Long Distance Funeral

Apparently I once conducted a funeral without even being present.

I had taken a week's trip to Upstate New York to visit family. When I returned and entered Short Creek United Methodist Church on Sunday morning, the lay leader greeted me, smiled and said, "I hear you preached a really good funeral this week."  

"Really?" I replied, "And just where was that?"  

It was at Duff UM Church, the other church on the two-point charge. The deceased was an elderly woman, a member of Duff in her youth, but who had been living for years in Indiana. The family had brought her back to be buried in Duff Cemetery. 

So how did I get to conduct the service while being nine-hundred miles away?

When doing the write-up for the local weekly paper, the reporter realized the pastor conducting the service was not listed. So he called a member of the church, but one who had not attended the funeral. All she could provide him with was my name as church pastor. 

After church I picked up a copy of the paper and there it was:  "Service conducted by Pastor Gary Drum."  

To this day I have no idea who did the service (and probably have no way of finding out). But somewhere I still have the newspaper clipping attesting to my, um, versatility. 

Clowns, mimes, robes, and artifice

I don't like clowns. Never have.

I don't like mimes. Never have.

I don't like magicians. Never have.

I don't like tuxedos. Never have.

I don't like wearing robes, either in church or in academic processions. Never have.

What I really don't like is artifice. 

When I was a young boy, yes, I did dress up for Halloween.

In my many experiences in theatre, I've worn costumes.

But that wasn't artifice. I wasn't dressed up to say, "Hey, look at me, I'm wearing a costume." I wore the costume for a purpose. On stage, the purpose was to tell a story, so what I wore wasn't a costume; it was what my character would naturally wear. The same with my Halloween costumes, which my mother and I made (never bought those pre-packaged store costumes).  The purpose was to become the character. I wasn't saying, "Hey, I'm dressed up as Captain Hook" (my all-time favorite, complete with a hook that would probably attract the attention today of Child and Family Services), but "I am Captain Hook!" 

In the Middle Ages, academics wore robes to keep warm in drafty classrooms. To wear an academic robe today is artifice.  The same for clerical robes.  To wear one today is, at least for me, artifice.

Now I know some dear clergy friends who feel very differently, and that's fine. They find wearing such things to be natural for when they are in the pulpit; I doubt they wear the robe when, say, mowing the lawn. 

The same with men's formal wear. Tuxedos were first worn in the late 19th century by dandies, by people wanting to stand out from the crowd. Their first appearance created a lot of controversy. 

Today a tux is basically a uniform, a way to blend in, rather than stand out. 

Uniforms are fine for staff at a restaurant or a retail store. It helps me know who to ask for service. But to wear a uniform otherwise is to blend in, not stand out. 

So what about magicians and mimes? We know there is no real magic done by magicians. It is all pretense. Same with mimes. And clowns. And the makeup is a real put-off. They aren't trying to be someone. 

I like reality. 

A little background about my situation

Kidney failure officially came in late January, but it started decades ago.

I have congenital hydronephrosis. That means I was born with kidneys that were only half tissue and half fluid right from the start. Not a problem for years, because one needs only one kidney - a fully functioning kidney - to live normally.

The problem was, that's really all I started with - two halves making a whole.

I didn't discover this, however, until I was 28, when it showed up on X-rays.
Again, that didn't present a problem at the time, but it did seven years later.

Horrible lower back pain led to the discovery of a massive stone - the size of a child's fist - that had to be surgically removed. I recovered and all seemed fine until ten more years passed and another surgery. From then on I was regularly monitored, but kidney function remained just fine, or at least nothing to really worry about.

Until this past year. Serum creatinine, which measures how well the kidneys clear wastes from the blood, continue to climb, but still within functional levels.

Then, in January, it his 9. Normal creatinine is about .5 and most folks who go suddenly to 9 are suddenly dead. That I was still active and vertical sort of confused my personal doctor and he sent me to a nephrologist.

And that led me to this, sitting four times a day next to an IV pole, transferring dialysis fluid from and into the peritoneal cavity.

Next Monday I begin training to use a machine called a cycler, which I'll connect to at night and it works while I'll sleep, leaving my days free away from an IV pole.

Yes, it's quite expensive. But we are all paying for it. End stage kidney failure dialysis is covered under Medicare Part B and would be if I were younger and not yet on Medicare, but didn't have insurance coverage. (My Medicare supplement I pay for covers all the co-pays and deductibles.) So you can imagine I'm not open to any debates about universal health care.




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End stage

The Spring semester did not begin well.

Caught a version of the flu not covered by this year's vaccine.

Was declared end stage in kidney failure

Had surgery on Valentine's Day. Missed a week of classes.

My mother passed away in March. Missed another week of classes.

Had a week of dialysis training in April.  Missed another week of classes.

Spent the final three weeks of the semester (a) doing at-home peritoneal dialysis four times a day and (b) having classes four nights a week to make up the lost time from surgery, a funeral, and training.

On the brighter side, Anthony and I explored Washington D.C. while attending the annual national conference of the Popular Culture Association.  Had I known what my blood work the following week would indicate, I might not have taken the trip, since I was apparently clinically dead.  

I've decided to use Blogger to cover my situation in more detail.

Don't worry. I'll write about other things.  Like going to see One Direction next month in Nashville. I bought the tickets last April.  That's right, April 2012. And, no, I'm not selling them. 

Later in the Summer, it's back to Nashville for Bruno Mars. I'll document these trips too.

Stay tuned.