Rarely a good thing

Actually, I can't think of any circumstances under which I would be happy to find the police pounding on my door at 4:30 AM. So when that happened this morning, the only good thing I could think of was that it wasn't some local branch of the Klu Klux Klan ready to violently object to my latest Biblically-based diatribe against racism, delivered Sunday night. I suppose another positive was that I knew the officer doing the knocking; he's a good man, and a son of one of our deacons.

As it turned out, to my utter surprise, the wife of one of our other deacons had passed away during the night. The poor man awoke to get ready for work about 4 AM, and when he checked on his wife, found her dead. He had checked on her only a few hours before, and she had said she was fine. Although her health had been poor for quite a while, she had made seemingly great strides of improvement -- this was a complete surprise for all of us. The deacon couldn't remember my phone number (and we got it too recently to be in the phone book), but we only lived a few blocks away -- so the police officers who responded to the emergency call agreed to come and get me.

I spent much of the morning with this deacon and his family; though they are comforted by her faith and by their own (to the differing degrees they possess it), they are all still in shock. Then it was off to do the graveside service of the man who passed away Saturday. I'll have to post later about the funeral fix that left me in.