MrsDoF's Dear Ones

Yesterday, as soon as I saw a news site on the web reporting a shooting spree at Virginia Tech, I called my brother, David’s cell phone.  One of his paycheck jobs is in the Foodservice Dept. of Virginia Tech.  He is fine, but his building was on lockdown for hours.  He definitely realizes the reason for having a campus ID card.  He and three others were escorted out to their cars by officers.  He went to his other job last evening, where all the talk was about the event—speculation and timing, etc.

I called my youngest sister last evening.  She’s and her hubs are feeling a bit under the weather, but we talked awhile about how we are so glad our own brother is okay, and how we don’t know anyone else directly.  And I’m feeling a wee bit guilty with my sense of relief, of knowing my bro is good, but the families—all those other grieving people.

I’m just glad today is not my turn, because everybody loses Loved Ones, one way or another. 

Today, I went out doing errands, and this is the phone machine message waiting from my brother when I got home from the grocery store. 

‘Haven’t found out anything about my friend yet, although his job is in the building where the shooting took place.  We’re getting ready for the President’s visit, which begins in a few minutes our time.’

He did have to work today, since all those dorm residents still need a place to eat, even if classes are cancelled.

My MisterDOF wrote a fine post with the closing comment

Kindness is our most powerful rebellion against tragedy.

I already blatantly copied his whole essay and sent it along to my Dear Ones mailing list because I wanted to get the word out.

And my brother says the folks on the VT campus are trying, even now to put the pieces together and make it to the end of the semester.

Update: Sunday 22 April

Someone asked about my bro who works at V Tech in Foodservice.
He’s doing alright, in mourning like the rest of us.  Trying to carry on with all the news crews everywhere.

His friend who had worked with him before, then transferred to the Norris Building is fine.
He got ahold of him Thursday.

However, two of the student victims were part-time dishwasher girls in his department.
Their timecards had to be taken out of the slots to figure up the earnings and pay their estates.

~~love and Huggs, Diane

Also something pertinent at Notes from the Terminal Ward

My blogfriend Susie over at What was I Thinking gives a nice description of how she seems to look like someone else.  She asks if anyone else ever gets that.

Well, until I gained weight at least, I was mistaken for someone else quite often.  I have that kind of face, I guess.  I’m not on the receiving end of such comments lately.
Then again, I haven’t been out and about too much the last year or so.  And I no longer live in the ol’ hometown.

While reading along on Susie’s post, an episode jumped to the forefront of my mind about when my face caused a connection for someone else.

It happened the summer after my first son came along.

I was back to working as an LPN, in the very same hospital where I was born, and had done most of my clinicals 5 years before.
Being a mom and a nurse doing a probationary period was not easy for me.  It didn’t help that I was only a week on each wing so I could ‘get the feel’ of the place.

It so happened that I was working the Med Cart, on a floor where the Ward Clerk had poor penmanship and a slightly different “system” than any other I had been on so far.
I was struggling to keep up with what I needed to do.
I was feeling overwhelmed and under-experienced.

I pushed the cart into a 4-bed ward.  Bed 1 was on the right, first in the door.  I got her medicine ready.
Meanwhile, the woman from Bed 4, to the left of the door, came out of the bathroom.
She looked over at me and SHREEEKED.  I mean, everybody else in sight and hearing thought she had stepped on a nail or something.  An Aide came jogging over from the room kitty-corner.

The patient sat down on the bed quite quickly.
I shoved shut all the drawers on the med cart to lock it.  One action was stressed over and over, Never Leave the Drug Cart Open and available for drugs to be stolen.  What kind of presence of mind does that?  Automatic response.

I rushed over to her side.

“Ma’am, Ma’am, What is the Matter?”  I didn’t even know her name or medical problem, that’s how new I was.

The Aide came through the door and rushed over with questions pouring out of her mouth.

The patient could not talk for a minute.  I began checking for symptoms of a stroke, but she pushed me away.

Finally, she found her voice.

“You have to be related to Kerma or Sara”, she said.

I straightened up, and took a half step back.
The CNA looked confused.

A look of irritation must have crossed my face
—very un-nurse-like of me.
I was supposed to be in control of emergency situations.
But I sensed I had found a morsel of belonging there in that room.

“Kerma is my mother, Sara is my aunt” was my answer.

“I knew it I knew it I knew it” was her response.
“You look just like them.”

It seems she had grown up on the same street as my mother’s family of 8 siblings.  They all went to the same schools, etc.  And everybody could tell they were all related.  I was the age now that my mother was the last time she had seen her.  And Wow, did I EVER look like her.

The Aide now seemed out-of-sorts that all this ruckus had been caused because of genetics and facial structure.

I told the patient I had to get going with the Med Cart, but I would give my mom a Hello from her.  She asked if our phone number was the same as in the book.  When I went by later, she was telling my mom all about how she recognized her daughter.  Before you ask,  after all these years, I don’t remember the name of the woman.  She was my mother’s friend, not likely to be mine after scaring me out of my socks.

Our most recent picture of me and my mom and youngest sister
in Danna’s dining room

Diane Kerma Danna May 2006

decide for yourself about how we look

~~love and Huggs, Diane

Today is the first day of April.
My thought as I was fixing my oatmeal for breakfast was that this is when April of the comic strip For Better or For Worse was born during a freak snowstorm.  I couldn’t remember if she’s turning 15 or 16.  Then the newspapers brought in from the front porch confirmed age 16.  Kinda silly of me, thinking of a comic character like she’s a relative or something.

Next came the memory that April 1 is the birthday of my Aunt Sylvia.  She was born on April Fool’s Day, then died on Halloween.  Just her luck when she had to share her days with mischief makers, especially her brothers’ teasing.

While eating oatmeal and reading the comics, I came to realize that having a day for pranks would not be neglected merely because the date falls on a Sunday this year.
Seems like most of the plots had April Fool jokes.

At church, I heard about an April Fool prank.

One of the kids, a boy about 10 years old, came rushing in through the front doors saying he had to find the pastor.  He was directed to where the man was chatting.  The boy told the pastor that one of the tires on his truck was flat.  The pastor went outside, walked down the walk to where he could see all 4 tires of the truck without actually crossing the drive lane or parking lot.

Umm, I don’t think so, they look fine from here.

Giggle “APRIL FOOL!”

Nobody has tried with me, but the day is not over yet.

~~love and Huggs, Diane