October 2001 Updates on
Mary Beth's
Journey
Links to other pages: Home / Pictures / Mary Beth's Obituary September - 01 / November - 01
When Sheila and I flew into Newark, NJ this afternoon, I was overcome with a surreal feeling. I looked out and saw Manhattan with an unfamiliar skyline. The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were present but the anchors of downtown were not to be seen. Despite their absence, the feeling of pride and patriotism could not be more evident. From flags hanging proudly over the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel to the memorials in front of every firehouse, the feeling is here. As we were making our way to midtown, we spotted the firefighters memorial donated by the state of Missouri. It too was enshrined with posters and flowers. It is truly a great time to be in the city that never sleeps. By the way, if you are fearful of flying, be not afraid. Our trip could not have smoother.
God bless you, The true highlight of our day today was attending a funeral mass at Saint Patrick's Cathedral for a victim of September 11th. It had been a couple of years since I had been in this spectacular house of God and it was as beautiful as I had remembered. We lit candles for our special angels and for the victims and families affected by the tragedy surrounding this city and our nation's capital. The mass we attended was a funeral mass for a husband and father who was taken at the age of 37 three weeks ago today. We felt our attendance was a small token of support for all affected. As monsignor spoke, his homily had a great message. He talked about what the 'dash' represents between the two dates on one's tombstone and how that 'dash' has far more meaning than either date. It is what we accomplish while living the 'dash' that defines us as a person and defines our place in God's kingdom. None of us know when we will have the opportunity to meet those who have gone before us, so we all must strive to put as much meaning into our 'dash' as we possibly can on a daily basis.
God bless you, Yesterday was a day of celebrity as we met the Erin Brockovich and Marcus Allen. This morning we were entertained at breakfast at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park by an incredible gospel group. Some of their songs brought tears to many eyes, especially Sheila's and mine as they sang of the presence of angels in our lives. The weather couldn't be nicer with a sunny sky and an Indian Summer high of 80. A stroll through the park truly made us feel like we were not in the city, just as the developers had planned in the early 1800's. I am amazed as I reflect on the vision of this country's early developers and see the spirit that is still present today.
God bless you, We are definitely heading Mayor Giuliani's words and doing what we can to promote the economy of this incredible city. From the shops on 5th and Madison Avenues to the street vendors we have all been busy doing our part. The people of New York are attempting to get some semblance of normalcy in their lives and are very appreciative of our presence. Everywhere we go, the New Yorkers are smiling when they ask where we are from. Then they continue to thank us and ask us to share the fact with our friends that it is okay to visit.
God bless you, We had another wonderful weather day again today as we made our way downtown to pay our respects at Ground Zero. It is an overwhelming feeling when you walk toward downtown and smell and see the smoke coming from the towering pile of rubble and see rescue workers clearing the area. We saw the sight from about two blocks away. After spending some time paying our respects and praying, we walked back to midtown enjoying our day and getting plenty of exercise.
God bless you, The lights of the city were prevalent last night as we had a wonderful evening atop Rockefeller Center and the NBC Studios in the Rainbow Room. Today was more like an autumn day with wonderful weather in the 60's. After the Broadway show "The Lion King", we met for dinner at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. We ended our trip with our own special production and I was fortunate to open my theatrical career on Broadway. Trouble is, we closed the same evening. As we were practicing during the week for this performance, I was reminded of the productions Mary Beth, Barbie and Heidi historically performed with their cousins at family parties. MB was typically the narrator and giggled her way through. Fortunately many of these wonderful productions are indelibly saved on tape for years of enjoyment.
God bless you, The week in the Big Apple was a very cathartic one for all of us. From making food baskets for the rescue workers to reflecting on our own mortality, we all had special time with one another. There was a great feeling of pride when we left for home this morning and a euphoric feeling when we hugged Barbie, Heidi and Will upon arriving. Mr. Animal Lover (a.k.a. William) and I spent the majority of the afternoon cleaning the fish tank. It reminded me of my Uncle Ed's pond in rural south central Kansas with fish hidden by bright green moss. It look until this evening to get the new water adjusted. When Barbie and I transferred the fish into the fresh water, she asked me a simple question, "Where is the snail?" I looked at her and could not answer where William's snail was. Since it was in a five gallon bucket for a few hours, perhaps it is crawling around the breakfast room, kitchen, or dining room. So far, no sign of him. The mystery continues.
God bless you, Our thoughts and prayers turn to the families of David Neukum and Michael Means who were sent to our Lord today after being taken from this earth during their senior year at Priory High School in a tragic car accident on Friday. Each time sudden tragedy strikes a family, I can not imagine the pain they feel. I feel the pain of our own loss each day but none of us can feel another's pain. We can, however, pray for these two young men, their families and friends for strength in life and belief in God's will. May Mary Beth and the other angels and saints welcome David and Michael into eternal peace.
God bless you, The book "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" became a best seller a few years ago and is an easy read. The trouble some people have with this book is putting the practice into place in their lives. I have tried for years to use this philosophy, even before it became the trendy thing to do. For those who know me, I am certainly not a trend setter. The trend setter in this philosophy was Jesus himself as outlined in today's gospel according to Luke. He was welcomed into the home of a woman named Martha and her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his words. Martha was busy entertaining and asked Jesus if he was concerned that her sister was not helping. Jesus replied to her: "Martha,
Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things; one thing only
is required. Mary has chosen the better portion and she shall
not be deprived of it." - Don't sweat the small
stuff! God bless you, You may recall discussions regarding the health of our nephew and Godchild Clayton Ricken. He suffers from a heart defect named Persistent Junctional Reciprocating Tachacardia. Since his birth on December 17, 1999, Clayton has been on medication designed to regulate his heart rate. His heart rate has gone up, down and up again. The hope has been that with growth and medication, his condition would be cured. At this juncture it is clear to his specialists that the only cure is to undergo RF Catheter Ablation. The cure occurs when the bad part of the heart is located with a catheter and burned away using radio frequency energy. His parents, Ken and Linda are confident Clayton has one of the top surgeons in this field, Dr. Christopher Case at Cook Children's hospital in Fort Worth. Dr. Case and his colleague have performed this procedure on numerous children with success, including children in-vitro. Clayton is scheduled for this procedure on Monday, November 12. If all goes well he will be home as quickly as one or two days after the procedure. Please keep Clayton, Ken, Linda, and his little brother Jacob in your prayers as they face this impending event.
God bless you, For those of you who had not had the opportunity to keep up with our friend Erin Wilson at www.erinandrawilson.com, she is coming home from her final chemotherapy treatment before traveling to Seattle on October 27 for her bone marrow transplant on November 21, the day before Thanksgiving. Her donor is a 36 year old woman who has been a donor once before. We are very excited for Erin and her family and ask for your continued prayers for her and her family as they face the challenges of the coming weeks. Please check out her website and email her at eyesofblue125@hotmail.com to wish her well. God bless you, Gerry Well, it has been five days since Will's snail disappeared and still no sign of him. To end the work week, we were all scattered out this evening with Will and I hanging out together. I asked him what he wanted to do for dinner and he promptly stated that he wanted to eat ice cream for dinner. Being the very responsible parent I am, we ventured off to Ted Drewes for our favorite treats. He had his chocolate concrete and I had Sheila's favorite tart cherry and chocolate chip. It was one of best dinners we have had in some time. What the heck, you have to live a little. To quote Uncle Arthur Mower, "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space." God bless you, Gerry Barbie and I enjoyed the morning as we got soaked to the bone while cleaning up Sister Marie Charles Park in South St Louis city. This St Joe service project was attended by about 15 to 20 Angels and their fathers. We were happy to help out because for years, Sister Marie Charles cleaned this park by herself. Sister is a member of the Sisters of St Joseph of Carondolet and was at the park this morning when we arrived. She is in her 80's and is very active. She was all smiles when she saw this band of volunteers converge into the park named in her honor. Seeing her made the soaking clothes well worth the effort. God bless you, Gerry It is amazing to see how quickly children grow up. It was not long ago when Heidi was receiving her first holy communion at Our Lady of the Pillar and now she is preparing for her confirmation. She attended an all day confirmation retreat which led into the youth mass in which she was an usher and a gift presenter. Her maturity level is outstanding and I am certain has been assisted by the events in her life of the past two years. We had an intellectual conversation about the subject matter covered in the retreat and I know I could not have held this type of conversation when I was 12. When I was that age, I was too busy watching and listening to Boog Powell, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Jim Palmer beat the Big Red Machine of Bench, Rose, Perez and company in the Fall Classic. After a week, William gave up looking for his snail and we acquired two replacements today along with another fish with my commitment to be more careful when we change the water. God bless you, Gerry We were again reminded that Mary Beth's favorite color is purple today. As we ripped out one of the bathrooms upstairs for an overhaul, there it was - purple and white tile on the floors and the walls previously hidden with drywall and flooring. Speaking of MB, she also appeared on an elaborate poster designed by William. As Heidi was preparing a poster for Officer Bob's birthday, Will became jealous so Heidi offered him a poster board. He drew a park in which he was swinging, Barbie was flying a kite and Heidi was laying on her back dreaming. In Heidi's day-dreaming cloud, her sister Mary Beth was looking over her adorned as an angel. God bless you, Gerry
God bless you, Gerry Will received a set of hockey sticks and a plastic puck for his birthday yesterday and he and I have been playing hockey the past two evenings in the garage. As he was scoring on me, it reminded me of moving into the neighborhood over six years ago. Most evenings, there was a hockey game being played in the street in front of our house by Andy and Meg LaVigne and their friends. This soon became a trend for Mary Beth, Barbie, Nellie LaVigne and Gerilyn Goeddel. They would set up the "ice" in the street or in one of our driveways and beat up on one another. They loved every minute of it and soon Heidi became big enough to hold her own with them. Those were great times full of great memories. By the way, speaking of Nellie LaVigne - Happy Sweet Sixteen today dear! All points bulletin to St. Louis - look out while driving in the areas of Northmoor in U-City and around Nerinx Hall. God bless you, Gerry I believe we are experiencing the longest 5th birthday celebration know to man. Since Tuesday, William has been opening presents from various sources and this trend continued today with the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa Ricken. They are in to be with Heidi during the Grandparents Day celebration at Pillar tomorrow and to attend Will's birthday party on Sunday. I am not sure how Will is going to handle Monday when the week long birthday party will end. Somehow, I believe he will make it just fine. God bless you, Gerry For the first time in her eight years of school, Heidi celebrated Grandparents Day with her four grandparents without any siblings. She took advantage of this small window of opportunity and had a great time with them. Next year she will experience another first as she will have a younger sibling attend the same school as her. She can not wait to have this experience since she has been the youngest in school from the first day of kindergarten. Heidi and her sisters were model students when the graced the halls of school for the first time. The jury is still out to see if Will follows in their footsteps or develops tendencies to act like his dad. God bless you, Gerry Stick-to-it-ivity was the message of Father Tobin's homily this evening. As he spoke about the importance of keeping focused, I was reminded of how Mary Beth would always set a goal and stick to its achievement. For those of you who witnessed, she used a tremendous amount of stick-to-it-ivity from the day she was diagnosed until she day she closed her eyes for the final time. She stuck to the task of counting everything in her life as a blessing. She believed everything, good or bad, was a blessing whether it was celebrating successes with family and friends or receiving negative news of new cancerous growth. I, for one, learned a great deal from her approach. When I get frustrated with something, I try to stop and reflect that God blesses us in various ways and this too is a blessing. Perhaps he is reminding us that we should truly appreciate all we have - good and bad - because, "Life is short, laugh hard!" God bless you, Gerry We would like to reach out to you to remind you to continue to keep everyone who is ill in your thoughts and prayers, especially those you know personally. Even if you do not know certain individuals, we encourage to pray for their physical, mental and spiritual health. Individuals who come to mind are Erin Wilson, Rachel Baumgartner, Mindy Reed, Jennie Steinmann, Lana Smith, Penny Hyde and Cathy McLaughlin. Cathy is the mother of Lauren, one of Mary Beth's St. Joe classmates, and was just diagnosed with breast cancer a week ago and will be undergoing treatments soon. Please say a special prayer for these individuals and their families as they recover. God bless you, Gerry Yesterday William and his buddies had a great time riding horses, petting goats and feeding bunnies and chickens in our front yard as we celebrated his 5th birthday. Tonight he recreated the petting zoo and added exotic animals to it on his bedroom floor. His comment to me was that it smelled a lot better today than it did yesterday. God bless you, Gerry Another 23rd of the month. It was nine months ago today when Mary Beth left us physically and it was only appropriate that I attended the St Joe Father Daughter Communion Breakfast with Barbie this morning. Tears welled in my eyes as I looked around among the hundreds gathered and saw the familiar faces of the St Joe Angel upperclassmen who bravely stood as an honor guard in freezing temperatures at Mary Beth's funeral. The mass this morning was a great way to start the day and pray to our own angel. God bless you, Gerry It is amazing to me to hear about and see people reacting with such hysteria these days. Some are afraid to fly, afraid to open their mail and even afraid to get out of their own home. For those experiencing such high anxiety my recommendation is to open your hearts to God and ask for his help. During the past two years I have found a great deal of comfort in the lyrics of "Be Not Afraid" as written by the St. Louis Jesuits. Perhaps in times like these, you will too. Be
Not Afraid You
shall cross the barren desert Be
not afraid, I go before you always If
you pass through raging waters, Be
not afraid, I go before you always Blessed
are your poor, Be
not afraid, I go before you always God bless you, Gerry Our youngest nephew on the Kriegshauser side, Nate Teckman, is spending the night with us while his dad, Uncle Jeff, is traveling for a couple of days. He fits right in to our family and hands out hugs and kisses to everyone of us. He and William look like a couple of toe-headed brothers and get along great together. Will enjoys playing the role of big brother and Nate enjoys the experiences Will presents to him. Aunt Joanie, I am sure, is looking down from heaven on her little two year old and could not be prouder of how well mannered he is. It is a true testimony to the love Jeff has for her. God bless you, Gerry Sometimes in life you meet people who are simply wonderful. They pour their hearts of kindness out to you and expect absolutely nothing in return. They do so much good for you that there exists no way to repay them. We were fortunate to spend this evening with two such special people in our lives. Karen and Dan Baumgartner treated us to a wonderful evening and have been pillars for us for the past several years. We thank them for being our green pasture, our shining light, our foundation of strength. God bless you, Gerry Earlier in the week we heard from Madonna Atwood and Bonnie Bence, math teachers at Pillar, regarding the Priory Math Contest. They were asking for some words to Mary Beth so that we might use her intersession for the children participating today. When Bonnie appeared in the neighborhood beaming from ear to ear, we knew she had some hardware in her hands. The six 5th and 6th graders all placed individually and collectively as a team they placed first overall! The first place trophy will grace the halls of Pillar just as it did when MB was fortunate enough to participate in this event. Speaking of MB being in 5th and 6th grade, one of classmates from then and one of her very best friends turned Sweet Sixteen today. Happy Birthday Caroline Sullivan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God bless you, Gerry We experienced a wonderful thing at mass this weekend when the special intentions for the parish were stated. For the first time in a long time, the name of Rachel Baumgartner was not read. She looks great and feels good. Our collective prayers for Rachel continue to be heard. Let us thank God for this blessing and keep her in our prayers. We attended a memorial service today hosted by BJC Hospice Care for all their patients lost during the past year. Of the many attending, there was the family of only one other pediatric patient. They lost their two year old son to cancer who was treated in the bone marrow unit at the same time as Mary Beth. Although this service brought to mind some difficult times for us, we had a chance to speak with some of Mary Beth's wonderful caregivers. They will always be a blessing in our lives. God bless you, Gerry Sheila and I divided our time this evening between parent-teacher conferences at St. Joe and a wine tasting-auction fundraiser for Wings, the Children's Hospital Pediatric Hospice Program. Sheila's sister, Aunt Joanie, helped to start this wonderful program whose members assisted Mary Beth and our family during MB's final days. Attending were the wonderful members of the Wings team along with the St Louis Blues. While Sheila was sampling wine and bidding things up to raise funds, I was speaking with Barbie's eight teachers and catching up with other St Joe parents, MB's former teachers and administrators. After hearing good news, I came home to start the annual tradition of the carving of the pumpkins. William was so excited to carve his own pumpkin at the age of 5. Heidi was jealous because she told him that she was forbidden from even holding a knife until she was about 8. By focusing, you can see the Dalmatian wearing the firefighter's helmet he carved. We only carved six tonight, so tomorrow night presents a challenge, especially since the two one-hundred pounders are still without decor. God bless you, Gerry We are the proud owners of a purple plastic jack-o-lantern. It appeared on our front porch sometime today and Barbie noticed it when she returned home from school. There was a simple note inside that said "Mary Beth's Angels - Have a safe and happy Halloween" Inside the note was a twenty dollar bill, but no sign of who the generous goblin was. In addition to this mystery, we have heard the doorbell ring twice in the past three nights only to find a pumpkin full of goodies with a Phantom Ghost note. Tonight the phantom was spotted running away but we did not recognize who it may have been. Time for bed since the big pumpkins are carved. God bless you, Gerry Happy Halloween! God bless you, Gerry Home / Top of page / MB's Obituary / Sept - 01 / November - 01
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The
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October of 2001.
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