Time Experience Thoughts

In Place By Scott L. Vanatter, May 21, 2012. A poem in commemoration of our youngest daughter’s birth and her current pregnancy. She is now progressed to about the same stage where Becky and Sydney survived a pretty bad car accident. (Me too. Carrie was with my Mom, as Becky and I went out to lunch.) Becky was seven months pregnant with Sydney when we were involved in an automobile accident in 1979. Our Volvo was totaled. Half the glass in our car shattered into thousands of tiny pea-sized pieces. Becky's side of the car was destroyed. The moon roof popped off. Her head must have hit the side of the car, or the pavement, or both. She was in the Intensive Care Unit for a week. She didn’t move a muscle for the first six hours. She had a massive concussion, and a 4-inch crack in her skull, but she fully recovered -- and Sydney was unharmed. NOTE: After the paramedics stabilized her head, neck and back, they drove us ever so slowly to the nearest hospital, Queen of the Valley. Lat...

Lest We Forget 9-11 By Scott L. Vanatter, poem written 9 September 2011 Everyday evils are often, even purposely,      Forgotten. Ultimate evil, barely even conceivable by us, rarely      Pierces the mind.      Though it is all around the world. Every day. It's tuned out.      Some other thought takes its place, any other thought.      Attack. Remember      The day, Remember      That act. Never forgetting      The surreal sight,      The first image, that second image,      Unremitting, unreal images,      Unknown questions, unformed thoughts,      Disconnected shock.           Terror, numbed fear.      The horror. The horror.  ...

He was Just here, But not now. Like Heavenly Father He was there when we needed him. Like Heavenly Father Many times we failed to check-in. Still, I hear him. Still, I see him. Ever, will I love him. Silently (there) he cares for us (here). Together, We said our goodbyes. Now he's in our eyes, Forever . . . Scott L. Vanatter, 13 February 2008 (Poem for my Dad, after his funeral)

Eugene Russell Vanatter Eulogy August 17, 1932 - January 16, 2008 Eulogy delivered by Scott Vanatter, his son, January 22, 2008, in Fort Scott, Kansas. REMEMBER My Mom, our dear mother Dorothy May (Lifer) Vanatter, my sisters Gina and Tracy, the entire family, including Dad’s sisters Loretta and Kathleen, and I . . . thank each one of you for joining with us this morning. Thank you for your loving expressions of care and concern. The good people here at Cheney Witt Funeral Home have offered the most kind and comforting service; our heartfelt thanks to you, Jared, and the whole staff. Tears of Sadness and Joy Today we are here to remember Eugene Russell Vanatter—“Gene” to most of you, including to our Mom . . . but Dad and “Grandpa Gene” to us. It is entirely appropriate that we shed tears of sadness—and also tears of joy—as we remember Dad. DEATH TO UNDERSTAND ETERNAL LIFE Faith whispers to us that life is eternal; that our personal existence does not end upon our death . . . we live o...

FUNERAL, ORDER OF SERVICE January 22, 2008, Fort Scott, Kansas ~ Prelude Music, Peace in the Valley (Elvis) ~ Welcome, by Rev. Jared Witt ~ Opening Song, Church in the Wildwood (The Jordonaires) ~ Opening Prayer, by Sydney Vanatter ~ Family Memory, by Carrie Motley (and Introduction of that Dad and Tracy danced to at Tracy’s wedding.) ~ Song, Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground (Willy Nelson) ~ Eulogy, by Scott Vanatter ~ Song, My Way (Elvis) ~ Closing Prayer, Carrie Motley ~ Masonic Service . . . ~ Interment Prayer (U.S. National Cemetery, Fort Scott, Kansas) # # # FOOTNOTES 1. Why We Visit (“The Vision-Place of Souls”) Many, though not all, families and friends naturally gather together at special events: graduations, weddings, reunions, etc. and, of course, births and deaths. Sometimes we all are drawn to visit the places where those special, even sacred, events took place. Sometimes long after those who were there with us have gone on. Why do we visit these sacred places? Thi...

Rol Allen, 1919 ~ 2005 Eternal Nature * About one hundred fifty years ago, the poet William Wordsworth began writing one of his most inspiring and insightful pieces on what he deemed a crucial idea: that of man’s eternal nature; not only that we all would continue to live on after death, but that we, each of us, came from somewhere before we were born. AND that knowing where we came from, and who we were then and who we really are now, at our very core, makes a big difference. He got the poem to a certain point, setting the stage for illustrating his main idea, but then laid it aside for a year and a half while he continued pondering the subject. He came back to it and penned these words: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us (our life's Star) Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Character John Roland Allen - “...