Respects

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Now back to the post, already in progress.



As previously noted, the funeral for Darby's friend's mother (Mrs. Penny) was today. Prior to the funeral I had to take care of a couple of errands, so I had to leave work pretty early (only got a little over an hour of work in).

After my errands, I picked-up Darby from school as she really wanted to go to the funeral, and I thought more of her classmates would be participating as well. As it turns out, she was one of maybe four kids from the school in attendance, but there were A LOT of parents and teachers, who had come to know Mrs. Penny (see the obituary from the Oklahoman) through classes, school performances, birthday parties, and other activities where the kids, parents, and teachers came together.

The funeral was packed. I estimate between 230-250 people were present, which is more than any other funeral I'd ever been to, and a testament to the number of lives she touched. And I must say, with all respect, that this was one of "the best" funerals I have attended. I don't mean to imply that it was fun or fortuitous, but rather very powerful and moving. Several speakers gave excellent eulogies, in particular her former squadron commander.

Mrs. Penny died on my birthday, just two days shy of her 41st birthday, so we were almost exactly ten years apart. But it's amazing to me what she had accomplished in her short life. Not only was she just two months shy of retiring from the Air Force with 22-years of service, but while she was in the service, she attained the rank of Master Sergeant (for perspective, my father retired after 21-years in the Air Force and only achieved the rank of Technical Sergeant... one stripe below MSGT), and continued her education, obtaining her AAS degree, her BS degree, and an MBA, while also remaining active in her son's school and extracurricular activities, and highly involved in her church. Even though I have ten years to do it, I'm not certain I'll have achieved as much as she did by that age.

Rest peacefully Mrs. Penny. While we wish you didn't have to go, you definitely earned that rest and peace.


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After the funeral, Darby, her mother, and I grabbed some lunch, I took Darby back to school, went back to work for a couple more hours, and then had to pick up Darby again for her softball game.

Darby continued her strikeout streak, and the team continued its losing streak, but Darby did have an awesome, well executed play at third, nabbing a hard hit grounder and beaming it over to second just in time to get the force out. Of course, the second baseman did her part on that play as well, but Darby has previously not done as well on such plays, so I was very pleased to see her do it so well, and when it was very needed (the play ended the inning).

We still had to have dinner after the game, and Darby had A LOT of school work to catch up with, having been at the funeral, so it was a late night for us when all was said and done.