We went to such a wonderful memorial service.
It was for "the psychiatrist" (whom readers of this blog will remember), who died September 30.
I don't know what the capacity of the church is, or how many chairs they put in the lobby for those who could not get into the church, but it was overflowing.
It was a lovely service, with memories and music. It would take too long to describe why Cap was so special, but four psychiatrists spoke of his profession, members of the family spoke of his relationship with the family, and people spoke of his contributions to the community. He held several high ranking positions in the psychiatric community, traveled with his family to national parks, the Galapagos, to see the gorillas in Uganda, and many other places. He was doctor at the 1960 Squaw valley Olympics and a member of the Doctors Ski Patrol at Sugar Bowl for fifty years. He swam with a team across Lake Tahoe and ran eight marathons, including the Boston Marathon.
He was a musician and played the banjo with the Putah Creek Crawdads, was treasurer of the Yolo County Credit Union, raised cairn terriers, and that's just an inkling. Since 3 or the Crawdads have died, they couldn't play at the memorial, but they did play a piece from their CD.
Following the formal part of the program, people were invited to speak and one woman talked about how she had been asked to do a favor for a friend, and she transcribed a tape for Cap...that led to her transcribing for him for 18 years. She happened to be sitting behind us and when she came back to her seat, I called her over and told her I had done his transcription for thirty years.
The whole thing was just wonderful. If I could have half the nice things about me that were said about Cap, I would be amazed. "His was the definition of a life well-lived," his obituary says.
I think that I saw everybody in Davis that I think of as a "friend."
Before we went to the memorial, Ned harvested the rest of the apples on the tree that he could reach. We put them in two bags and after the memorial, we dropped them off at STEAC (Short Term Emergency Aid Committee) so they could be distributed to people who get meals given to them. I saved enough apples that I could make one more apple pie and we had that for dessert.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
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