Grandpa Ray’s Funeral

Grandpa’s funeral service was last Sunday, December 28th, 2008, at Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis, where he was a life-long member.

My Aunt Judi, Uncle Dave, and cousins Krista and David flew in Friday night and stayed at my house for the weekend; Saturday was spent picking out items and photos for the visitation display, as well as simply having time together as a family.

Sunday morning I went to church, then met the rest of the family at the mortuary for a private “viewing”, I suppose you’d call it. This was the first time any of us, my Mom and Dad and I included, had seen Grandpa since he died. I’ll publicly admit, I was greedy; though I respectfully yielded to my elders in entering the room, when they dilly-dallied near the entrance I quickly advanced toward the casket to be the first person to see Grandpa.

But it didn’t look like Grandpa.

Honestly, this came to me as a shock, because both Grandma Sue and Grandma Ruth had looked very much themselves in their caskets three years ago. But this day, there was a kindly, but very generic looking, older gentleman lying there. It didn’t look like him at all. I’m still bothered, and disappointed, by this, because frankly it’s difficult to find closure when you’re not even sure you’re burying the right person.

Pastor Carlson put a positive spin on this for me later that day, offering a story from when her kids were younger and their Grandpa had died; apparently he didn’t look like himself, either, but she used that moment to remind her children that this was only Grandpa’s body; the essence of what made Grandpa Grandpa was no longer contained within, and this body was no longer their Grandfather.

Nevertheless, a week later I still feel a lack of complete closure.

After viewing the casket at the mortuary we proceeded to the church, I hopped into my suit and tie (which I tied well enough on the very first try, thank you very much!), and I stood my guitar at the front of the church. As I rehearsed my two songs that I would play, Grandpa was brought in the back of the church; though unplanned, it seemed quite appropriate, and moving, that the music was playing while he came in.

Ever since I wrote my first song a year and a half ago, I had planned on writing a song to play at Grandpa’s funeral, a tribute to both him and Grandma. Unfortunately, time ran out before I’d really even started, so in the initial days of funeral planning I proposed the next best thing: a song by Mark Schultz called “Walking Her Home”, the lyrics of which more or less perfectly describe my Grandparents’ love story. I changed only three numbers in the song to make the details specific to Grandma and Grandpa, but the essence of the song fit them perfectly as-is. I played that song as the service opener before the greeting, and many people were surprised to learn (after the service) that I hadn’t written it, that’s really how perfectly it described Grandma and Grandpa.

After an emotional conversation with my parents on Christmas night, I wasn’t satisfied not having a song as part of the “Remembrances” section in the service (when my Uncle Alan and cousin Krista shared stories and a poem about Grandpa), so that night I went home and wrote a brand new song to sing during that portion of the service. I based it off of a story Mom had told about Grandpa’s vision of what going to heaven might look like, ‘finishing the race’ with people on both sides of him applauding and cheering. It’s a cool picture. That was the fastest I’ve ever written a song, but in all honesty I think it’s one of my better ones. I got my wish and was allowed to play it after Alan and Krista shared. The lyrics are posted below.

I’ve been struggling a lot recently with "me worship," I’ve become jaded, and have had difficulty separating out the “performance” aspect of playing guitar and leading. That’s the short version, and so I was worried about how this might affect me at Grandpa’s funeral. Playing in front of a crowd, done that plenty now, not a problem; but playing with a heart of tribute and dedication, making the songs worthy of Grandpa and Grandma, that was the real struggle. I think I succeeded. Particularly as I played through the final instrumental chorus of “In Heaven Now,” it felt right, there was no doubt that was exactly where I was supposed to be right then, doing exactly what I was doing; it was a tribute, Grandpa deserved nothing less.

My final note from the service itself is something I will cherish as one of my most valuable memories ever. When we planned the service, I suggested it would be both appropriate and very special if the choir could recess following the family. Grandpa sang in the choir for 71 years, in my mind, having them as his ‘honor guard’ on the way out could not have been more perfect. At the end of the actual service, when the family reached the back of the church following the casket, I glanced up the aisle briefly and found myself in true awe. On an average Sunday, the CCL choir has maybe 8 or so people; this Sunday, for Grandpa’s funeral, there were at least 30 to 40 current and former church members in white choir robes following the family. Wow. Neither Mom nor I had a camera, but I’ve tried to burn that image in my memory forever, it was so powerful; that’s a lot of people who were there to honor Grandpa. Truly Awe-some.

~~~~~
Cemeteries don’t do burials on Sunday, so Grandpa was buried Monday morning. For my third and final time, I was privileged to drive a vehicle in my Grandparent’s procession (though this time we met at the cemetery, so the drive was significantly shorter than the previous times). I also was privileged both Sunday and Monday to serve as one of Grandpa’s pall-bearers.

Grandpa Ray served in the Army back in the day, and so he was honored with a military honor guard and three-volley salute at the gravesite. The honor guard bugle player played taps, and the flag draped over Grandpa’s casket was ceremonially folded and presented to the family. This was a ‘first’ for me, I am glad we (the family) elected to request the honor guard (it’s a free service, but it was our choice whether to have them or not).

~~~~~

Before closing, I need to publicly thank Kathryn, Marissa, Kate, and Amy for taking time to call me on the day Grandpa died, and also Kathryn and Ashley for calling me the day of the funeral, even though you weren’t able to be there in person. It meant the world to me.

~~~~~

"In Heaven Now", Jeremy Gustafson, December 25, 2008

Verse 1
I can’t imagine what it’s like running down those golden streets
Seeing saints on either side of me applauding all the way

And I can’t imagine what it’s like finally crossing the finish line
Entering those pearly gates just in time for Christmastime

But I know that you’re okay


Chorus
Cause you’re in heaven now
In heaven now
Seeing Jesus now
Dancing with Grandma now


Verse 2
I can’t imagine life without you in this world with me
But your life still goes on living inside our memories

And somehow we will find our way through the darkness through the rain
Cause you’re never really far away, you’re still watching over me

And that’s why I know we’ll be okay

Grandpa Ray

My Grandpa passed away early this afternoon. Mom had visited him this morning, and, although he was more tired than normal, there was no reason to suspect today above any other day that Grandpa would be going Home. After lunch, the nursing staff was transferring him from wheel chair into his recliner in his room, when he slipped away. No pain, just closed his eyes, and by the time the nurse arrived he was on his way to heaven.

Mom got the phone call from Martin Luther Manor minutes later, and then called me. This was not a phone call I was expecting today. Minutes previous, I’d been cleaning in my office, sorting through papers, finding numerous items to pass back to Mom and Dad to deal with or recycle; as I was sorting, in retrospect at near the exact minute Grandpa died, I noticed a picture of Grandma and Grandpa by my desk, and had taken a minute to look at it, pondering if I could put it someplace more prominent.

We later found out other relatives, too, had been thinking of Grandpa this morning, wrapping presents to ship to him for Christmas, or writing cards, etc. Though our family was not physically at his side when he passed, Grandpa was being thought of all morning.

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

That’s a quote from one of the Lemony Snicket books. I think it aptly describes the feeling when you’ve first been told someone has died. It’s surreal, you ask, “Wait, what? Can that really be?” My first reaction was, ‘quick, find shoes and socks - I don’t know yet where I need to go, but I know I’m driving somewhere.’ For the best, my rational side retains enough control in the midst of emotional chaos to allow me to process logistics and not panic. Mom and I hung up, I finished getting dressed, updated my Facebook status, and sent a brief email to my closest friends and coworkers; I can have my emotional breakdown later, right now the most important thing is to get the word out, something at which computers in our flat world (Thomas Friedman) are quite proficient. More specifically, I knew this was a time I needed to “summon the troops”, or rather, the prayer-warriors. Literally within minutes of emailing and Facebooking, I’d already received several text and FB messages of support and condolence, as well as promised prayer. (Other friends called, texted, and mailed throughout the day, for which I am so absolutely grateful; they really helped lift me up.)

Personally I had hoped Grandpa’s death would have been timed out like Grandma Sue’s - we had five days to vigil after she began “actively dying”, time enough to gather the family and get people in from out of town. Today we had no warning at all. On the other hand, Grandpa went through his normal routine this morning, breakfast, nap, nursing home activity, lunch, and then just went to sleep. That’s about as peaceful as anyone could hope for.

With Christmas later this week, along with the ginormous snowstorm that crossed Minnesota today, and with literally everyone in the family (except Mom and Dad and I) out of town right now, logistics of funeral scheduling look very different from the previous two funerals we’ve planned; in those cases, things had to be planned very quickly, because the funeral itself was mere days away. This time we’re delaying a week until after Christmas, until everyone can [hopefully] get here. It’ll also give me time to clean my house in case out of town relatives need my hide-a-bed and/or couches.

Now begins the grief process. Already I’m feeling that burden of guilt, “I could have visited more, I could have sent more cards, I never played my guitar for him, I never showed him Harry Putter 1, I hardly ever spent time with him, and now I can’t.” My best friend encouraged me that it’s not healthy to dwell on those thoughts, but they still haunt me, and I suppose they will for a while. On the other hand, I can choose to look on the positive side. I did visit sometimes, I did mail him cards every month to say hello, I did have a relationship with Grandpa while he was still alive, and once I have a chance to process, I know I still have those memories of him to hold on to.

Though it’s hard to lose someone, especially right before Christmas (or any major holiday), our family is resting in the knowledge that this will be the happiest Christmas of Grandpa’s life - not only does he get to celebrate with Jesus, he’s dancing with Grandma again, his mind is sharp again, and there’s no more wheelchair!! Sure, there could be some theological discussion about when resurrection happens, but I choose to believe it’s immediate; (please bear with me as I mix together lyrics from several songs) Grandpa’s spirit flew away from Earth and ran right into God’s wide open arms, and he heard a Voice that said, “Welcome home, my good and faithful servant.”

I love you, Grandpa, and I miss you.

Dorothy Martineau

You can find anyone and everyone on the Internet in today’s day and age, right?

Unfortunately, no. In fact, Facebook, and even the almighty Google, have both failed to dramatically further my quest to reconnect with my friend and former classmate from 9th grade, Dorothy Martineau. After encouragement from my Mom, I write this blog post with hopes and prayers that Dorothy, or perhaps another acquaintance, may stumble upon it and help end my search. It’s not a life and death emergency, really I just want to know whatever happened to her. In my one year at North High School I could literally count on one hand the number of fellow students there I truly considered friends. Of the two I’d still like to be in contact with, Nate is on Facebook, so, despite the fact that we don’t really ever message each other, the fact of the matter is that I know he’s still alive and doing well, and if either of us wanted to reconnect, we’re only a couple clicks away.

Dorothy I have no clue.

Dorothy and I graduated 8th grade from Anne Sullivan Communication Center in South Minneapolis in June 2000. (Notice how I’m stuffing in as many search-engine-friendly keywords as possible :) From there, we were two of three Sullivan students who went to North High School in North Minneapolis. I didn’t really know her in middle school, but on our first day at North, when all the freshmen were doing orientation things, we somehow found each other and became friends. We also rode the same bus, I’m sure that might have helped (this was eight years ago, mind you, so my memory is a little swiss-cheesed by now).

Anyway, there’s one memory that I have held on to ever since 9th grade, something Dorothy said that has literally shaped who I am, and continues to do so today. One day, we were riding home on the school bus, and for some reason we were talking about youth groups at church. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, all I remember is Dorothy telling me “You know, I’m really glad that someone else cool still goes to church.”

That’s powerful. And not just because someone thought I was cool (although that’s pretty neat, too, since, well, “cool” hasn’t traditionally been an adjective people use to describe me...). But seriously, for her as a 9th grader to already see how faith sets us apart from “the world,” and how that actually makes a difference in the way we live, as well as the fact that I must have been doing something right to actually be living that life... Wow. Words won’t do it justice here, but that is by far one of my fondest memories of my entire life.


So I want to find her, I want to find out what’s happened in these last seven years.

• She’s not on Facebook, or, if she is, her profile is completely hidden from searches (some people do that, weird, but true), and she does not show up in queries for North High School class of 2004


• She’s not on Classmates.com (not too surprising, few people our age are)


• Google searches for her name return relatively little, just two publications of North’s Polaris newspaper, on which Dorothy was apparently a page editor during her senior year


• The North Alumni association person does not have any contact information, though she was able to confirm for me that Dorothy did graduate in 2004


• Minneapolis Public Schools is unable to release any information from past students’ records


• I have already tried asking our mutual friend Nate (from North, also ’04), but he did not have any contact info, either


• The yearbook from my freshman year only has teacher signatures, no students, so despite my hopes before unearthing it, no magic phone number there either


• I’m reasonably certain the Dorothy Martineau listed on this page is her (the age would be correct), but that doesn’t really help much


• There’s a non-profit foundation’s tax-return document from 2004 on Google that I’m not going to link, but it references a scholarship Dorothy received, must have been upon graduating, it wasn’t super clear

That’s it. If you reading this know anything I don’t, please let me know! I’m one of the easiest people to find electronically that I know: message me on Facebook, send me an email, or just post a comment here.

ADDENDUM:
In further researching the tax return mentioned above, it is indeed talking about scholarships granted to seniors from North High who will be attending a two- or four-year college within Minnesota or a state with whom we have reciprocity (Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and one or two colleges in Iowa). So, presumably, Dorothy did indeed go to college in one of these four states.

The Perfect Bathroom

A few weeks ago I started thinking, “if I ever own a public building and have the opportunity, what would my perfect public bathroom look like?”

- Motion sensor lighting to save electricity
- Stalls with full floor to ceiling height walls with grated doors for privacy
- Manual flush toilet (I hate those automatic ones that flush before you’re done)
- Manual, single handle faucets with automatic soap dispensers next to each of them
- Automatic hand dryers, and also automatic paper towel dispensers, but not the kind that you have to wave your hand in front of them hoping they might choose to have mercy, rather the kind that automatically dispenses a new towel whenever the previous towel is torn off
- A trash can right next to the [preferably outwardly opening] door

Most of these are sanitary more than cosmetic preferences. For example, I always use my last paper towel to open the door when I’m exiting the restroom, because there are a lot of idiots who don’t wash their hands, and I don’t want to touch that handle. This means a trash can next to the door is a necessity. An outwardly opening door helps solve this germ problem even more, because you don’t have to actually touch it, just lean against it or shove it open with your foot.

Random? Such is life.

Praise You in this Storm

Twice last Sunday Casting Crowns’ ‘Praise You In This Storm’ played on the radio while I was in the car (once on the way to church, once on the way home). Coincidentally (or not?), the sermon that day was about praising God no matter what our life circumstances. After having had a weekend where I was completely worn out, drained physically and emotionally. I think God might have been trying to tell me something.

Choices

When is a job “just a job?” When does working for an organization mean that you may be, intentionally or not, supporting ideals with which you don’t personally agree?

One of my friends called me out on this yesterday:

"Hey Jeremy, ... I came across the site for the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, which credits you for the website design.  I was just kind of surprised to see your name there, because I have heard of this group and they are...well...kind of anti-gay.  Just wondering what was up there."

A few years ago, after completing a new site design for Minnehaha, I was approached by a coworker asking if I’d help create a new website for Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC). As a college student in need of money and resumé-building website experience, this seemed like a great opportunity.

As I posted news articles for LCMC, though, I was bothered, as my friend noted, at just how anti-homosexual some of the writings were. At the time, I decided this would simply need to fall into the category of being “just another job.” After all, I’d never attended a church service there, and had no connection other than maintaining their website. Regardless of my disagreement with the published material, LCMC was still 100% within their First Amendment rights to say what they said.

This concern came to my mind again this summer after posting another such article, and I strongly considered whether I should drop support for the site. Life got busy, and rather than taking time to ponder, I chose not to choose, maintained my status quo, and ignored the problem.

Several weeks ago, LCMC approached me asking if I would be willing to create a website for an individual congregation. I’m incredibly busy right now, and the very last thing I need in my life is “one more thing to do.” That said, as an immediate post-college graduate whose student loans are about to come due, the potential supplemental income was enough to make me consider, and eventually offer a hesitant “yes.” However, I felt uneasy, partly because, well, it’s “one more thing to do,” but also because of my concerns about supporting an organization that, while not their main objective, spreads something I consider to be much less than the love that Christianity is supposed to be about.

After my friend’s message yesterday, I realized that, unfortunately, I can’t distance myself and say “it’s just a job” - the choices I make have very real ramifications, and the groups I associate myself with can bear heavily on how others see my character. LCMC is not an organization that I can continue to support.

I’ve never been to an LCMC church, I only know my one or two contacts from doing the web work. They aren’t bad people, they’re no “better” nor “worse” sinners than the rest of us. But I do not believe following Christ ought to include an attitude of hostility and discrimination against our brothers and sisters in Christ who just happen to be homosexual, particularly since two of my closest friends are.

Executing Javascripts within Content Loaded via Ajax.Updater

I spent an on-and-off 5 hours today searching for what ended up being a very simple solution. Hopefully this might save someone else the trouble if you stumble upon it.

The Goal: I needed certain pieces of text from a dynamically loaded section of a webpage to turn into editable form elements when clicked.

The Problem: After a little searching, I eventually found this could be done with a call to Scriptaculous’s Ajax.InPlaceEditor. However, when dynamically loading part of the page via a call to Prototype’s Ajax.Updater, the javascript for the InPlaceEditor didn’t execute. It wasn’t just a syntax error, a simple alert() didn’t work either.

The Solution: Literally hours later, after many searches and many experiments (through which I learned the InPlaceEditor worked fine when placed on the original page, just not when put into the dynamically loaded portion), I discovered the answer was unbelievably simple. If I had simply RTFM’d, I would have seen in Prototype’s documentation (http://prototypejs.org/api/ajax/updater) that Ajax.Updater has an option called evalScripts, which defaults to false. Passing that parameter as true made everything work perfectly.


<div class="row" id="someID" onclick="new Ajax.Updater('someID', 'callbackpage.php', {
method: 'post',
evalScripts: true
});”>Content</div>

Harsh Climate

I found this little diddy on CNN quite amusing:

Within the concrete of the new bridge are embedded 323 sensors that will generate a record of how it handles the stresses and strains of traffic and Minnesota's harsh climate.

Having grown up in it, I never realized someone from out of state might consider Minnesota’s climate “harsh.”

(http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/18/minneapolis.bridge.ap/)

Thoughts on Naming Children

I have a friend named Kayla. She has two siblings: a sister Kasey and a brother Kyle. Notice a theme? I do.

And for no apparent reason this got me thinking recently about how I want to name my children some day. What I’ve determined is that I must marry someone whose name starts with either a J, K, or possibly an I (but I can’t for the life of me think of anyone I’ve met whose name starts with the letter I).

Why?

Because, if I marry J, then all of our children could be named with J’s...

Or, if I marry K, then our children could be named progressively with L, M, N... (I hope there’s not more than three...) The same applies to “I”, but in reverse (H, G, F...)

Ridiculous? You bet! I’m of course not going to limit myself to relationships with people whose names start with I, J, and K, but who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone with my same sense of humor who likes this schema for child-naming... I’ll keep dreaming.

Sudoing in PHP to Reset Folder Permissions

At work today I engaged our academic file server (running Mac OS X.5.4) in an on-and-off all-day battle about folder permissions. The problems:

1. One of our teachers kept getting locked out of his folders on the server when he modified or moved them from his PC client. Bummer. I needed an EASY way for him to reset his permissions himself, meaning:


2. I needed to create a web-accessible script (in PHP) to make a UNIX call to reset his permissions on-demand (ie, whenever he visited the page, his permissions would be reset)

Here’s how I eventually won:

I created a file in the server’s web host root (for this particular server, just the default /Library/WebServer/Documents/) called teachername.php (where “teachername” is the teacher’s name... duh). Even though our website is hosted on a separate server, the server in question also has web services enabled, which will allow the teacher to simply visit
servername.domainname.net/teachername.php and the server will run the script.

Creating that script wasn’t as easy as I expected, though. After hours researching and trying to get PHP’s system() function to work, I decided to try exec() instead. The file contents look something like this:


<?php
$output = array();
$return = -5; // Some erroneous value
exec("sudo /bin/chmod -R 770 /Volumes/Share\ Point/teacherusername/",$output,$return);
echo "chmod output: ";
print_r($output);
echo '<br /><br />';
echo "sudo/chmod return value: " . $return . "<br /><br />";
echo "<strong>Permissions reset complete.</strong>";
?>


There's really only one line that's important, the rest is all debugging info:

exec("sudo /bin/chmod -R 770 /Volumes/Share\ Point/teacherusername/",$output,$return);

This tells PHP to spawn a new child process to execute the sudo command. I had to add apache’s _www user to the sudoers file on the server (in Terminal, use the command "sudo visudo", then edit using vi commands):

_www    ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/chmod,/usr/bin/whoami

IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE: the _www user ONLY has permissions to sudo the commands chmod and whoami (and do so without a password), it ISN'T allowed to sudo anything else. For more information about modifying the sudoers file, refer to http://linsec.ca/Using_Sudo_to_Limit_Access, as well as the limited documentation available in the file itself. (you can try it on your own Mac, just open terminal and type "sudo visudo").


The rest is basic POSIX permissions: change mode (chmod) -Recursively to -rwxrwx--- (770) on the teacher’s folder. The other PHP variables give the exec command a place to deposit both the return value from sudo (a 0 means successful execution), as well as any output that was generated by chmod (should be none).


Yes, I had fun with this puzzle. Hopefully someone else might stumble on this and find it useful, too...