If My Wings Should Fail Me, Lord, Please Meet Me With Another Pair

I feel that nature should be more thematically appropriate.

I know, of course, that most people like sunny days, blue skies, and all that other happy go lucky nonsense. But there are some occasions I feel that those weather conditions are just not appropriate.

A while back my wife and I were driving home from the store. We had bought some ribs and we were going to have a cookout with some friends. We were excited and happy, and were just discussing the usual nonsense that happily married couples talk about when they're alone. You know, music, food, terrible social mistakes other people are making, that kind of thing.

Then we came across a funeral procession.

I know there are some places in America that do not practice this, but it's practically a law in the Southeast, which is where I (unfortunately) live. All cars that are not part of the funeral procession turn down their radios and stop driving, so as to show respect for the passing dead. On a two lane road both lanes stop, and on a divided highway only the lane on the same side as the procession stops. So naturally we stopped, we turned down the music, and I took off my hat and wondered idly who had passed. After the procession had passed we picked up in the conversation right where we had left off.

A few minutes later I thought about that, and it occurred to me that outside of that person's family and friends, no one really cared that that person had died. Everyone on the road just kept going; to us it was just another day.

I understand that we can't stop and weep over every person that dies. If we did so, we'd never get anything done. But I can't help but feel that there should be some indicator that someone has left this world, just to help out the family. Logically thinking, this is what the funeral service is for. But despite the fact that I pride myself on logical thinking, I'm not always the best at it. This is about the time that I decided that weather should be more thematically appropriate.

When there's a funeral in the area, it seems unfair that sun goes on shining and the sky is blue. It should be overcast at least, if not pouring rain and storming, and it should be cold, especially if the person was taken before their time, if they were younger. Perhaps fair weather would be appropriate for someone who died in their nineties, sort of indicative of a good long life, but for younger than say, sixty-five or so, the weather should be more appropriate.

I remember the day of my dad's funeral. Do you know I actually prayed the night before that it would be storming the next morning when I woke up? I felt honestly that entire world should darken, and freeze, and that hail should pour out of the skies, and that the ground should shake and that everyone in the world should know that a great man had died, and the Earth was the lesser for his passing. Of course, I didn't get that. I didn't even get a cloud. It was blue skies, sun shining, birds singing, and ninety bloody degrees outside at ten in the morning. So I went and delivered the eulogy at my father's funeral, to the accompaniment of birdsong and whispers of "It's a good day for it at least." And thinking now I am sure that that's what my father would have wanted in the first place. He loved good weather. Well, actually he loved both, he always said that there were few pleasures in life as good as standing out in the rain while blaring Pink Floyd out of a boombox. But he wanted his funeral to be a celebration of his life, not a mourning of his death.

It didn't help me any, knowing that. The funeral is more for the ones left behind anyway. And because of that I feel that if it is a sad death, that there should at least be clouds in the sky.

That way those left behind will feel that at least whatever force controls the weather actually cares, even if no one else does.

I Fought For You, Fought On Your Side, Long Before You Were Born.

It has been quite a while since I posted anything. In excuse for that, my life has been incredibly busy lately. We've been moving and working a lot. And above all that we found out about four months ago that we are expecting.

I was not ready for that. Honestly prior to the actual discovery I wasn't sure that I even wanted kids. At the least maybe someday, but not anytime soon. But that changed almost immediately.

The first thing that affected me was how excited my wife was. After the initial freak out phase, she got excited and began to be proactive about everything, setting up appointments, getting help, studying. It started to rub off on me somewhat, and I made it even more because of how much I love my wife.

We got set up with the local Pregnancy Resource Center, and they soon scheduled an ultrasound, so that they could measure exactly how old the child was. That is when the world turned for me.

I looked on that little computer screen and saw a tiny heart beating. Something that the love of my wife and I had called into existence. It was truly a life changing experience. I teared up right there in the room, and immediately felt elation and excitement about the entire prospect of parenthood.

Don't get me wrong. I don't like kids. Even when I was a kid, I didn't like kids. But there's something so much different about it when it's yours. I felt an intense amount of love for that little graphic on the screen immediately.

This was followed by a panic.  Not about the prospect of parenthood. But about the fact that my life is not "together" yet. My finances are wrecked, I work in a job I hate for barely above minimum wage, and I have at least a year left in college still. For God's sake I was still living in my mother's house, although that at least I have fixed, (and also, my mother didn't live there and I paid her rent).

But I am not well off enough, I feel, to be a father. I worry that I will be struggling to provide even the barest modicums of existence to my child. That my child will have to grow up with a loser as her father. That's right, by the way, it is a girl.

But as I've said before on this blog, I believe in improving your station by hard work in life. So that is what I will attempt to do from now on, to practice what I preach, so that my daughter won't have to want for necessities, as I did many times, growing up.

Ending note, her name is to be Cambria Jade Wester. I love it already.