the adventures of oversized glasses.
Last Monday I attended a funeral for our dear friend Glenda Cole. She was one of those types of people that became part of your family. Someone you expected to grace your doorstep in the best and worst of family moments. For those that do not know Glenda, she was my mother’s keeper. You see, Marilyn Youngkin has what we call a fear of being home alone. She hates it. So, whenever my dad goes out of town on a hunting trip, Glenda packs her “Going to Grandma’s” suitcase and stays at the Youngkin Inn. Papa will leave money for them to go to fun dinners and movies while he is out of town. Starting to sound like a friendship retreat. She loved my mom and our family.
You always knew you could count on Glenda. When I called her up the week of Chi Omega’s halloween party Owl-O-Ween and asked her if she could make a gigantic Frosted Flakes box, she did so without hesitation. And yes, that would mean my date was a Frosted Flakes Box and I was Tony the Tiger. She helped out with all of those school projects my parents couldn’t quite wrap their creative fingers around. They’d send us marching to Glenda’s. And when I suddenly got a fear of Zarape’s, my family’s mexican food post-church sunday glutton delight, they would drop me off at Glenda’s and go anyways. Just so you know, the fear was created due to David Nobles telling me there were worms in my beans and me throwing up said beans on the table. I refused to step foot back in that place. Glenda took me in. My parents tarried on without me.
The best story of Glenda being there for our family was when my family left me at the gas station in Tyler, Texas on Christmas night on our way to my grandmother’s funeral. Glenda kept watch on the house and dogs while we attended MeMe’s funeral. I’ll spare you the details, but my family straight up left me at a gas station. After about 10 minutes alone at the gas station I realize they are not coming back for me and take action. I walk out in the freezing cold to the pay phone and make a collect call to my parents cell phone to tell them they are nunu heads and if they turned around they would notice I was not in the back seat. Collect calls cannot be made to cell phones. Operator refers to me as an abandoned child. Plan B emerges - I call Glenda at the house and inform her of my lil sitch and tell her to go upstairs and get on our “Teen Line” and call my parents to report their missing child. They had gotten 35 miles away before Glenda was able to inform them of their, uhh humm, mishap. Thank the Lord for Glenda.
Glenda is going to be deeply missed. I think it’s going to hit us all most at the Christmas Eve service when we’ll be looking for her to fill the church with candles and poinsettias and then make me go around with her at the end to blow them all out. I’ll miss her and her awesomely large Elton John-esq glasses which she took the liberty to bedazzle them bad boys herself. Rightly so, she was burried with them on and will be resting in style. I can imagine the look on St. Peter’s face seeing her walking up to the Pearly Gates with Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” resonating throughout the Heavens….and fittingly I can imagine her witty response. As sad as I am to have had to say goodbye to our friend, I am so thankful that she did not suffer more than a week with her cancer. That she was taken quickly and with little pain. I’d rather her non-suffering any day to my lack of a “goodbye”. We will all get to remember her as fiesty, witty, artistic and one of the most loving and giving people we’ll ever meet.
Death is interesting. I sat at in my office in New York with tears dripping on my desk for hours upon hearing the news from my mom shortly after her passing. But in the midst of it all, death is a great reminder of love. We can go thru this life trying to avoid pain and lacking in close intimate relationships to avoid sadness, but it’s the pain that reminds us of love. It reminds us that we have people in our lives who have meant so much to us, that the thought of their simple smile not being around anymore breaks our hearts. But I’d rather live with the pain of loving than the pain of having nothing. I’d rather live knowing I loved with a big and open heart and that upon the passing of each great life, the beautiful pain of their absence as a reminder of the great history they’ve created in my life. Glenda Cole will forever be part of my history and the history of many.
For some reason she loved butterflies. My mom always gave her a butterfly something or another for every birthday. And every birthday Glenda loved it. So, next time I get a glimpse of a gorgeous butterfly (which will likely be when I’m not in NYC) I’ll imagine Glenda hand painting each one and sending new and more beautiful butterflies our way as a reminder of her presence. Glenda, you will be missed but thru our unending stories of your greatness, you’ll never be forgotten.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25fzc_norman-greenbaum-spirit-in-the-sky_music
