Five Years Ago Today

I know the celestrial calendar is based upon the Sun.  I also know that the determinate calendar for Easter is based upon the Moon.  The two do not coincide; which is why the date of Easter varies so greatly year-to-year. 

JW's earthly death is tied inextricably to both calendars.  We spent the entirely of April 6th with him.  He died on April 7th.  He donated his life saving organs on April 8th.  It just so happens that those dates in 2007 were Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, respectively.  Due to the seeming vagaries of both calendars, those dates coincide exactly in 2012.

An essential point to JW's life is that, while he did not know that April 1-7, 2007, was the last week of his life, he nonetheless lived a very holy life during what would prove to be his very last Holy Week.  We should all be so fortunate.

To commemorate the above, this blog will republish pertinent portions from JW's eulogy which was intended to capture the last week of JW's life, the essence of who he was.

The last week of John's life begins on Palm Sunday. John hadn't been feeling well for a while, with a pain in his neck but that Sunday was the first day of the kickball season. John and Alex belonged to a kickball league which played their games on the Washington Mall. John enjoyed it tremendously – he was athletic but he did it mostly for the fun (and drinking afterwards). And while we were surprised when we first heard about a year before that he played kickball (most people give it up after the third grade) we soon found out that initially it was a pretext to get near to Alex. It worked!

In any event, Palm Sunday was a beautiful day and John and Alex went to the Tidal Basin to enjoy the cherry trees, which were in full bloom that day. However, the pain was getting bad for John and he actually had to lie down under the trees. It was a perfect setting for him, since he so enjoyed God's creation and was always in awe of the beauty of nature, especially from all of his world travels. In any event, while lying under the trees, John had a nice long phone conversation with us. We knew he hurt but didn't know how much. Nonetheless, we talked about our plans for the coming weekend. John and Alex were going to come down to our home, along with Michael and Gina as well as Jessica and John's grandparents. We were going to celebrate Easter as well as his brother's birthday which was that Tuesday. John loved being with his family - we have always taken great joy that our children were not only siblings to each other, but best friends as well.