I'll kiss you one more time
                                                    And leave you on the rolling river shore
                                                    Of changes
                                                                              -- from Changes, by Phil Ochs

    So, there I was, just minding my own business, when I walked smack into my mortality.  Knocked me flat on my posterior.  "Hey, why don't you look where you're going?" I snapped.  "I was going to ask you the same question," it replied.

    "The world goes on as if nothing has happened!"
    That was my dad, raging at the universe the morning he woke up to find his wife dead beside him.  That was more than 40 years ago.  Dad's been gone for more than 30 himself.  And now it's Faye.  She passed away on the morning of September 24, 2000, apparently oblivious to the important pages and telephone calls flying around the house.  Outside, the highways continue to fill with traffic.  The cube farms hum with activity.  Objects are bought and sold.  The business of business is done.  The world still doesn't seem to have noticed.
    But let me tell you a few things about Faye Osmer, my mother-in-law ...

                           Now, of my three score years and ten,
                                    Twenty will not come again,
                                    And take from seventy springs a score,
                                    It only leaves me fifty more.

                                    And since to look at things in bloom
                                    Fifty springs are little room,
                                    About the woodlands I will go
                                    To see the cherry hung with snow.
                                                                                      --from A Shropshire Lad, by A. E. Housman

    Faye was an adventurous spirit.  She knew about wandering the woodlands to appreciate life.  And she did things women weren't supposed to do.  She chose to have a career.  She left her native Illinois to travel and work.  She took flying lessons.  Before returning to Illinois, she lived and worked in Texas and Washington, D.C.  It was while working in the Rio Grande Valley as a private duty nurse during World War II that Faye developed a particular love for Texas.

                                   Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
                                   They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
                                                              --from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, by Thomas Gray

    No, not flashy.  After returning to Illinois, Faye married Bob Osmer.  Together they raised a family of four children, including one adopted son and a daughter I get to see occasionally evenings and weekends.  All of those kids have grown into kind, caring adults with children of their own.  All of the grandchildren have had the benefit of at least one loving grandparent in their lives.
    Faye moved back to Texas in 1978, when the last child left the nest.  It was during these last 22 years that I got to know her best.  She worked for several years at the Northwest Recreation Center and then volunteered at Seton Northwest Hospital.  She had a talent for putting people at ease.  At church, she was always one of the ones who sought out newcomers and included them in the coffee-hour discussions.  And she always had time for her grandchildren.  The inside of her vacant apartment is still covered with their pictures and their childish artwork.  One bit in particular caught my eye:

            Dear Grandma,
               Happy Grandparents Day.  I'm sorry I forgot.  Can you ever forgive me?

Now, I know Grandparents Day as a money-making ploy of the greeting card industry, but to a child, it's a serious matter.  Especially when the child has such a special grandparent.

                            No farther seek [her] merits to disclose,
                                    Or draw [her] frailties from their dread abode
                                                              --from Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, by Thomas Gray

    So, I need to amend my father's plaint.  The world goes on as if nothing has happened, unaware that it has been changed forever.  Changed by a life, and changed by a passing.  Never underestimate the influence of an exemplary life.