Two kinds of celebrations of life packed into one day

Kathleen Anderson

I had a very eye-opening day last week.

The day began with a joint birthday party for my five-year-old great grand-daughter, Prairie, and her two-year-old brother Willow. The party was held at the Friendly Grove Skate Park. The grandchildren’s birthdays are a week apart, so this seemed like the easiest way to celebrate both.

Both kids attend the Campus Childrens Center operated by The Evergreen State College. Prairie just finished her last year before kindergarten in the Bear Room and Willow is in the Bunny Room.

Both kids invited their respective daycare friends to their party. Prairie and her friends spent most of their time in the skateboard arena on their skateboards, bikes, and scooters. Colorful helmets were seen flying up and down the slopes all morning. These kids are fearless.

Willow and his Bunny Room pals split their time on toddler legs, with arms outstretched and waving, chasing bubbles, courtesy of the non-stop bubble machine, and on the slide and swings.

Refreshments included their choice of oatmeal or yogurt, sprinkles and chocolate chips, juices, and cupcakes. Parents were everywhere you looked with a few grandparents thrown in for good measure.

The party lasted for two hours, after which the kids (and grandparents) all returned home for a nap.

In contrast, the afternoon

The afternoon brought a different kind of celebration – a memorial service for the life of Air Force Lt. Col. Matthew Geiger. I never met Matthew, but his mother, Bobbie Schoss, is a friend of mine and I wanted to be there for her, on this hardest of all days a parent ever has to endure.

There were many speakers that day and messages from those who could not attend. As the celebration of Matt’s life went on a very clear picture of the man, his priorities in life and his wonderful sense of humor, became clear to me.

Matt met and married his high school sweetheart, Amber, in Sequim, WA. and together they had two daughters, Emma and Chole.

During his twenty-four-year career in the Air Force, he was deployed several times, including the Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom operations.

He returned to live, work and fly as a reservist in Washington in 1983, where his final assignment was Chief of Standardization and Evaluations for the 446 Operations Group.

But time after time, speaker after speaker defined him as a family-first man.

According to all who knew him, he also had a great sense of humor and loved playing practical jokes.

One such episode involved a fellow serviceman who had trouble hanging onto his keys. Apparently, he left them all over the place, until he began to notice when it was time to go home, his car had often been moved from his original parking space.

Sometimes it had been moved to another spot and sometimes to another lot altogether, until the day he found it on a grassy knoll with a for sale sign on the windshield. That was the day he decided it was time to take charge of his keys.

There were tears, of course, but also a great deal of laughter as friends and family members recounted stories and shared memories.

At the end of the formal celebration, three of his personal friends flew overhead in a final salute.

I have not gone through this type of loss as a parent, but I have as a grandparent, when my grandson was killed in an ambush in Afghanistan, and I can say from first-hand knowledge – no one can adequately describe the pain the loss of a child or grandchild brings. So, I will not even try.

I am just glad I was there to experience the joyful playfulness of the youngsters and to see and hear and be a tiny part of the celebration of Matt’s life.

All in all, it was a very thought-provoking day - the beginning and the end of life’s circle.

Kathleen Anderson writes this column each week from her home in Olympia.  Contact her at  kathleen@theJOLTnews.com or post your comment below.