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It's been an unusual week or so in the Spehar family…sure to become even more interesting by the time we conduct both a wedding and a funeral over the coming weekend.
One celebration has been planned for awhile and festivities begin tonight at our house with the rehearsal dinner for nephew Ryan Spehar and his bride, Sara Wilcox. The practice run a couple of Septembers back, for our daughter Jessica and husband John Howard, was so successful that Ryan and Sara reserved the use of our backyard for their own prenuptial celebration. We're happy to oblige.
I'm looking forward also to Ryan and Sara's wedding tomorrow afternoon and the party afterward. They're both wonderful young people anxious to begin their life together. Even though it seems they've known each other since before either of them could spell “marriage,” those of us with a couple of marital miles under our belt know they'll have some twists and turns as they go forward. Having watched them grow up and seeing them together for so long, we're confident they'll weather any future storms and create an enjoyable new phase of their already-seasoned relationship. We'll all be cheering them on.
It may seem odd to some, but I expect that when most of the Spehar side of the aisle at the wedding heads up to Crested Butte on Sunday morning to prepare for the funeral of my aunt, Betty Spehar, we'll also be anticipating a celebration. Sure, there'll be some tears shed during services Sunday evening and on Monday morning. That's natural when faced with the loss of someone who's been a part of the family for more than eight decades and was the last link to my father and his siblings and their parents.
But I really suspect there'll be more joy than sorrow by the time we wrap things up with a post funeral luncheon up at Queen of All Saints church, just a half block down from the house where my aunt died last week, the home established by her parents shortly after she was born 85 years ago. We've created space in the celebration of her life for the people of Crested Butte to join with the family in telling “Betty stories” and I'm quite certain there'll be a lot of them. The Crested Butte Heritage Museum will preserve those stories on video.
Certain to be a tear-jerker will be the song written by my brother, Gerry, about Aunt Betty and her absolute favorite among the many horses she rode over the trails around Crested Butte and back and forth to Aspen. Exactly a month before she died peacefully in her bed, she heard the song at our annual family reunion and insisted it be played at her funeral. We've enlisted the help of one of the last of her lifelong friends, Willard Ruggera, as a pallbearer, overcoming his objection that he “can't lift much anymore.” Seeing Willard among the “youngsters” will likely pull at a few heartstrings.
But then there'll be the stories revolving around the eccentricities of a never-married, truly unique character. The college professor who sat her literature students in boy-girl-boy-girl symmetry and had one recalcitrant write a hundred times on a blackboard the reminder that the “w” is pronounced like a “v” in Chaucer. (Or is it the other way around? Do I need some fresh chalk?)
I'll be letting the cat out of the bag about the plot concocted about five years ago by Crested Butte Town Marshall Tom Martin and yours truly to have her retested by the Department of Motor Vehicles after she blew through a stop sign in her big white Buick, nearly t-boning the Mt. Crested Butte Police Chief. Both of us hoped that, at 80-years-young, she wouldn't be driving much longer.
“Small matter,” as she'd often say. She not only studied the manual after the notice asking her to report for retesting, she stalked the examiner down in Gunnison and practiced on the route of the driving test. She also died five years later with a valid driving license in her billfold and asking that the Buick be retrieved from the garage where it sat for the last few years and be used to bring her down for the wedding.
I'm looking forward next week to having both of these events behind us. Not because I'm anxious to get them over with. But to see how we all handle this deeply personal journey though two flip sides of life.
---------------------------
Jim Spehar listened to “The Wheel” from Chris Hillman's CD “The Other Side” while writing this column. “Life goes on,” Chris sang, “and the wheel goes round.”
One celebration has been planned for awhile and festivities begin tonight at our house with the rehearsal dinner for nephew Ryan Spehar and his bride, Sara Wilcox. The practice run a couple of Septembers back, for our daughter Jessica and husband John Howard, was so successful that Ryan and Sara reserved the use of our backyard for their own prenuptial celebration. We're happy to oblige.
I'm looking forward also to Ryan and Sara's wedding tomorrow afternoon and the party afterward. They're both wonderful young people anxious to begin their life together. Even though it seems they've known each other since before either of them could spell “marriage,” those of us with a couple of marital miles under our belt know they'll have some twists and turns as they go forward. Having watched them grow up and seeing them together for so long, we're confident they'll weather any future storms and create an enjoyable new phase of their already-seasoned relationship. We'll all be cheering them on.
It may seem odd to some, but I expect that when most of the Spehar side of the aisle at the wedding heads up to Crested Butte on Sunday morning to prepare for the funeral of my aunt, Betty Spehar, we'll also be anticipating a celebration. Sure, there'll be some tears shed during services Sunday evening and on Monday morning. That's natural when faced with the loss of someone who's been a part of the family for more than eight decades and was the last link to my father and his siblings and their parents.
But I really suspect there'll be more joy than sorrow by the time we wrap things up with a post funeral luncheon up at Queen of All Saints church, just a half block down from the house where my aunt died last week, the home established by her parents shortly after she was born 85 years ago. We've created space in the celebration of her life for the people of Crested Butte to join with the family in telling “Betty stories” and I'm quite certain there'll be a lot of them. The Crested Butte Heritage Museum will preserve those stories on video.
Certain to be a tear-jerker will be the song written by my brother, Gerry, about Aunt Betty and her absolute favorite among the many horses she rode over the trails around Crested Butte and back and forth to Aspen. Exactly a month before she died peacefully in her bed, she heard the song at our annual family reunion and insisted it be played at her funeral. We've enlisted the help of one of the last of her lifelong friends, Willard Ruggera, as a pallbearer, overcoming his objection that he “can't lift much anymore.” Seeing Willard among the “youngsters” will likely pull at a few heartstrings.
But then there'll be the stories revolving around the eccentricities of a never-married, truly unique character. The college professor who sat her literature students in boy-girl-boy-girl symmetry and had one recalcitrant write a hundred times on a blackboard the reminder that the “w” is pronounced like a “v” in Chaucer. (Or is it the other way around? Do I need some fresh chalk?)
I'll be letting the cat out of the bag about the plot concocted about five years ago by Crested Butte Town Marshall Tom Martin and yours truly to have her retested by the Department of Motor Vehicles after she blew through a stop sign in her big white Buick, nearly t-boning the Mt. Crested Butte Police Chief. Both of us hoped that, at 80-years-young, she wouldn't be driving much longer.
“Small matter,” as she'd often say. She not only studied the manual after the notice asking her to report for retesting, she stalked the examiner down in Gunnison and practiced on the route of the driving test. She also died five years later with a valid driving license in her billfold and asking that the Buick be retrieved from the garage where it sat for the last few years and be used to bring her down for the wedding.
I'm looking forward next week to having both of these events behind us. Not because I'm anxious to get them over with. But to see how we all handle this deeply personal journey though two flip sides of life.
---------------------------
Jim Spehar listened to “The Wheel” from Chris Hillman's CD “The Other Side” while writing this column. “Life goes on,” Chris sang, “and the wheel goes round.”
