There was a mini-IHHS Class of ’91 reunion at the funeral of Kyle Raaf today.
Our classmate, Erin, gave a moving eulogy for someone she described as “not just my big brother but my hero” and her stories of how Kyle had such a positive impact on so many people during his too-short 46 years was reflected in the hundreds who filled the Memorial Hall on a Wednesday afternoon to celebrate his life.
It was obviously a sad day but also a joyful one with lots of laughter as a group of friends who don’t see each other nearly enough reconnected, retold old stories, and were reminded of the importance of using whatever talents we’re given to make the world a better place for those around us.
Yesterday was the first day of fall but much of Saskatchewan had already received a heavy snowfall and Regina got a sleety-snowy rain that didn’t stick around but definitely felt more like winter than fall.
There were other signs that it felt more like winter than fall as well. When I turned on the “Flow” random music mix in my car right after taking the above picture, the first song it played was “The FIrst Noel” by Crash Test Dummies.
I have no idea how Deezer’s “Flow” algorithm works but suspect that, in part, it bases its playlists on what you’ve listened to a lot recently. So coming out of summer, I’ve been hearing a lot of Americana, bro-country, and campfire-type music. And usually, after December each year, it takes a few weeks to “cleanse the palate” and clear out the Christmas songs that have dominated my listening for the past month. So again, short of Deezer somehow incorporating a check of my local weather forecast, I have no idea how a Christmas song popped up out of the blue like that!
Then, when we got home, Sasha and I got it into our heads that if it was snowing, that was a good justification for making our Christmas lists. Hers was longer…
(Here’s the weirdest thing I might ever have been proud of. My friend whose father passed got lots of generic “Thoughts and prayers/You’re in my thoughts/My condolences”-type messages on his FB post about his father’s passing. But I wanted to put a bit more into it so wrote about how much I remembered his dad from Katepwa Lake, hockey tournaments and how his dad was a big presence in so many of our group of friends’ lives. I noticed my friend went through and hit “Like” on every comment people had left but mine was one of the only ones – possibly the only one – that he put a “Love” symbol beside. Again, not why I did it but it was nice to see the extra effort I put into personalizing my condolence message was appreciated.)
Anyhow, I went to SaskObits, not expecting to see the obituary of the classmate who died is up yet (and it’s not.) But I did see one for somebody I’m pretty sure was the installer when I worked as a door-to-door salesman for a cable TV company the summer after I graduated from Grade 12 before I went to University (and that initial program in six larger towns around Saskatchewan was so successful, the company continued to employee me and various others in some of their other towns around Saskatchewan for the next few summers giving me reliable, good-paying, enjoyable summer work while I completed my undergrad degree.)
Garry was a great guy who gave me a lot of my basic training about the cable TV business. I was 17 when I worked with him and he seemed so much older to have a job and a house and all kinds of other adult “stuff”. But turns out he was only five years older than me and that makes it even sadder to see his obit and realise he’s yet another person taken in the prime of their life.
It’s weird how much we take having two working hands for granted.
Since breaking my wrist at the end of July, it’s been a series of minor milestones – from my first appointment with my family doctor a few days after the surgery where he changed my dressing on through things like being told I could take my splint off for short periods of time to wash my arm to slowly regaining movement in my hand (again, something as simple as touching your thumb to your various fingers normally doesn’t seem like that big of deal until you can no longer do it. And forget about snapping your fingers or playing a barre chord on a guitar!)
Anyhow, I still have a ways to go (I’d estimate I’m at about 75% of where I was before my injury) but I had a good follow-up appointment with my surgeon the other week and he said he expects that I’ll get back to ~95% of prior use (which is good because Dr. Google kept telling me I’d be lucky to get to 75-80% and there was also a chance my broken scaphoid might die due to poor blood supply in that area!)
It’s also funny how you don’t normally go around comparing notes with people about how much metal they have in their bodies but since my injury (especially when I was wearing my splint which I’m only doing minimally now), many random people have told me all kinds of horror stories of their own, often much worse, accidents.
One person said she broke her leg when a group hug “fell over” and she ended up on the bottom of the pile.
One person said his wife broke both wrists in a bike fall and that “was a test of our marriage vows for sure. I told her, if you don’t want to see what I’m doing to help you in the bathroom, you’ll have to close your eyes I guess!”
One person fell of a horse.
One person fell off a 17′ high scaffold.
One person broke multiple bones in a car accident.
One person got stomped on by an opposing player’s cleats in a soccer game.
One person had their thumb cut off in a woodworking accident and had to get wires and pins put in to hold everything together.
One person said that while being x-rayed for a new wrist injury, the doc said “At least this didn’t affect your earlier break which is still holding strong.” and the person realised they’d probably had some minor hairline break since childhood they never knew they had until that moment.
I guess that’s my final thought – how lucky we are to live in the age that we do where you can break a bone (or bones), go to a hospital, have an anesthesiologist put you under (and hopefully revive you!), have a surgeon insert a piece of metal into you (not much different than how you might re-affix a loose fence board in your backyard) then give you pain meds, antibiotics for any complications and prognosis for a (near) full recovery with (again, hopefully) minimal complications.
Not that long ago, if say my grandfather fell off a horse or my grandmother fell on some ice or whatever, a more likely course of action would be to wrap the injured limb up, ice it a bit and hope that it mostly healed on its own without too much loss of use.
I can’t wait to see what medicine leads to next (though I’d prefer not to be the patient in future either if I can help it!)
