With Isabelle sitting on a bucket below his stand, Jay shot this nine-point buck about an hour and a half ago. The buck was not in the right place for Isabelle to take the shot.
I saw lots of gray and red squirrels, a screeching hawk and heard a Very Large Owl.
Isabelle wanted this shot. The deer was difficult to get in the truck with three of us working at it. Jay thinks it weighs about 180 pounds gutted.
No family likes it when their soldier son, husband, brother, nephew goes TDY (tour of duty). The separation is oh-so-noticeable. My brother was an adventurous sort, though. He loved to travel, and travel he surely did. This final tour, the extended one, I imagine he will be doing what he did, what he loved to do, his whole professional career: going on ahead, preparing the way for the safe, secure embarkation and arrival of others.
The sharp new tang of this, his last departure, tends to encroach and overwhelm the reality of the necessity to keep on keeping on. I need to remind myself of my own duty here. He surely would remind me, in tones and words not subtle or especially kind.
As I age and friends and family leave me behind, 1 Corinthians 15 has become for me much more vivid, real, and affirming.
John Sackett III is much more able now to perform his duty than ever he was here. The perishable has become imperishable; the mortal, immortal.
No, not the dance; I am referring to the 19 minute hunt Jay took less than an hour ago which resulted in him bringing home another 10+ pound hen turkey and busting up the rest of the flock for the morning’s hunt.
The evidence:
As you see, Hawthorne was quite taken with her.
Here is the goose girl’s goose:
And another:
It is not just her. It is familial.
Ellie emailed me today with news that Celia is dead.
About 15 years ago Jay was wrongly accused of a misdeed at his former job. He was charged with a felony. We spent a year’s plus adoption savings retaining the best lawyer in town–and the charges were dropped. But the lawyer kept the fee, and eventually Jay was pushed out of the job in an academic atmosphere that was smarmy at best.
He was without work for several months. He had a specific list of items “the perfect job” would have, which was the subject of much prayer. Not that he would have refused a job not meeting those criteria, you understand.
The summer came. The Black Sheep Handspinner’s Guild, of which I have been a member for over two decades now, were having a picnic down at Stewart Park, where there used to be a merry-go-round. It was owned by Black Sheep members. We had Isaac then and everyone with children (and some without) liked to ride the horses. Over and over and over.
Anyway, as we were laying out the picnic, Celia and I were talking and she asked if I knew anyone who needed a job. Well, yes, I did. Jay needed one. She spoke to him then and there, hiring him part time essentially on the spot. It soon turned into a full time position. And guess what? It is the job he still has. It is the job he still loves. It is the job that still meets each and every one of the items on Jay’s list of “the perfect job”.
All thanks to Celia.
