Icky

[monster]

sorry wolf.

[BigV]

Well, shit wolf. I'm so sorry. I don't know how (but you do) please take care of yourself *TOO*. I know, we all know you take care of others. Give yourself some of that love too, for us if you must.

((((((wolf))))))

[zippyt]

sorry to hear this Wolf ,
glad she had a friend like you to help her thru this

[classicman]

I am so sorry to hear of her passing. You absolutely inspired me with all that you did for her. I can't imagine how difficult, frustrating... it all must have been for you.
I think ANYONE would be truly blessed to have a friend care for them as you have.
Again, I'm so sorry for her and her family. My condolences to all.
Hugs to you.

[Spexxvet]

Sorry for your loss, Wolf.

[Lola Bunny]

I'm sorry about your friend's passing. At least she was home where she wanted.

[wolf]

I am at home. Yesterday was spent making the arrangements with the funeral director, which is another entire story to tell.

Crazynurse's homecoming was followed by a weekend of joy, love, and laughter. Visitors came to share memories, and occasionally tell a bad joke.

Each night crazynurse chose a movie to watch. Saturday was Dances with Wolves, and Sunday was Spaceballs. We were going to work our way through some other Mel Brooks movies next.

While we were watching the movie, crazynurse's 15 month old grandson was playing alone in the kitchen. He was running around and giggling, showing one of his first birthday cards to someone, and running around like he was being chased, and holding his arms up the way he does when he wants to be picked up by someone. The older daughter and I were watching him, looked at each other and wondered if he were playing with Pop-Pop Bob, who had promised to come for crazynurse when it was time.

As her daughter and I were settling her in for the night on Sunday, crazynurse asked me if I were staying. I had prepared to do so, and had a bag at the house already. I told my intention for that night was to go home, but that if she wanted me to stay, I would stay. She asked me to stay, and so I grabbed my bag, brushed my teeth, pulled off my sweatshirt, kicked off my sneakers and laid down on the couch.

Notice, please, that I didn't say that I got my adorably cute jammies out of my bag, put them on, and laid down. I was fully dressed.

We were all exhausted. I was asleep within a couple of minutes.

I had a very vivid dream about going to talk to crazynurse's spirit guide, and to offer her food for the journey. Her daughters both told me (the one in the room next to her, as well as the one with the baby monitor, that they heard crazynurse and I talking to each other … but “not in English, in some other language I never heard.”)

I woke up suddenly after that, I think in response to a change in crazynurse's breathing. I woke up her daughter who got the younger daughter downstairs.

Within a few minutes of that, with all of us there talking to her, holding her hand, crazynurse passed, at 12:12 am on Monday, November 21, 2011 … not the exact 20th anniversary of her husband's death, but, like him, three days before Thanksgiving.

Mary Jane (Hoffman) Smith

Born:*July 04, 1946

Died:*November 21, 2011

Services: *Relatives and friends are invited to attend her Funeral Mass at 10AM on Friday, November 25, at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, 900 Sumneytown Pike, Lansdale, with burial following at George Washington Memorial Park.
Visitation: *Family will receive friends on Wednesday from 6-8PM at R. L. Williams, Jr. Funeral Home, Inc., 3440 Skippack Pike @ Cedars Rd., Skippack.
Mary Jane (Hoffman) Smith, 65, passed away at her Towamencin Twp home on November 21, 2011. She was preceded in death by her husband, Robert G. Smith, in 1991.

Born July 4, 1946 in Philadelphia, she was a daughter of Mary Jane (Clary) Hoffman of Southampton, NJ, and the late Roy Hoffman. She was a 1964 graduate of Academy of Notre Dame in Philadelphia, and a 1967 graduate of St. Joseph Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia.*

Mrs. Smith was a registered nurse. She worked at the former Philadelphia General Hospital and then Montgomery County Emergency Service of Norristown. She was a founding member of the Montgomery County Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) team and served as the clinical coordinator, was a paramedic and E.M.T. volunteer at Volunteer Medical Service Corps of Lansdale, and a Montgomery County E.M.S. and E.M.T. instructor.

In addition to her mother, she is survived by two daughters, Barbara Jane Fallon and her husband Matthew of O’Fallon, MO, and Mary Elizabeth Harris and her husband Dennis J. of Lansdale; a sister, Catherine M. Cheeseman of Sicklerville, NJ; and three grandchildren, Bailey Renee Smith, Shaela Robin Fallon, and Draven Robert-Jeffrey Harris.*

In addition to her husband and father, she was preceded in death by a brother, Roy A. Hoffman.

Relatives and friends are invited to attend her Funeral Mass at 10AM on Friday, November 25, at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, 900 Sumneytown Pike, Lansdale, with burial following at George Washington Memorial Park. Family will receive friends on Wednesday from 6-8PM at R. L. Williams, Jr. Funeral Home, Inc., 3440 Skippack Pike @ Cedars Rd., Skippack. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in her memory to CISM, EOC c/o EMS, 50 Eagleville Rd., Eagleville, PA 19403. Online condolences may be made to the family at www.RLWilliamsFuneralHome.com.*

Memorials:*In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in her memory to CISM, EOC c/o EMS, 50 Eagleville Rd., Eagleville, PA 19403.

We'll all miss you Janie.

[glatt]

Wow, that dream and speaking in tongues thing is spooky.

When I go, I want it to be like that. Seriously, I can't think of a better way. Surrounded by loved ones in my own house. You did good, wolf.

[limey]

Oh Wolf, how moving! How marvellous that you helped her to be at home, surrounded by love an laughter (and bad jokes) in her last few days. That really does sound like it couldn't have been any better. Well done, for all you did!

[wolf]

There was at least one narrowly averted disaster involving a visit. There was a group of (mostly) nurses that worked at the nuthouse who came to see crazynurse. These ladies called themselves "The Sisterhood" and had a lot of good and crazy and supportive times with each other. All of them had arrived at one time and were having a joint visit.

I was busy in the kitchen doing some cooking, and letting them have their time. One of them came up to me with a smudge stick and a candle and asked me if I had any matches.

"Not for you!" I said.

She was quite taken aback, thinking I was being insulting toward her and their wanting to do a ceremony to ease crazynurse's transition ... before she could blast me (I saw it building up), I said one word that changed everything. "Oxygen."

They're nurses, but they're psych nurses, you see.

So, they thanked me for preventing them from blowing up themselves, crazynurse, and the house. I taught them how to do a dry smudging, and they proceeded.

At one point they asked me into their Circle, because crazynurse was again thanking me for all the help and support I had given. One of the nursesisters made mention of the empty place in their circle, and how they would honor her. Then crazynurse did it. She suggested that I should be brought into their circle to hold that space.

So, I've been inducted.

As they went around the Circle, saying their last goodbyes, I started some chants for them ... The Peace Chant (an intertribal), and then Atabey (Earth Mother's) Change Chant (a Taino/Central American chant).

Crazynurse sure liked it. So did they.

And now I'm invited to a Christmas Dinner, at which there will be an empty chair with a Strawberry Daquiri at it ... and a glass of water, which crazynurse said she'd make move to show that she was there with them.

[BigV]

cheers to you, cheers to crazynurse.

[Trilby]

Oh, wolf. How touching!
How beautiful that you were there with her!!

It sounds like a really good passing.

peace, my friend.

[wolf]

crazynurse's funeral was today.

It turns out that I remember a lot of the Catholic Mass. That thing, where they say give me your children to me until they are twelve, and they will be mine forever? It's kind of true.

It was a lovely service. The priest's homily was very good, and hit on a lot of significant points of crazynurse's life and work, rather than being a cookie-cutter "she was a good wife and mother" sort of thing.

After the communion, I was invited to the altar for my eulogy. One of my friends said that as I finished, the sun came through the stained glass windows, and lit first me, and then the whole altar.

I didn't notice. I was busy trying not to lose my place. Or stutter. Or fall down the altar steps when I finished.

I made her mother and daughters cry, and a lot of people laugh. I gave the printed copy to her mom. Everybody seemed to like it.

The last four months have been a trial, both for Janie and for everyone who loves and cares for her.

Which, if my math is right, leaves 780 months of pretty good time, so the last four months comes out to half of a percent. Let's remember best the other 99½ percent of Janie's life.
I met Janie not quite 30 years ago. I was her husband Bob's friend. He brought me home one night and the family decided to keep me.

Some of you have known her longer than that, some less, but we all share something other than just knowing Janie.

In some way or another she has touched every single person in this room.

She may have been the paramedic who came to care for you.

She may have been the psychiatric nurse who helped you find hope in your darkest hour.

She may have been the friend who listened without judgment, or with it, if that's what you really needed.

She may have been the critical incident stress management peer who guided you through the shock and fear of a bad call.

She may have been the instructor who didn't just teach you, but got you excited about learning.

She may have been the wife you loved deeply and dearly.

She may have been the mom who dried your tears.

She may have been the daughter who always knew her own mind.

She may have been the foster mother who let you know that you were a real part of the family.

She may have been the sister who took the blame for something you did.

She may have been the Mom-Mom who spoiled you rotten.
She may have been the aunt or cousin that brightened every family celebration.

She may have been the person who was always there with an open heart, ready to help at a moment's notice. Well, if you didn't mind that that moment might be at least a half-hour later than you expected it to be.

She may have been the best friend who frustrated you because she never listened.

From the 4th of July, 1946 to the 21st of November, 2011 Janie became a part of a lot of people's lives, and now, through each of our lives and actions, she will continue to change lives.

What she has done does not end here, it begins as we continue where she left off.

She is at peace, and let us all find peace and hope in carrying on for her.

As we drove to the cemetery, I was listening to a CD in the car. It was a "mix" CD I had burned nine or ten years ago. It's labelled "atomic." It has every song I could find about the Atomic Bomb ... Hiroshima by Utopia, Enola Gay by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, Manhattan Project by Rush, the classical piece Threnody for the Children of Hiroshima, and so on. Well ... there aren't 80 minutes of songs about the bomb, so I filled the rest of the CD with other stuff, including the original and the 1995 remix of Paul Hardcastle's 19, and, a song I do not remember being part of the CD ... It's Raining Men.

Crazynurse LOVED that song. At every nuthouse party, the song would be played, crazynurse would go to the middle of the dance floor, and every single man at the party, employee or not, was told by their wives and girlfriends to go dirty dance with crazynurse.

So, after I got over the shock of discovering this on my CD, what did I do?

I played it all the way to the cemetery. LOUD. With the windows and sunroof open.

Oh, and another funny thing. The cortege was lead by the hearse, followed immediately by an ambulance. There were a couple people scratching their heads over that one ... Nice little bonus ... the ambulance has that thing that turns traffic lights green ... so even though it's common for a funeral procession not to stop, we actually didn't have to for the entire ride.

[monster]

love the eulogy, still so sorry you lost your friend.

[Sundae]

Wolf your eulogy has me in tears.
I didn't know her except through you, but I'm crying for her anyway.

Thank you.