'Twas in another lifetime

A crashing, rolling, frightening Thunderstorm happened the night of the Fourth of July the year I was 10 or 11 years old. A fireworks display at the Hudson Plaza in Ohio -- you would, like, sit in your car in this big shopping mall parking lot & watch the fireworks.

(I suppose everyone would have sat on their cars, or on the grass if it hadn't been storming.)

Or -- how was it? Did the storm come later, as the fireworks ended & everyone headed for home? Or did those northeastern Ohio patriots set off big professional-size fireworks right during a Thunderstorm? Not sure...

But for some reason I could never forget the excitement / danger of the evening: going to see fireworks! - excitement!
A ferocious thunder-and-lightning Rainstorm! - danger!

It was an intense, stormy, loud, dark, lightning-flashed, sloshy slashy wet drive home.

And the next day I woke up to find out that the largest tree in the backyard had been hit by lightning and was now horizontal instead of vertical. You could actually do more things with the tree in that position. A while later it got moved out of there, but temporarily the tree was more fun than when it was upright -- you could climb it better, & the branches with their outer tips touching the ground, made a space that was clubhouse-like. Or maybe a -- "fort."

Having the tree down seemed exciting and new, and strange -- and fun.
How unexpected!
How fascinating!
Let's go!

And on that same summer morning I learned that a young woman from our church was killed the night before in the storm. She and her boyfriend were driving and there was a tree down across the road and they didn't see it until too late and crashed into it. They were both killed.

I didn't know her personally; only knew her face from church, and her name, Karen (something) was familiar, at the time.
She had a mother and a grandmother who came to church also. There didn't seem to be any man -- any father -- around, just mother and grandmother, and Karen. She had dark brunette hair and pale, light skin. (When a person who sells make-up / skin-care "does your colors" they call that type a "winter" ...)

The death was shocking news. Someone else's tragedy, but nearby. Caused by the same thunderstorm we had driven home in.

And I remember my father, who was the minister, returning home, that day or maybe another day, from visiting Karen's mother and grandmother -- the standard (I imagine) consoling, being there for the people, pray if they want it...
and when he got home he was unloading to my mother -- he was concerned / aggravated because he had the impression that the mother and grandmother -- this unprotected family of women -- were leaning toward buying (selecting?) funeral (what's the word, "accessories"? "products"?) that were more expensive than what they could sensibly afford.

Like -- the most expensive coffin, or whatever.
A person would be sort of -- expressing their grief, and acting out their shock, by -- spending a lot, by Getting The Best -- "Nothing's too good for Karen!" ...

I think he felt like the funeral person -- funeral director? undertaker? -- was -- either steering, guiding, these bereaved & shocked women toward spending more money than they could really afford, for profit's sake, OR -- at any rate, not steering them -- failing to guide them toward a sensible, realistic decision.
Fine line, maybe.

Maybe it's good for people to spend a lot and let part of the Grief Pressure out, that way.
But I think my father felt like, "Sure, now you're bereaved and shocked; by this time next week you're gonna be bereaved & shocked & broke." He didn't want to see that, and yet there was probably nothing he could properly say.
(Can hardly come out with, "Hey ladies! This dude be rippin' you off...!")

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The sun was very bright, the morning after that storm.

-30-