Still, I will not need any fluids and can’t have the contrast, so they only need to use a small butterfly needle to insert the radioactive sugar water. The radiologist holds my hand and searches for a candidate vein. Hum. He wraps my hand in a warm blanket, has me hold my hand down low so gravity will help, slaps the back of my hand repeatedly until I am tempted to start some rhythmic clapping and break out into calypso song.

He finds a spot and successfully makes me radioactive. Then the good part – I am swaddled in warm cozy blankies, tipped back in the reclining chair, and encouraged to sleep. They turn out the lights and tiptoe out, leaving me alone with the ticking clock. Too soon the hour flies by and I am once again lying on the skinny tongue of the donut machine being whirled in in in and ever in to the maw of the great magnet whirling laser lighted scanner.

Despite a momentary fear of the machine catching on fire (really – I smell burning wires!) everything goes well and soon I am headed for Panera’s and a chocolate chip muffie (after all, it was a six hour fast and my stomach was rumbling loud enough to disturb the neighbors). This is the last test other than blood work before I see the oncologist for post treatment assessment. I fully expect an encouraging report – even for the bone part.

Right now though, I head back to work despite the tiredness that is creeping through my body. I can rest later.

We tried moving it to the week before the undecorating, but our schedules did not coincide. So we moved it to the first week everyone returned. Today! We gathered in the break room around steaming crockpots of soup and three bean chili. The vibrant greens and reds of a gleaming tossed salad invited us to jump in. There were cheeses and crackers, cookies and brownies, and all varieties of cranberry juices.

It was just the thing to hold us in comfortable fellowship for an hour while we chatted about the destruction of Mercereau Hall which was happening as we munched, about Christmas encounters, about family, about the nativity inaccuracies (what day was Jesus really born and how old was he when the wisemen came?), about the upcoming semester.

It wasn’t until after we broke up and headed back to our offices that Linda pointed out how appropriate our gathering was – since today is the Feast of the Epiphany, it seemed fortuitous that we had gathered for a feast and talked about the wisemen! Not planned, but perfect. I wonder if the wisemen ever enjoyed great chili with cheese melting all down over it?

We meet at the library, bundle into my car and head for the east side of the city, taking three expressways to get to the Meridian Center, a complex where Roberts rents space for evening classes to meet. They have a nice suite with a kitchen and two large classrooms with internet and projection capability where we can easily get to our online documents.

The rooms are too big for the few of us, but we cozy up and begin, first with a devotional to focus on God’s sovereignty, then a time of sussing out why we are all so weary. What is causing us to be heavy and how do we fix that? It is a long discussion, touching on many factors. Some of them an easy fix, others more complicated, a few that will require intervention from those above us, ones that will take time and prayer.

We look at how we are being transformed by change from one model of functionality to another, how some are transitioning easily, others dragging their feet and fighting all the way. We consider how other parts of campus interact with us, how they perceive our change. We wrestle with how to do the same work with fewer people, where are the pressure release valves. It is a long and much needed conversation. we put all the issues on the table and get everything out in the open in an honest way.

Then we go back and discuss solutions to each aspect. How do we make it better? How do we encourage others to move forward? How do we tactfully but firmly insist on assistance? Who can we enlist on our behalf? There are solutions, but we will see if they work. It sounds good on paper, but will it work?

Our heavy work completed, we move on to happier things, the lasagna dinner we will hold for our student workers, the end of year graduation dinner for students who will be leaving us. And then lunch arrives. We have promised ourselves to take full advantage of our built in break times and not multitask. It is tempting to continue discussions while munching, but we resist. Lunch is lunch, a break, a time to rest and regenerate. Let your brains idle a bit.

The morning has flown by. This has been a different sort of retreat, but a necessary piece for moving forward. We pack up our things and head back. I am hopeful that the semester will bring a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction rather than weariness and overwhelmedness. My resolve? Pray more. Be involved more in each area. Be available. Then leave the rest up to the good Lord.

It feels awkward, returning to regularly scheduled activities, akin to going to the gym after laying around doing nothing for weeks. Muscles that have done nothing are now asked to work and work hard. It makes you tired in a healthy way. Good thing we have some time before it gets really hopping around here. Time for the stiffness to dissipate and time for us to get used to high levels of activity once again.

Rest is good, routine is helpful, being fit and capable the best.

I discover our accompanist is not able to make it. I will play for service – good thing my New Year resolutions included playing the piano. I will not be as rusty. I run through the hymns, grateful that I had allotted myself extra time. Especially since the choir is not familiar with the anthem I selected. Still they catch on and do a marvelous job of it. They are troopers.

I enjoy playing, even though I am not that good. I can manage, but I know if I practice on a regular basis, I will be better. Never concert pianist caliber, but at least able to hold my own. Its so easy to get lost in a million other activities. But this year I am determined to do better because it is not just for improvement, but therapy.

I continue to explore the therapeutic effects of music for the spirit as well as the mind and body. It is a complicated process, and not at all the same as music therapy. This is not about expression of angst through the media of music, but about how the sound creates positive healing results within the person as they listen. I have much to learn.

Meanwhile, I am happy to play on a snowy Sunday in 2010.

I ask Drew to bring up the packing boxes from the storage unit, figuring that I should at least be able to remove the ornaments from the boughs of the tree and get them wrapped and settled in their individual spots in the plastic bin. I take my time, carefully inspecting each item before wrapping it up for next year’s celebration.

I can’t help but think next year is bound to be better than this year! Surely next year I will enjoy a reprieve from health issues not to mention losses. Slowly I putter with other decorations, getting them safely packed in the blue tub, and making sure each figure from the nativity returns to its proper place in the styrofoam case.

I wander about the place, discovering some little delightful decor here and there, delivering it to the proper bin or tub, making sure I have not forgotten anything, remembering when I first acquired the item and any stories about its intersection with our traditions and celebrations.

I realize that over the next weeks and months, Mom will be doing the same thing with Dad’s stuff, finding the right place for each item, making sure they will be of use for the next person, remembering what Dad did with it, how he got it, what it meant to him.

One of the most integral parts of life connected with Dad is his library, already spoken for by my sister Deb who has a room and shelving ready and waiting. Dad had been telling her which books were of value, which to dispose of. She will likely discover which he used the most by his underlining and marginalia.

We learned our love of books from Mom, who read to us every evening when we were young. I still remember many of them like Pat the Bunny, Mr. Moggs Dogs, The Pokey Little Puppy, and the entire Sugar Creek Gang series. We learned to hold writing up to the rule of Scripture from Dad, to analyze and understand, to ask questions from every angle, to hold on to that which is sound.

I finish collecting everything and ask Drew to return the bins to the storage unit, knowing that next year I will again enjoy their lights and warm joy. I know with Dad there will come a time when I will once again enjoy his company and conversation sans pain and sorrow. Until then, I will have to be patient.

The living room area offered the comforts of a fireplace which we had used liberally, both for warmth and for the calmness that crackling fires provide. The smell of wood smoke complimented the dazzling whiteness of the snow blowing off the roof, the glint of sun on dangling icicles. The solitude had been most welcomed.

The director shared with me that the last men’s conference that Dad had led had been an exceptional time of dividing the word of God, of meditation and reflection, of growth and learning. How like Dad, who relished theological discussion, loved a good debate, enjoyed hashing out differences.

The memorial service was held at Dad’s church, Redeemer Reformed Presbyterian Church in Queensbury, NY. It would be the final gathering for our family as we celebrated Dad’s life. The service was very typical of Dad’s style – the hymns ones he relished, the Scriptures passages he preferred. Both the former and the present pastor spoke, one likened Dad to a New Testament prophet Simeon, the other to an Old Testament prophet. Kind and thoughtful words. Encouragement to think of Dad being in heaven, in his element talking to Luther and Calvin and others whose works he had always appreciated.

Afterwards, a simple repast of cold cuts, cheeses and fruits, and Mom’s favorite dessert, Ghiradeli brownies. We pop back to Mom’s (how odd to call the A frame just Mom’s instead of Mom and Dad’s) to change for the drive home and to say our farewells to anyone still waiting to leave for the airport.

It was a good celebration, a good closure. But now, the real work begins, the work of adjusting to life without his smile, his sagacity, his solidness. Therein lies the real challenge.

Each group of people was called to stand by the casket and say their final goodbyes before proceeding to their car. When it came turn for the last group of which I was part, I found my legs uncooperative, my heart in my throat, tears stinging my eyes. The word “final” stabbed through the fog of sadness, driving home the message loud and clear.

There will be no more theological discussions, no hearing Dad mutter while he works on some obstinate mechanical gear, no more home reconstruction projects, no more adventures into unknown territory, no more forays into money saving scavenging schemes, no more phone conversations that begin with “What’s up?” and end with “So, you want to talk to your Mother?”

I stood there numb, unsure, not wanting to leave, not wanting to stay. I refused to let the tears come until I was safely in the car. Mom did not wish to cry in public, and I was not about to be the catalyst to break that desire. Tears poured harder as we watched the pall bearers load the flag draped coffin into the hearse. My sons are still not here. I call them. I will have to dictate directions over the phone so they can catch up at the cemetery. Bother.

Flashers and high beams on, flags flying, we follow the hearse along back roads through Menands and other little historic burgs. The boys are closing the gap slowly. I shout into my Blackberry the names of the roads and exits, hoping they manage to keep on track. If they don’t catch up by the time we reach the cemetery, they will be hard pressed to find the plot. It is a huge and confusing place. My irritation with them has cured my tears.

We huddle in a small open sided green tent around the casket suspended above the vault buried in the ground below. Vaults are required in New York state, and this one has Dad’s name and dates on it. The cold takes our breath away. We are all shivering while the pastors speak briefly of our hope in Christ, of the promise of resurrection, of seeing our loved one again on heaven’s shores.

Mom is presented with the flag, a symbol of Dad’s service in the army so long ago, the very activity that brought him to a saving knowledge of Christ. He was in a hotel room, waiting to be shipped out to battle in WWII. He picked up a Bible left there by the Gideons and began reading. So young, so scared, facing such terrible prospects, he promised God that if God kept him safe during the war, he would enter into service as a preacher.

Before he shipped out, victory was declared. Dad’s army career was mostly cleanup duty. True to his promise, he returned home and entered college in preparation for the ministry. Imagine! Of course, he believed (and taught his children) in keeping all options open, and that one should be able to work a manual labor job in case things dried up in one’s chosen field. Accordingly he worked as an electrician, and eventually ended up teaching electrical engineering at RIT and after retirement at Adirondack Community College.

It is too cold to stand about chatting. We briefly look over the other graves, reading the names of long departed family, the main headstone proclaiming Appleby as the link tying all together. Only two empty spaces remain in the family plot. One for Mom and one for her brother. My plot is nearby, but not within the family area.

Quickly we find our vehicles after short conversations deciding where to gather next. No hearse to lead us out, we hope to find our way on our own. We feel at a loss as to how to proceed, how to return to our places. It will be the same with learning how to pick up with our lives minus our anchor. Somehow, we will find our way, just as we did today, following signs and instinct, sticking together until we are surrounded by the familiar and known, the comfortable and understandable.

Tomorrow we will gather for the memorial service, or, as Mom says, “two down and one to go.”

The flowers helped, even though Mom had asked us not to send any. Beauty tempers the ugliness of death so best to have a lot of it. My youngest sister also found the open casket eerie. She kept thinking the body moved, a normal phenomenon. Mom said the missing element was Dad’s personality, and no matter how good the embalming, you can’t portray what is no longer there.

People drifted in and out all evening, from the different aspects of Dad’s life and work. Representatives from the Presbytery that he had participated in came, some from a good distance. Mom’s brother and his son were there. Members of the church Dad had helped establish came. Pastors, friends, those whose lives had been touched by Dad’s ministry.

They gathered around the pictures of Dad’s family and of the churches where he had served. He began preaching at a small church in Suffren, NY (where I was born), then moved on to pastor churches in Vermont, Esperance, Westville, Fort Covington and Johnstown before his final church plant, the Redeemer Reformed Presbyterian Church in Queensbury, NY.

He was an educated man, holding various degrees up to his doctorate (abd from Baylor); a deep thinker who once told me he was working on inventing an infinitely variable gear shift for bicycles so bikers could tirelessly pedal without the need to ever shift. He also invented watermelon Jello long before Jello came up with the idea.

It was fascinating to walk down memory lane with each person, recalling things Dad had said or done, how he had intersected with the lives of so many. How curious that things long forgotten or not even registering on Dad’s radar screen had completely changed the course of someone’s life for the better. One never knows when some small gesture of concern or simple statement of truth will explode in significant life-altering reality.

Of the eight of us children, only six were able to come, and only five of us in time for the viewing hours, my older brother sliding in ten minutes before closing, my boys the only grandchildren near enough to be there. We are flung to the far corners of the country from California to New Hampshire to Colorado, Tennessee and North Carolina and rarely ever get everyone in the same place at the same time.

As the time of consolation came to a close, we each bundled up against the cold of winter and went our separate ways to the various places we are staying, thoughts of Dad on our minds, heartache for Mom who is doing marvelously well. Tomorrow, the burial. Tonight, a resting from our travels and our sorrows.

Thirty-five years ago on this day, I was getting married, filled with all the expectancy of a new bride, hoping to fulfill major portions of that great American dream of having a loving family, a house, a full life. This year I look back at broken dreams, at unexpected turns in life’s path, and the unthinkable. While things certainly didn’t go the way I had hoped, I still have lived a good life filled with exploration and freedom, with fulfillment and significance, with love and a share of happiness.

I prepare for the trip to Lake George tomorrow, knowing that in years to come, I will add December 23rd to my list of anniversary dates, it now being the anniversary of Dad’s homegoing, just as January 17th is the anniversary of Michael’s homegoing. These anniversaries become days of remembering, of celebrating the good aspects of how our lives intersected, of doing little gestures in their honor that bring relief to others still here, people who never knew the one who died, and don’t even realize they are benefiting because of someone else’s existence.

Not your typical anniversary, but a commemoration all the same of a significant life event. Some people celebrate first dates. I also celebrate last dates. I sort through my closet to find appropriate outfits for the funeral activities. Nothing too stark black or harsh. Something softened and sad. A dusky blue top with black velvet flowers strewn across the fabric. A cozy houndstooth sweater with more black than white. These bring me comfort in my sadness, a touch of beauty and elegance among the harsh realities. I will wrap myself in them as if in a hug and attend with pride these last dates with family.

I will be ready for tomorrow, if one can ever really be ready to say goodbye.