{"id":6402,"date":"2014-05-15T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T10:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/?p=6402"},"modified":"2014-05-15T05:00:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T10:00:42","slug":"two-months-and-a-couple-days-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/?p=6402","title":{"rendered":"Two months and a couple days ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to funeral services for the wife of a co-worker. <\/p>\n

He’s one of my favorite people in the world- and now more so because I have some little understanding of the pain he has. <\/p>\n

Today he asked me about this picture, which is on my desk.
\n<\/p>\n

I explained to him. He rather quickly excused himself, as he saw that I still have strong emotions about this. I think he feared he would break down as well. <\/p>\n

Later, he emailed me. “Great picture. Good memories.”<\/p>\n

I responded: “I love those men, and to think of them and others I lost still hurts. After a while, though, I realized that pain was a gift beyond price, that if they had been assholes I wouldn’t even miss them. Now I realize what a wonderful gift I had been given, to have had the opportunity to know and love someone that much”<\/p>\n

A little later, his response: <\/p>\n

“This helps me. ”<\/p>\n

When my turn comes to stand in front of my creator, as he looks through the long, long, long listing of my transgressions, and he arrives at this day, I will point to those words on the page. Maybe Shakespeare himself will stand up and quote “The merchant of Venice:<\/p>\n

Portia:
\n “That light we see is burning in my hall.
\n How far that little candle throws his beams!
\n So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m pretty self aware, I work hard at hammering myself constantly with my failings- to the point where nobody can criticize me worse than I criticize myself, ever, about anything. Sometimes I surprise myself and actually do something nice. I hope it helps. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to funeral services for the wife of a co-worker. He’s one of my favorite people in the world- and now more so because I have some little understanding of the pain he has. Today he asked me about this picture, which is on my desk. I explained to him. He rather quickly excused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neanderpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}