Saying goodbye to a friend

I have been anticipating a goodbye, which I don't think is a good thing for me as I don't like goodbyes, per se. I pretty much hate them. It's kinda funny because I spent the better part of my early life, let's say 18 years in the same town and didn't have a lot of these horrible things that people speak of called "goodbyes". Ew, they should be called badbys, they hurt, they make my eyes leak and my heart hurt.

I shall spare you all the next few years of my life which were peppered with goodbyes since I ended up marrying a military guy. I managed to survive each one, but never really mastered the art. I made some really good friends along our military route. I have conjured up a lot of memories of each of them as I write this blog. I think that might be a sign that although I don't enjoy the goodbye, I do remember the friendship and even keep in touch with them as well.

Alas, that brings me to the goodbye that this title speaks of, it is of my dear friend John Stumbo. I have known that he was going to leave our church for a while, but it doesn't make his departure any less painful. I don't want to hash out his tenure at our church because it would take up too much space and I could never do it justice. Suffice to say that today he said that he can't understand all the people saying to him how much they have been blessed by him because he feels so blessed by being apart of this thing called Salem Alliance. Salem Alliance has been blessed beyond this blog and any other articulation by John Stumbo. Pause here for tears...

So, on this day of him packing his final things in his office which is a few feet from my cubicle... I sat at my desk and wandered over to his office to pop off occasionally. It was a good vibe. We'd had our goodbyes and I wasn't feeling particularly weepy, just kinda flipping him crap. At one point I went in his office and noticed a really cool triangle shaped metal ruler in one of his boxes. I picked it up and commented that it was nifty. It was quite nifty, btw, one of those cool old ones. Anyway, late in the day out comes Stumbo... he says "Anyone with an eclectic work space like you that comments on this, deserves to have it." He handed me the cool ruler. I told him that I didn't need it and he should keep it, I was just commenting on it and it was from Minnesota, so he should keep it. He casually says "it was from my Dad's office" He wanted me to have it. It was such a very non-event and yet it was an event. Here was John giving me something that had been his Dad's in such a casual way... it was perfect in that our friendship has always been that way. I don't need to give the details, but basically John gets me and I get him.

A bit later, he was leaving for good and I offered to help carry boxes out to his car. He said he'd love me to help. I did and his assistant Kathy helped too, he told a funny story about his recently purchased car and a speeding ticket, it was all very casual and normal... we loaded his car and he drove off. I will miss my friend. I will see him again, I know this, but I will miss him so much. As Josh Mann said (our Middle School Pastor) John has a quality of occupying an inordinate amount of space in people's hearts. I think that is a good quote. I know that is true with me. I will miss him very much. I continue to pray that he will run again and that he will be healed.

Good bye John. See you later. You have touched my heart in knowing you. I will never be the same.

The busyness of life

Sooo, the title of this blog might give you a general idea, but basically here's the dealio yo! Fall around the Dudley house is chaotic at its most boring time and just plain crazy at its peak. We have 2 boys in Cross Country, one in college at Whitworth and one in high school at West Salem.

Pause for commercial: Go Pirates!!!!!!!! Go Titans!!!!!!!!

Let's just say that we are fans. We go to every meet that we can. Tyler doesn't run near us as often as we like, but we get to a few a season and we go to all of Trent's. Let's just add to that mix, just cuz. I also referee volleyball. That consumes much of my September thru mid November.

This particular fall I decided to start officiating college again, so that added to the mix a bit. Suffice to say, my goofy little uniforms are quite familiar with the inside of my washer and dryer.

As if enough Dudleys weren't busy enough, Bruce is traveling all over with his drug dealing job. Ok, you all know that he is a Pfizer Pharmaceutical District manager right? It sounds so much cooler to say drug dealer, anyway, he's occupied a few hours a week doing that. I work 40 hours a week also, so we are busy, to say the least.

The other component to this mix is Megan, our darling youngest. She doesn't do a fall sport, yet anyway. She does like volleyball, but being a 7th grader, they don't play it until Winter. What does occur for her in the fall, however, are the sign ups for the 3, count them, 3 things she does want to do during winter. There is her school volleyball for 7th graders, there is the club volleyball, which she's done for the last 2 years and there is Skyball which is the middle school basketball program in Salem.

The emails and flyers and phone calls begin around mid October. I corner Megan; "Are you sure you want to do basketball this year, even though both volleyballs are at the same time?" She assures me that she does. I push a bit more, "honey, this is a lot of time you are committing to, are you really sure you want to do it all?" Yep, she does. So, I go to the bad cop and enlist his help. I figure if I employ Big Bad Daddy onto the scene, I'm golden. He'll lay down the law and we'll be back down to a manageable 2 sports per season per kid quota that we've managed for.... EVER!!!

Well, guess what? Mr. Softie tells me, and I quote: "We'll make it work, I'll help out, she deserves to play basketball like the boys did." Well, that's fine and dandy, except the boys never played volleyball on TWO teams while they also played basketball!! Awesome!

Fast forward to November aka now! Last week Megan had tryouts for Middle school volleyball, tryouts for Skyball, 2 nights she had to volunteer at church for her fundraiser, she also got sick (bonus) and oh yeah, did I mention that Mr. Softie, Big Bad Daddie, aka bad cop was in New York? Awesome! And with a perfect double switch, don't even still know how it happened??? I am the assistant coach of her basketball team! Tryouts for the club team are in a week, I'm just praying I don't wake up on the next day with a volleyball tattoo on my lower back.

You know, it's my life. I gripe, but I love it. I attended the coaches meeting tonight and I'm already thinking of drills in my head and dreaming of high fives and victories... I love my kids, it's what I do.