Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Andy Pratt

 On August 26, 2018 Andrew John Pratt died at 57 years old. It was Sunday morning and I got a call at 8:40 from Debbie asking me to meet Lori, Peg and Todd at Sparrow Hospital as Andy had died and they were not going to tell Peg until then. He had fallen down his basement stairs at 6:00 that morning and had been taken to Sparrow. I arrived 15 minutes before them and asked about if they had arrived but there was no record at the information desk about him and Emergency told me I'd have to wait for the family to arrive. I saw them enter the Emergency desk and as I looked walking up there they were telling Lori they would have to wait for the head nurse in charge to come down. When they turned to wait for her, Peg saw me and knew something had happened and Lori told her Andy had died. She screamed "not my Andy", and broke down. Since Andy was in the morgue they could not let us see him so we had wait in the Chapel for a minister to talk to us and the head nurse went down with us and stayed giving Lori the information she needed. At 11:00 Fr. Gary from St. Thomas came and prayed with us and comforted Peg. His funeral was Thursday at Palmer Bush at 1:00. Jane picked Jim and Betty and I worked until 11:30 and picked up Lukas and Simon. Jon came with the boys and as we pulled up to the light at Cedar and Mt. Hope they were right in front of us. The dinner was at IHM and we stayed until 4:00 when Jon left. Only Peg talked at Andy's service by herself as Dave and his son Nate remained silent.  I briefly talked to Dave at the dinner and introduced myself to Nate. Mr. Hager took a principal's job at Cavanaugh School so his last day was September 7th making me in charge of his class until they hire a replacement. Mary Kay Riley and I are keeping up so far but we're ready for more help and someone else to be in charge! Jane and I celebrated 43 years of marriage and had our pictures taken for the St. Gerard Directory. Jane has taken Gramma to Cristo-Rey 2 times for mass and the seniors dinner on Wednesdays which has kept her busy and giving her the chance to spend quality time with her. Lukas and I went to early morning appointments yesterday out on Pinetree Rd at the same building and it turned out the same waiting room. I finished an hour earlier even though my appointment was an hour later but I had to get to work so he took the bus home. My reason was a EMG for my right wrist which my have carpel tunnel so I was shocked and needled for about an hour. Andy was a big listener of WMMQ so I e-mailed them about his death and they knew him well and expressed their consolations which I passed on to the family. Irony: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning.(Socratic irony)