Tragedy

Wow.
Life is indeed strange at times.
Surreal.
I posted this on Dorries Fun Forum, but obviously I must post here as well.
I was standing here, talking to my son while he was on his MySpace account, when my cell phone rang.
It was the pastor's wife that my ex goes to church at. My son has grown up with these people - in my case, both as husband and now ex-husband of my son's mother.
She had some very bad news: my ex's father passed away today, had a massive heart attack and that was the end of that.
So, Caleb - my son - called my ex and they talked for a while - she is flying out to Florida tomorrow - where her family is from - and will be there for a week.

My son said he had just talked to his grandfather just 3 days ago and he was fine.
It's the 1st day of the New Year.
We are down in Sierra Vista, Arizona, visiting his grandfather from my side.

There is more here than meets the eye. I haven't figured it out yet, but - eventually I will. Besides the obvious and the irony of the situation in visiting one grandfather and on that same day, the other one passes - there is more here. Besides the fact that it's a New Year and we are all celebrate the passing of the old year. Beside the fact that JS has also died.

Very strange to me. I knew this man - he visited us while I was still married some years ago and stayed for at least a month. A likable enough guy, we got along well for the time he was here.

Prayers for my son would be appreciated for those that are of the praying sort. I would like to believe we could have a great time tomorrow visiting with my dad, but understandably my son probably isn't going to feel much in the mood.

Never-the-less, we are staying until Saturday unless he voices that he wants to go home before his mom leaves. He wouldn't be going with her, anyway, so unless he must see her, we will stay here and finish this visit. Maybe. See how he does tomorrow, but my dad is a very godly man, still ministering in a church and I do believe he will end up praying with us.

For me, I was not personally related to this man, and though I'm saddened at the loss for my son's sake, I am not really that much affected by it. I always think about my friends and family - extended and near - that are getting older. I also think about my own life - enjoy it while you have it, it won't last forever.

Still, what a way to start out the New Year.

There's some great people I have met on JS and I know at least some of you will be praying, for that I thank you and for those that don't pray, good thoughts or whatever you do will also be most appreciated.

ben

Sierra Vista

I should have known a Marriot Inn is going to have a public computer. Nobody is in this lobby to use it, I can sit here for as long as I like.Drove the almost 190 miles (a bit further than Mapquest determined it to be) in 2 and a half hours. I have no idea how fast I was driving since the speedometer on my car is acting up - it showed we were going 140. Lol. Of course, you can do the math and come up with an average : )
Upon arrival my son and I engaged my dad and his wife - Millie - in a couple of hours of conversation before heading out to ………..da ta da taaaaaaa - Tombstone, Arizona. Hadn’t been there since I was a little boy. We ate at the Longhorn Restaurant - a very nice meal indeed. After that, we decided to go into what once once a silver mine. It was quite fascinating, and yes I have pics - but no way to post them until I get home. We went down a flight of 60 stairs they had built just for giving out tours, and then - we got into some pretty tight situations. Mostly had to duck the entire way through there. It was cool, but I don’t really want to give a detailed report of that until I get pics up and then just explain the tour through the pics.
My dad has some pretty bad arthritis in one of his knees and started tipping over several times - decided to stay close and not let him fall over. He just had a stint/s put into his heart not too terribly long ago. We just took our time and mostly stayed behind everyone so we wouldn’t be getting in the way of everyone. Again, it was a fascinating tour and the guide was very knowledgeable and made the tour both entertaining and educational at the same time.
Tomorrow, early, dad and Millie want to go to some caverns whose entrance we saw on the way down here. My dad has always been like this - always going, always touring, always visiting new places or revisiting places he’s already been to.
I left my dogs in the hands of the newer tenant - Mary disappeared after coming home from work yesterday and wasn’t around this morning either. The new guy said he would do it and I said I would give him some money off his next rent payment if he would. That was even more agreeable to him - I can hardly expect tenants to feel like they should be responsible for the owner’s animals if they don’t want to be. Oh, and I didn’t ask, he volunteered. It would cost far more to have someone coming over and feeding them once a day and looking in on them twice a day, so.
I have not been out of town on any kind of trip save runs in the company semi since before my house burned down July, 2007. Very relaxing. I had not expected that. I thought I would be tense and uptight just being away from home. Not at all. The Marriot isn’t a bad perk, either, it’s a pretty darn nice place. My son is currently in the work-out room and plans to visit the pool in a while - heated pool of course.
This little trip is just what the doctor ordered. My only “concern” is I want to be home on Saturday before the NFL games start up for the wild card games. They are hopefully going to be good games, even if my team isn’t playing. That will be next week. Which, Saturday is the planned day of departure, anyway.
That’s it, I don’t want to spend too terribly much time out here as I would like to retire to the bedroom and see what’s on the tube.
Have a great evening/day, be visiting your sites after I get home.ben
edited: I have no idea what I did to my blogspot journal, I went over there and posted this entry to find that it only has that one, single entry and everything was changed. Not sure what I have done? Oh well, here’s the entry, anyway.
Edit 2: I realized my mistake, I made up another blogspot journal under another email account, and entered that account id instead of this one's id. All's well that ends well......

Happy New Year!

Yes, folks, it's actually 2009!
I can't imagine what kind of messes the government will create or the condition of the economy by year's end, but for whatever reason, I'm going to remain optimistic.

But, my mind isn't really on that right now, I'm just about to leave. I mean, JUST about to leave.
I was trying to print out my dad's instructions and realized I haven't used the printer since the computer crashed and - there was no driver for the printer!
Okay, I'm just sitting here waiting for this thing to print it out - it's a slow thing - Canon i550 bubble jet printer. It has this windup - like a pitcher in a baseball game - cept' it takes it much longer.
Okay, deal done.
I really don't have time to write out a an entry that would be - normal - for me, I must get moving so I have time to visit with my folks this afternoon and on into the evening.

Hope everyone is doing well and putting the JS disaster to rest - I know that's hard for many of us - but, blogging is still available and I think it's possible to just move on. Considering we can all connect on Dorrie's page if we somehow are separated, that's a pretty good deal right there.

Take care - hugs to everyone, Happy New Year!
benb