good teacher, a good father, and a good friend, I have to be at peace with myself and that is why inner peace is so important to me.

Book 3 Chapter 5 Section 1: A Boy and his Dog

             Book 3, Chapter 5, Section 1 "Twin Oaks Drive"

            “Stay!”  Jeff yelled at his dog, Sonya.  “We can’t start the game until I get on the other side of this fence.”  As long as Jeff could remember, he had played “Hide and Go Seek” with his dog.  There was an estate behind the row of houses, and across the street, from where the Frazier family lived.  The owners held a huge lot of land and, while Jeff was growing up, he and Sonya would go up the woods to explore the only forested area of their neighborhood.  As he became older, Jeff explored his way to the fence that bordered the acreage that belonged to the Humphreys with the secondary streets in the suburb.  Jeff held onto Sonya’s leash until he was ready and then he yelled, “GO!”  Flinging himself over the fence, so that Sonya could not follow him, Jeff searched for a good hiding spot.  Meanwhile, since the dog couldn’t jump over the five foot fence, she had to go all of the way around the barrier.  That run only took a minute or two but it gave Jeff the lead time needed to find a suitable hiding spot.  There was a church yard across the street and the open space allowed Jeff to run from Sonya and gave him a chance to duck under a picnic table or slide into some bushes.  The best hiding spot was up an old pine tree because the dog didn’t think to look up to find Jeff.  If she didn’t find her quarry within a few minutes then she would give up and start to make her way back home.  Once he saw his dog retreating, Jeff yelled, “SONYA!” and the dog straightened up, picked up her ears, and then resume the search.  Yelling always gave away Jeff’s position so, by that point, the game was up.  If Sonya didn’t find Jeff after the first clue then he would continue to yell at her every few minutes. Finally, after a few rounds, boy and dog tired of playing “Hide and Go Seek” and they retreated into the twenty acre woods for the long walk home.             

            They spent hours alone together in the woods.  It was just a few acres of undeveloped land but they imagined themselves to be in a forest.  Sonya and Jeff roamed the woods together, wasting away the carefree days of his boyhood.  When they became tired of retracing the foot paths of the wood then they explored the creek that the Humphrey’s land bordered on.  A heavily trafficked road stood threatening on the high ridge on the far side of the creek, and beyond it the boy and dog were no longer safe, so they never ventured beyond the creek.  Jeff followed the edge of the water until he reached the viaduct, which marked the furthest point of his travels, and he searched for minnows and turned over rocks to find crawdads along the way.  Only after hours of exploring, when the boy and his best friend became tired, did they make their way back to their house on Trinity Hills Lane.  Sometimes they were both caked with muck after trudging through the knee deep mud on the banks of the creek.  It was a simple job to take the garden hose to Sonya to wash her off, but it was not so quick and easy to get the mud off of Jeff’s shoes and pants.  They were permanently stained but Jeff wore that as a badge of honor, along with the stickers and the tics that attached themselves to him, as a demonstration of his toughness and independence. 

            Over time, Jeff came to memorize all parts of the woods; the best tress to climb, the foot trails, and where to hide in case there were any shadowy figures in the distance.  Wanting to claim a small part of the woods for his very own, he dug a big hole, large enough to lay down in and no one could see him until they were right on top of the hole.  His intention was to dig out enough dirt so that he could sit in the hole without anyone seeing him and then camouflage the whole area so he could completely disappear. In his innocence, Jeff thought that the mere act of digging a hole would give him ownership of a small part of the woods, but he lost interest in the project and, over time, the hole filled in until there was no trace of it any more. 

            Jeff’s best days growing up were the days that he spent away from the house and it wasn’t because of his love of nature.  Mostly, he was doing my best to just stay out of the way.  He didn’t have any close friends even then because he was a loner and an outsider.  Defensive and thin skinned around his peers, the boy could relax and lose himself in the solitary remoteness of the woods.  It was the only place where he could find peace in his pre-adolescence years and he felt free in the midst of overgrowth in the forest.  If anyone else from the neighborhood happened into the woods, Jeff hid behind a tree or some bushes so that he didn’t have to share his space with them. 

Ironman Louisville 2019

As I was on the first loop of the bike course, and making my way up a steep hill on Ballardsville School Road, a triathlete suddenly cut in front of me.  He was trying to get out of the way of the elites who were on their second loop of the IMLOU course and they were coming up upon us fast.  If the triathlete would have moved to the right quickly then there would have been no problem; but, because we were climbing up a steep hill, he moved in slow motion.  As all of this unfolded in front of me, I knew that i had to make a decision; I could go off into the ditch off to my right, I could swerve off to the left and get in the way of the elites, or i could go straight and plow into the guy who had cut me off.  I chose the latter course.  I hit the triathlete who had cut me off in the back of his wheel and, as I tried to unclimbed my my foot from the pedal, I found that I could not escape in time.  Down goes Frazier!  In slow motion, I fell off of my bike and, upon landing on the hard concrete, I hurt my back, neck elbow, and ribs.  This was not a heroic fall and i didn't want o admit that I had been hurt by such a meaningless wreck.  I got up, dusted myself off, and got back on the bike as if nothing unusual had happened.  But then, on the second loop of the bike, I began experiencing back and neck pain.  I had difficulty rating my head because my neck was causing me problems and I couldn't bend my back without pain because my lumbar had tightened up.  There was an ambulance at the intersection of Highway 153 and L'Spirit and I decided to stop and have the EMT check me out.  My hope was that after a brief respite, I could get back on the bike and pretend that the collision had never occurred.  After laying down for awhile, I tried to get up and experienced a shooting pain going up the middle of my back.  I decided to call it a day.  What an anticlimactic way to end a race and my career as a triathlete.
So many thing went wrong this year and nothing went right.  First of all, the race directors changed the run course so that we wouldn't run down Southern Parkway but instead did three loops around River Road.  It was too costly to pay the officers to guard every intersection between. Hi the river and Iroquois Park, and the locals didn't like having a major parkway shut down for the day, so the race director invented a new course that went by the county dump.  For me, the best part of Ironman Louisville was running through downtown, but now the marathon was nothing to get excited about.
The second thing that went wrong was that there was algae in the Ohio River so they had to cancel the swim.  I understand all of the health implications but the long and short of it is that without the swim we were not doing a full Ironman.  Besides, my advantage in IMLOU is that I am a really good swimmer so I entered the water with the elites at 7:30.  This year they started the bike at 8:30 and, because the race director went by numerical order, I didn't start the bike until 10:00.  I lost a full hour of buffer time and I began the race at the back of the pack.  Finally, I had to reconcile myself with the fact that I would have to do most of the bike, especially the second loop, by myself.  Still, it was doable.  I could do the bike in eight hours and then do the marathon in six hours and be done before midnight.  It was doable.
The third thing that went wrong was the temperature.  The local morning news reported that it was 39 degrees before dawned.  My thought was that it was just as well that the swim was cancelled as I didn't want to sit on the concrete and wait to get into the river when it was so cold.  The high temperature for the day was 70 degrees and how on earth do you prepare for a thirty degree temperature range aside from putting on a lot of layers.  Also, my allergies were acting up and my nose was running, sometimes with a bloody nose, for the whole time on the bike.  My anxieties were working over time between the temperature, new run course, algae in the water, and a new start time.  It was all a little too much for me.
The final thing that went wrong for me was my personal health.  I had been experiencing diarrhea, headaches, and nausea before the race.  Dread, and the depression that it causes, had been following me around for days.  I wasn't excited about the race because of the new run course and the fact that the swim had been cancelled.  I don't like change.  Still, the race was doable and I couldn't have prepared any better.  I may be old and slow but I trusted my training and had confidence in my planning for IMLOU 2019.  If I had to look myself in the mirror, and I mean honestly look at all of the training that I had done, I truly felt that I couldn't have prepared myself and better for the race.
And then it was over.  The EMT with the ambulance at 153 and L'Spirit said that I had incurred no spinal damage and that it was a soft tissue problem.  The SAG van took me back to medical where I asked for some muscle relaxers to help me with the pain.  The doctor said that he couldn't offer me any drugs or even an IV.  He suggested that I go to the hospital for some imaging and then wrapped my neck and back to secure an ice back.  As I left medical I thought to myself, "I am never doing this race again.  There is too much pain and disappointment involved with it and I am going to call it a career."  My hope is that I can find a good half-Ironman to compete in because I am done with the full.  Maybe I will try Racine or the Steelhead again.  All I know is that I am done with the full Iroman Louisville Kentucky.  

Lillian and Tanner Get Married (September 28 2019)

                      Lillian and Tanner Get Married (September 28, 2019)

"Hands down, this was the bet wedding ever!"  "It was a watershed moment!"  "This weekend was one for the ages and everyone will be comparing their wedding to Lillian and Tanner's wedding!"  These are just some of the compliments that I heard and, as for me, all that I can say is that the wedding was perfect.  Nothing went wrong, and everything went right and I don't see how the weekend could have gone any better.  For example, the wedding party was an outstanding group of people, and they were so happy for Lillian and Tanner, that they stayed and danced until the lights came on at the end of the evening.  The wedding was held at The Refinery and the venue, the D.J., the officiant, and even the wedding planner exceeded our greatest expectations.  To top it all off, Grandpa Armbruster was able to attend, even though he was clearly unwell, and for that reason alone the wedding will always be memorable.

            The wedding party met at 1400 Willow on Friday evening for the rehearsal dinner.  It was a meet and greet cocktail party because Lillian wanted everyone to mingle and to not stay at an assigned table.  We practiced the choreography of the ceremony before moving on to the wedding toasts.  Tracey's toast was about how when our Aunt Lillian we promised to name our first daughter after her.   My toast started with my father at my sister’s wedding.  "He was so happy to see his oldest daughter getting married to the man of his dreams that he let his guard down.  He used a gesture that I had never seen before or since and it went something like this.  (Knead Arms and Clasp Hands).  Now that my own daughter is getting married to the man of her dreams, I can use the same gesture of pure happiness.  It is a gesture that I can use when thinking about how these two people are right for each other, and how they have sacrificed so much to be together.  For example, when Tanner moved to Savannah he drove back to Louisville every third or fourth weekend just to spend some time with Lillian.  He looked so ragged that I pulled him to the side and said to him, 'listen, you don't have to do this to yourself.  You don’t have to make this drive every third weekend.' Tanner replied, 'I have to because I just love her so much.' (Knead Arms and Clasp Hands)  The week before Lillian left for Jacksonville, she came into my bedroom and asked for a hug.  And then she cried.  She cried hard.  She was giving up her life-long friends and family to follow Tanner to Jacksonville and face an uncertain future.  And she was scared.  So she cried in my arms right before she left, something that she hadn’t done since she was a little girl.  But she was determined to make a new life with her boyfriend because she loves him so much. (Knead Arms and Clasp Hands). And as for me, the thought of these two people getting married and spending the rest of their lives together, knowing that they are perfect for each other.  (Knead Arms and Clasp Hands). And so, Harrison Tanner Hartman and Lillian Lee Frazier, I wish for you a long life together and all of the happiness that you two so richly deserve."

            After my toast was finished, my major part of the weekend was over and I was able to sit back and relax and enjoy the wedding.  My side of the family moved out to the patio next to 1400 Willow’s pool and I spent a lot of time with them to talk about the events of the day.  Meanwhile, all of the women in the wedding party agreed to spend the night and they watched “Bridesmaids” to relax at the end of the night.  They woke up early the next morning to work on their hair and make-up.  Tracey brought bagels and made mimosas for everyone.  Once the hairdresser was done with them, all of the women in the wedding party looked like Disney princesses.  We all met at “The Refinery” early in the afternoon to prepare for the photographer.  The venue turned out to be perfect for the wedding as we held the ceremony in an outside courtyard but the reception was held inside where there was plenty of air conditioning.  Three photographers kept their cameras whirring throughout the day and, almost on cue, the sky became overcast right before the ceremony and that made for even better pictures because the harsh sun was gone.  Every grouping imaginable, of the wedding party and family members had their picture taken but the highlight was posing for a photograph for just the immediate family and Grandpa Armbruster.  He is suffering from dementia but had the presence of mind to know that Lillian and Tanner were getting married.  Grandpa smiled for the camera and said, “I wish that your grandmother could be here.” It was the first time that he had talked about grandma, since she died fourteen years ago, without someone prompting him.

            The ceremony was a religious one and Jeff Fuson, who is Marsha Hartman’s pastor, was the officiant.  The wedding party included Virginia as the Maid of Honor and Connor Hartman as the Best Man.  In order, the couples of the wedding party were Marisha Abbi and Daniel Hoskinson, Katie Casale and Conrad O’Brian, and Graham Pilotte and Grant Frazier. The ring bearer was Mason Lubbers and the flower girls were Lily and Sadie Straghtiff.  Laura Schaefer, Cheryl Burnett, and Conrad O’Brian did the readings.  Lillian and Tanner wrote their own vows and they also wrote separate stories about how they met and how they came to be married.  The whole ceremony was done with a lot of class, and it included a lot of family and friends, so it couldn’t help but be memorable.

            The Bridal Entrance came right after the ceremony and I yelled encouragements as each couple was introduced at the reception hall.  Lillian and Tanner were introduced last and the D.J. played “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” as the newlyweds danced a carefully choreographed dance for everyone in attendance.  They had been practicing this dance for months and tears came to my eyes as I watched my oldest daughter dance with her husband because it was just so perfect.  The floor was opened up for dancing and, after an hour for dinner, the Maid of Honor and the Best Man gave their toasts.  Then the parents of the newlyweds were allowed to thank all of the guests for attending.  I kept my thanks brief because I “didn’t want to take any attention away from my beautiful daughter!”  The Parent Dance was next and Lillian and I were prepared for this moment because we had practiced a box step the night before.  The song that I chose was “Fly Me to the Moon” because Lillian and I danced to that tune in the middle of a restaurant at the resort that we stayed at in Cancun.  It is a special song to us because I had picked Lillian up, held her in my arms, and dance between the dinner tables.  Laura said that I looked the happiest that she had ever seen me while dancing with my daughter.  All I remember is that I was self-conscious about dancing in front of so many people and I was worried that either Lillian or I would trip over her wedding dress.  Still, we had a nice moment, and no one seemed to notice that I cut the dance short.

            Tracey says that she doesn’t know of any couple who stayed married after they disrespected each other by shoving the cake into each other’s face at the reception.  Lillian and Tanner have too much class to do such a thing and they gently cut the cake and fed it to each other.  Casey Schwisow caught the flowers at the Bouquet Toss and after she did she walked up to Laura and asked if she could marry Alex.  The whole reception was a true celebration and I felt like a kid again as I joined the wedding party on dance floor.  Soap bubbles floated down from the second floor because the venue had a machine that could produce such a spectacle.  Tanner provided light sabers as a nod to his passion and his job at E.A.  Finally, all of the guests were given sparklers and we formed an arch on the outside of the building with our out-stretched arms.  Lillian and Tanner walked through the arch and I am sure that the pictures of this moment are spectacular.  The whole wedding was done to perfection.

            And then it was over.  Everyone had left but the wedding party and they continues to dance until management turned on the lights.  I sat at a side table with Tracey, ready to go home but not wanting the wedding to be over, as I watched Lillian and Tanner dance to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” one last time.  The pride must have shone in my eyes as I realized that my daughter had pulled off the wedding of the decade.  She was under enormous pressure from all avenues and yet she was graceful under relentless fire.  I have always loved Lillian, and have always been proud of her, but she has earned my undying respect for the way that she held herself together under such trying circumstances.  It was the best wedding ever and was definitely one for the ages.

Music for the Bride and Groom’s First Dance

You’re just too good to be true.

I can’t take my eyes off of you.

You’d be like heaven to touch.

I wanna hold you so much.

At long last love has arrived

And I thank God I’m alive.

You’re just too good to be true.

Can’t take my eyes off of you.

Pardon the way that I stare.

There’s nothing else to compare.

The sight of you leaves me weak.

There are no words left to speak.

But if you feel like I feel

Please let me know that is real.

You’re just too good to be true

I can’t take my eyes off of you

I love you baby

And if it’s quite all right

I need you baby

To warm the lonely nights

I love you baby.

Trust in me when I say it’s okay

Oh pretty baby.

Don’t bring me down I pray

Oh pretty baby.

Now that I’ve found you, stay

And let me love you baby

Let me love you

Music from the Daddy Daughter Dance

Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars.

Let me see what spring is like on

Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand

In other words, baby, kiss me

Fill my heart with joy and let me sing forever more

You are all I long for

All I worship and adore

In other words, please be true.

In other words, I love you

Book 3 Chapter 1 Page 1: Spread Eagle (Gail enters the nursing home)

            “You dirty kids!  You are all against me!  I wish that I never bore you!”  Gail was screaming at her children, the three of them who had bothered to show up for the official commitment day to the nursing home.  Fire was flaming out of her eyes, steam was whistling out of her ears, as she felt the wrathful righteousness of all the saints in the calendar as she called for a plague on the three houses of her children.  In a rare show of unity, Cheryl, Jeff, and Laura arrived at the nursing home at about the same time to show Gail that her three children agreed with the decision to have her committed.  Also, like the thirty senators who stabbed Caesar, if all three of them showed up then Gail could single out one of her children and blame that lone child for her commitment.  It was like a scene from Alamogordo where the scientists hid behind a glass enclosed shelter to watch the atomic bomb go off, only the three children retreated to the foyer to watch the scene unfolding through the safety of a picture window.  Their mother was shaking her head emphatically, leaning her whole body from the passengers’ side of the vehicle across to the drivers’ side, all the time yelling, “I don’t want to go in,” and “I own my own house!  It is bought and paid for,” and “my cat needs me!”  This went on for some time before Gail exhausted herself and the two maintenance men were called to pry her hands from the door handle and bodily remove her from the car.

The day that Gail was forced to go into the nursing home, which she would forever refer to as the day that she died, started out as any other day would begin.  Cheryl tricked her mother into leaving the house by promising to take her out to breakfast.  As soon as they left Laura, and her son Jack, moved Gail’s bed and dresser from her house to the nursing home.  It was the hope of the children that if Gail had some of her prized possessions from her house in her new room at the nursing home then she would more easily transition herself into this new lifestyle.  That was delusional thinking because as soon as Gail saw the furniture and realized the permanency of what was happening to her, it was like throwing oil onto an open flame.

            After Gail and Cheryl had their lunch, they got into the car with what should have been a short drive home.  Gail was distracted after lunch and was poring through her purse, so she didn’t notice when the car pulled into the nursing home parking lot.  It was only when she saw the nursing home logo on the outside of the main building did she realize where she was and the real purpose for this trip.  It was at that moment that Gail became belligerent.  With a determined look etched across her face, Gail refused to get out of the car and stubbornly anchored herself to the passenger’s seat.  Laura stepped in and kept the car door open so that Gail couldn’t close it and make Cheryl drive away.  There was a standstill; Gail refused to get out of the car while three of her children stood and waited.  They refused to let her go back to her house and Gail refused to go into the nursing home.  Jeff, feeling useless as a bystander, went inside of the nursing home and asked a couple of nurses to help.  Try as they may, the nurses couldn’t budge the mother either.  Finally, a husky maintenance man was enlisted to help.  Gail had a death grip on the door handle of the passenger side and the men had to pry her hand off.  Gently, but firmly, they sat Gail into the waiting wheelchair
            Kicking and screaming now that she had been removed from the inside of the car, Gail squirmed around in her wheelchair.  Held in place by the maintenance mas, and guided by the two nurses, Gail was wheeled through the front door into the secured section of the nursing home.  Once inside of that hallway the residents cannot leave on their own volition.  The three children followed their mother to the secured section and then lined up outside of their mother’s new room as she was wheeled into the hallway.  They watched as the ugly scene began to unfold.  Gail refused to go into her room.  She stretched out her arms and legs to prevent the nurses from pushing her through the door.  She had a death grip on the door jam and wedged her feet between her wheelchair and the door frame.  Laura compared it to giving our cat a bath in the tub when the cat stuck out its four paws to prevent us from putting him into the water.  The scene was somewhat comical, if it was a disinterested observer who was watching, but then it wasn’t funny anymore when Gail yelled at her three kids.  Slinging arrows as fast as possible, with the intent to wound and inflict pain, Gail yelled at Jeff; “You never became a doctor!”  She was searching for some vulnerability to attack in each of her children.

Once Gail was forced into her room by the staff, she started calling all the nurses, “whores.”  She was dismissive when anyone tried to reason with her.  In one final act of defiance, Gail made a show of taking a framed family portrait that was lovingly hung in her room for her, taking it off the wall and then throwing it on the floor in the common area.  The broken glass sliced a gash through the whole family.  The symbolism was strong enough for anyone to see and, when the staff rehung the portrait, they had to remove the glass so Gail wouldn’t use it to harm herself.  Eventually the nurses had to send Gail to the hospital to give her sedatives and anti-psychotic medicine to calm her down.  “We are not equipped to handle this kind of behavior,” they told me. “And if her behavior doesn’t improve then she will have to find another facility.”