A side dish of miracles

 

Pretty much sums up how I feel

It has been hectic since we got back. Things to catch up on. Household care to get back to. Routines to start up again.

I am moving forward and getting through it but I feel a bit lost. I keep losing track of time and days. It's like the clock stopped with Papa and all the gears are not quite moving again.

I had no idea how much it would hurt to lose him. How much it would shake up my well being from the core.

You are both watching a show. I was making some "whatever is in the vegetable bin" soup since getting to the store and finding what we need sounds strangely insurmountable. I did try but I have been so spacey that when I went, I forgot toilet paper not once, not twice, but THREE times. Thus, the fridge is a bit bare and there are boxes of kleenex by the toilets in the house.

And now - someone just brought us dinner. Kid friendly, healthy, veggie filled dinner. Another small miracle in our lives.

Bringing dinner, sending a card - these things may not have seemed heroic a few weeks ago but they sure do now. I really had no idea how valuable and helpful this careful support could be.

I had no idea we are so loved and cared for.

I am grateful. I am humbled. And you are both fed and happy.

7/26/2013

It feels like everything in the world shifted this day. Every single thing.

We are still catching up to the changes. Trying to pull our way out of where we are and start on a path ahead. Still trying to find meaning in those numbers, in the trail of events before and after, in the feelings we have yet to sort through, in what is left behind, in all of it.

We will travel home tomorrow and I don't know what happens after that. I would like to find some time to write down all that has happened over the past few weeks. So much between then and now with community and family coming together and the most intense funeral and memorial I may ever experience.

I'm not sure when that will be. Time feels strange and I can't gauge the days or the hours. Maybe because part of me will always be at 7/26/2013.

In Jeremy's words:
This is Elmer's son Jeremy. I am still in such shock and grief, but am so proud of my father's final act of heroism that I just have to share it with the world.

Yesterday my mom and dad took my nephews to my dad's favorite sturgeon fishing spot on the Snake River, called Buffalo Eddy. While he was preparing the fishing poles, two of my nephews were playing and splashing in the river. A big jet boat zoomed past the beach where they were and the resulting wave from the wake washed the two boys into the swift current of the river. My older nephew tried helping his younger cousin and my dad jumped in to help them. He got a hold on the younger one, freeing the older grandson to swim to shore, which he did. As the river pulled them further and further out, the current started pulling the two under. My dad, submerged by this time, managed to get his grandson's feet on his shoulders and stabilize him by reaching up to hold his waist. Just as his grandson started dipping below the surface, a boat reached them and pulled him in, but by that time, my dad had already perished in the river. His final act of lifting my nephew above the water for those last few moments was what saved his grandson's life but cost him his own.

News coverage:
http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2013/07/28/nez-perce-elder-dies-after-saving-grandson-from-drowning
The online memorial:
https://www.facebook.com/ElmerCrowMemorial
Obituary:
http://lmtribune.com/obituaries/article_268f0e5c-0b56-5b5e-935b-c958cbb32b02.html
Funeral and memorial program:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8od1LL8JoelYW1ZU1g5ZkJ2d28/

I promise

I promise to be more
to be better
to be stronger
because I knew
you.

I promise to respect life
showing reverence
to natural beauty
in its every form.

I promise to laugh

to love

to nurture

to give

to reach out to others 

the way you reached out to me.

I promise to
Be Here
even though you are not.

I will stand up
Boldly
for the ones you left behind.

I promise

every rose
every cup of coffee
every electric train
every fishing pole
every Indian drum
every snap shirt
every Johnny Cash song
every Mento
every sunrise
every starry night sky

every wild animal call
will remind me

of you.

I promise to listen
if you call
and imagine your words
and your spirit with me
if you do not.

You are with me
and I am with you
always
I promise.