A former boss always told me I was great at writing eulogies. Perhaps it is because I have had so many chances. At times, it has seemed as if my wife and I have been to more wakes than dates. The deaths often come in groups. Many people say they come in threes, but it seems like for me the groups are often larger.

A few weeks ago, the former head of human resources at CHC passed away. Here is Mark Masselli’s post about David Landsberg. I went to the wake and hoped, maybe this time, it wouldn’t be the beginning of a new group of deaths. However, I knew better. I knew of others in hospice.

Things remained relatively quiet until Friday of last weekend. The grandfather a young girl at church passed away. One of her friends told me that her friend was said about her grandfather dying. The following day, the grandmother of my two oldest daughters passed away.

I was never very close to my first wife’s mother. She was very strong willed, as am I, and often those wills clashed. She came from a very different world than I did, the upper middle class Midwest. She did a lot in her community and was loved by many. Her obituary describes many of her accomplishments. In many ways, it seems, hers was the life of Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt, a novel he published the year after her birth, hers was the world that predated Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”.

Then, on Sunday morning, George Wildman passed away. George was the father of a friend from church. He was an artist who drew Popeye and the hidden pictures I looked for as kid in Highlights magazine. George served in the Navy. He was an Elk and a Mason and played the saxophone. He also symbolized mid twentieth century America.

On Wednesday, I learned that Marcia Moody had died. I first met Marcia in 2004 during Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. John Nichols summed up Marcia’s politics this way:

While she delighted in discourse and befriended Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Greens, Marcia was a passionate progressive. And she had a sense of right and wrong that made her an ardent foe of big-money in politics, lobbyist abuses, and influence peddling.

She embodied the ideal of American politics, something those longing for mid twentieth century America think might have been the case looking back through rosy colored glasses at earlier times.

Thursday. I got to a midday Eucharist which is attended mostly by the Episcopal Church Women stalwarts who serve on the altar guild and similar ministries. I was planning on going to the wake for George in the evening so I vacillated about whether to go to the midday service. I ended up going, and when I got there, I was informed that Joan had died unexpectedly. Joan was one of the regulars at the midday service. She was always there helping, preparing food for events making sure the linens for the altar were clean. Mostly, we sat around and talked about the great things she had done for the church.

It has been a few days since I learned of the death of all these stalwarts of the mid twentieth century. The other crises in my life also seem to be ebbing, so I’m hoping for a little quiet time of reflection before life’s next set of surprises come.