I'm Staying In Bed, Thank You

The Monday before Thanksgiving, I was driving into work and scanning the front pages of the paper. My roving eye caught three words - "Glenn Mitchell" and "dead". Surely I misread; but it was not so. The news of somebody passing away rarely shocks me. I'm saddened if I know the person well and sympathetic if I don't. But I somehow temporarily suspend the loss and deal with it later in private, if need be.

This was a little bit different, for some reason. Maybe because even though I've never met the guy, I've listened to his radio shows for many, many years. Glenn Mitchell was a local radio host for KERA. In fact, he had two shows - the "The Glenn Mitchell Show" was your standard radio show which featured local celebrities, writers, public figures talking about hot button issues; the second, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know" was my favorite show, however.

I think I blogged about the second a month or so ago. The format allowed people to call in and ask questions you've asked yourself but never out loud for fear of being ridiculed. For instance, last year around Christmas time, somebody called in and asked what exactly a manger was. Was it a barn where animals slept, or did it serve some other purpose? I'd read the story a billion times and only knew it as the place where you gave away precious metals to the Savior.

Anyway, Glenn knew the answer right away; it is not a barn for sleeping per se, but a place for animals to eat. Its derivative continues in many Romantic languages today (manger in French, mangare in Italian) and means "to eat". For some reason, that has stayed with me for almost a year. Well, you may remember that I was looking for a web site that recounted play-by-play accounts of baseball games in the 1940's. If anybody knew, it was either Glenn or one of his listeners. I got my question read on air and sure enough, it was promptly answered in a handful of minutes.

And going back to another blog entry, I can now add to The List of Things I'm Glad I Did Since It Won't Happen Again: submit and have answered a question to Glenn Mitchell's show. I'm grateful for the small opportunities I take that turn into larger memories down the road.

But what grabbed me about Mitchell's premature death (he was 55) was the circumstances. First of all, it was a couple of days before Thanksgiving. But the Friday previous, he felt tired and called in sick. That night, he went to bed hoping for a good night's rest. In the middle on the night, he woke up and not being able to fall back to sleep, retired to the couch. He never woke up.

Except for the first and last parts, I've been doing the same for the past several months. Not anymore, my friend.

On a separate, but related, note, a reporter for KERA has been following some of our agency's clients for the past couple of months as they transition from homelessness to stability. We usually talk by phone once a week to see what updates are being made.

As we were speaking today, I asked what would happen to Mitchell's show. She said that it would take a break for a while but would return with a different host. I was happy and told her my story of my question being read on air. I added I was glad the show would return. She genuinely apologized for the horrible cliche: "He would have wanted it that way." We both laughed because we both realize it's impossible to know what somebody would have wanted after that person has died.

So let me say it now, regarding my own death: Please do not think to know what I would have wanted after I die. I usually don't even know what I want now, and I'm still alive.

Trust me, I would have wanted it that way.