In the blink of an eye...
Jan. 28th, 2003 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplerabbitThere are moments in each generation that nearly everyone can remember exactly where they were when...
For my mother it was when John F. Kennedy was shot. I even know where I was because of this. My mother was watching TV and ironing clothes. I was lying in my crib, less than a year old.
Until Sept. 11th, for my generation it was Jan. 29th 1986, when the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up. For me it has an added personal dimension. I was working clerical job at Pacific Telesis in San Francisco. We were listening to the launch while working. We sat in stunned silence when it happened. Then I went to call my mother. My mother has always been a big supporter of NASA. She even brags that while I was being born Alan Sheppard was orbiting the earth.
When I called her office in Oklahoma City, they told me she had gone to the state hospital in Purcell and that my dad was very ill. I called the hospital and spoke with my dad's doctor before my mother even made it to the hospital. It seems he had pneumonia, again, and that he might not make it. I told the doctor that would be the best thing for him. He agreed. When my mother showed up, they had the exact same conversation. The body of John D. Atkins died the next day. I was on a plane to Oklahoma in the morning.
You see, I never did follow anything about the Challenger after that. We were lost in the past for a while. My dad died on May 31st 1975 -- but now his body had finally died too. The relief was overwhelming. Laughing and crying simultaneously, we could not help ourselves. I gave my dad's eulogy -- it explains some of story:
MEMORIAL
Saturday, February 1, 1986
First Presbyterian Church
Moore, Oklahoma
John Douglas Atkins
Friend and Brother
Husband and Father
These are words we knew him by. They barely begin to convey what he meant to us. The depth and warmth of those words can only be truly realized in our own hearts. Today, after many years, we gather to remember and honor him.
Johnny was neither saint nor statesman, and would not want to be idolized. He was a Good man.
He was born June 11, 1933 in Kingston, New York to William and Helen Atkins. He had an older sister and brother Gwendolyn and Bill. He loved them all very dearly.
He served his country proudly as a United States Marine. He fought in some of the worst of Viet Nam and returned home.
He fell in love with Mary and married her AND her three children – Elizabeth, Cassandra and myself. We moved to Moore in February of 1969. Two years later "we'' (as Daddy like to say) had baby Angela. He was a loving, husband and devoted father.
He served the Lord as a member and elder of this church, doing everything, from ushering and singing in the choir, to mowing the lawn. He was a Christian in heart and deed.
Although he could be a little reserved, he loved people. He was a true friend, there through the good tines and the bad times.
He had a full life and was very dear to many.
On Saturday, May 31, 1975 that was all taken from us.
No one will ever know what really happened that day. He was riding his motorcycle when, it is believed, that someone ran him off the road and left I him for dead. The police received an anonymous phone call and found his body along-side the road. He was alive but beyond the broken bones and punctured lungs, his brain was damaged. Surgery was performed for a blood clot on the brain but he was in a coma.
They told us there was no hope of recovery and we asked then to let him go. Mamma and Rev. Dwight tried, but they wouldn't turn off the life support machines. Twenty days later he came out of the coma - but the man we loved was already gone. His brain was beyond repair and would only get worse. He had to be institutionalized.
We had to live without him. I was thirteen, Cassandra eleven, Elizabeth nine, and Angela only four.
Ten years have come and gone. I use to wonder what ten years would be like, when I couldn't even imagine what one year would be like. But the years have rolled by and I am now a woman. The child who said goodbye is no more, and yet she is here in my heart. She has never let go. She has been missing and wanting and waiting.
It was a beautiful summer's day
when I watched you drive away.
But now winter's chill grips this day
tears the only memory of May.
Ten years of summers, old & new
have changed the world as we grew.
Your children now have grown and
gone is the world you had known.
I have loved you through the years
and even now shed new tears.
Let the end and peace be yours
that you may walk on other shores.
The child is the woman and the woman is the child. They weep for what was, and what wasn't. They cry for what they missed and for what you missed. They grieve for the life so wasted and drained. They cry for an end to the suffering and pain.
I wrote that poem Tuesday, when I heard that he was finally dying. Late Wednesday night, January 29th, he died in his sleep. Daddy has finally been released .
We do not mourn here today for his Death. We lost him nearly eleven years ago. We have long cried for our loss and his pain.
John believed in Jesus and the life everlasting. He cry now, tears of JOY, that he is finally free from his purgatory.
We cry as we remember. Over the years we have all kept treasured memories of him: a picnic a crisis, a hug a smile, small moments and momentous experiences.
On Easter, the month before the accident, I stood here, in this room in a white dress with little blue flowers and took my first communion while my Daddy looked proudly on. After the service, we stood together over there in this room and had our last family portrait taken.
Yesterday, as Mamma and I shared memories, she reminded me of all those camp outs he use to drag us on. Once, in the Arbuckle’s, we climbed to the top of one of those small mountains. Up the trail we hiked Mamma huffing and puffing with little Angela in tow. Myself at her side, babbling as usual. Sandy and Beth scampering back and forth across the trail. Daddy up the trail a ways, he kept calling back, "I little farther, Mary, we're almost there! " All the way up he kept saying that.
When we reached the top, Mamma was upset to find there was a road. He could have driven up. But Daddy just said that the long way was more fun.
Mamma says, "He never could do things the easy way and once again he has gone on ahead of us. "
Today we say goodbye. We loved him and we miss him and we always will. But we are happy that he has at last made it, even if he did take the long way.
This is a celebration. A celebration of his life and the life everlasting.
Our rather loved to sing and we would like to share with you one of his favorite hymns. Mamma use to tease him, saying he like it because it was perfect for his tenure voice. Listen with us and maybe you will here him in it as we do.
"The Longer I Serve Him"
(by The Bill Gather Trio)
For my mother it was when John F. Kennedy was shot. I even know where I was because of this. My mother was watching TV and ironing clothes. I was lying in my crib, less than a year old.
Until Sept. 11th, for my generation it was Jan. 29th 1986, when the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up. For me it has an added personal dimension. I was working clerical job at Pacific Telesis in San Francisco. We were listening to the launch while working. We sat in stunned silence when it happened. Then I went to call my mother. My mother has always been a big supporter of NASA. She even brags that while I was being born Alan Sheppard was orbiting the earth.
When I called her office in Oklahoma City, they told me she had gone to the state hospital in Purcell and that my dad was very ill. I called the hospital and spoke with my dad's doctor before my mother even made it to the hospital. It seems he had pneumonia, again, and that he might not make it. I told the doctor that would be the best thing for him. He agreed. When my mother showed up, they had the exact same conversation. The body of John D. Atkins died the next day. I was on a plane to Oklahoma in the morning.
You see, I never did follow anything about the Challenger after that. We were lost in the past for a while. My dad died on May 31st 1975 -- but now his body had finally died too. The relief was overwhelming. Laughing and crying simultaneously, we could not help ourselves. I gave my dad's eulogy -- it explains some of story:
MEMORIAL
Saturday, February 1, 1986
First Presbyterian Church
Moore, Oklahoma
John Douglas Atkins
Friend and Brother
Husband and Father
These are words we knew him by. They barely begin to convey what he meant to us. The depth and warmth of those words can only be truly realized in our own hearts. Today, after many years, we gather to remember and honor him.
Johnny was neither saint nor statesman, and would not want to be idolized. He was a Good man.
He was born June 11, 1933 in Kingston, New York to William and Helen Atkins. He had an older sister and brother Gwendolyn and Bill. He loved them all very dearly.
He served his country proudly as a United States Marine. He fought in some of the worst of Viet Nam and returned home.
He fell in love with Mary and married her AND her three children – Elizabeth, Cassandra and myself. We moved to Moore in February of 1969. Two years later "we'' (as Daddy like to say) had baby Angela. He was a loving, husband and devoted father.
He served the Lord as a member and elder of this church, doing everything, from ushering and singing in the choir, to mowing the lawn. He was a Christian in heart and deed.
Although he could be a little reserved, he loved people. He was a true friend, there through the good tines and the bad times.
He had a full life and was very dear to many.
On Saturday, May 31, 1975 that was all taken from us.
No one will ever know what really happened that day. He was riding his motorcycle when, it is believed, that someone ran him off the road and left I him for dead. The police received an anonymous phone call and found his body along-side the road. He was alive but beyond the broken bones and punctured lungs, his brain was damaged. Surgery was performed for a blood clot on the brain but he was in a coma.
They told us there was no hope of recovery and we asked then to let him go. Mamma and Rev. Dwight tried, but they wouldn't turn off the life support machines. Twenty days later he came out of the coma - but the man we loved was already gone. His brain was beyond repair and would only get worse. He had to be institutionalized.
We had to live without him. I was thirteen, Cassandra eleven, Elizabeth nine, and Angela only four.
Ten years have come and gone. I use to wonder what ten years would be like, when I couldn't even imagine what one year would be like. But the years have rolled by and I am now a woman. The child who said goodbye is no more, and yet she is here in my heart. She has never let go. She has been missing and wanting and waiting.
It was a beautiful summer's day
when I watched you drive away.
But now winter's chill grips this day
tears the only memory of May.
Ten years of summers, old & new
have changed the world as we grew.
Your children now have grown and
gone is the world you had known.
I have loved you through the years
and even now shed new tears.
Let the end and peace be yours
that you may walk on other shores.
The child is the woman and the woman is the child. They weep for what was, and what wasn't. They cry for what they missed and for what you missed. They grieve for the life so wasted and drained. They cry for an end to the suffering and pain.
I wrote that poem Tuesday, when I heard that he was finally dying. Late Wednesday night, January 29th, he died in his sleep. Daddy has finally been released .
We do not mourn here today for his Death. We lost him nearly eleven years ago. We have long cried for our loss and his pain.
John believed in Jesus and the life everlasting. He cry now, tears of JOY, that he is finally free from his purgatory.
We cry as we remember. Over the years we have all kept treasured memories of him: a picnic a crisis, a hug a smile, small moments and momentous experiences.
On Easter, the month before the accident, I stood here, in this room in a white dress with little blue flowers and took my first communion while my Daddy looked proudly on. After the service, we stood together over there in this room and had our last family portrait taken.
Yesterday, as Mamma and I shared memories, she reminded me of all those camp outs he use to drag us on. Once, in the Arbuckle’s, we climbed to the top of one of those small mountains. Up the trail we hiked Mamma huffing and puffing with little Angela in tow. Myself at her side, babbling as usual. Sandy and Beth scampering back and forth across the trail. Daddy up the trail a ways, he kept calling back, "I little farther, Mary, we're almost there! " All the way up he kept saying that.
When we reached the top, Mamma was upset to find there was a road. He could have driven up. But Daddy just said that the long way was more fun.
Mamma says, "He never could do things the easy way and once again he has gone on ahead of us. "
Today we say goodbye. We loved him and we miss him and we always will. But we are happy that he has at last made it, even if he did take the long way.
This is a celebration. A celebration of his life and the life everlasting.
Our rather loved to sing and we would like to share with you one of his favorite hymns. Mamma use to tease him, saying he like it because it was perfect for his tenure voice. Listen with us and maybe you will here him in it as we do.
"The Longer I Serve Him"
(by The Bill Gather Trio)
