An Obituary

I saw this in a movie once, “Serendipity”, with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale (one of my favorite movies).  The idea is to write your own obituary, to find out what you have done and what you would want remembered about you.

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Eulogy

By Scott L Vannatter

6/10/2013

It is with considerable sadness as well as profound joy that I can relate to you the eulogy of Scott L Vannatter.  He would have wanted this to all be said and for you to be the ones to read it.

Scott is survived by many in his family, two, especially, his son and his daughter, his two proudest moments in life:  the births of each of them.  While he did divorce their mother, they did raise them with a lot of care and hard work.  Both children always had parents.

Scott was a mix of feelings and achievements.  He managed to work over 20 jobs in his life.  The two that were of the longest span and reach were his work as a computer assistant (operator, programmer, and administrator) and a teacher of special needs children.

Scott’s road to teaching was long and fraught with perils.  He wanted to teach as young as his seventh grade, but he allowed life and things to get in the way.  After his second divorce, he had a deep insight; quit his current job, and moving in with his parents, started back to school for teaching.

This was an important step for Scott.  He was, finally, living a dream.  He proved part of this when, through several years of online classes as well as teaching through part of that time, Scott was awarded his certification in teaching, nearly 60 hours of coursework with a 4.0 and a 100% total in all classes.  He did his student teaching under a master teacher at the Pendleton School System and began working at the New Castle Alternative School teaching grades 6-12 special needs students.

It was here that he really began to shine.  Under good supervision and taking the “slings and arrows” of the classroom, Scott taught respect to his students, mostly, by example.  He loved them all and showed them that they were important, were listened to, and could be respected.

On May 7, 2010, Scott suffered a major hemorrhagic stroke, which, by his accounts, led him to that bright room with the hallway of lights.  It was here he decided to stay around and live.  That he has done.

With all his filters wiped clean, Scott began to rebuild himself, mentally, physically, and spiritually.  He learned to trust God in so many ways and in such a strong manner that he laid his life in the hands of God many times over the next few years.

The stroke was as much a blessing as a curse.  Not being able to work, memory slightly scattered, attention difficult, walking near impossible, Scott fought long and hard each and every day to regain those parts of life he desperately needed in order to continue.  During that period, he also learned how to continue and how precious life was.

By summer of 2013, Scott was walking without a cane, running a daily blog, reading over 40 other blogs, many articles, and consuming himself in a lot of intellectual work.  Finally, having the full opportunity to write, Scott amazed himself by selling 8 stories (1 was charity and 2 were without pay) online and was printed in 2 anthologies, on the Kindle, 1 online magazine, and scheduled for 5 other places by summer’s end.  To say that he was happy would be an understatement.  However, writing was not his life.

Scott’s life was lived fully in his mind.  His imagination was where he had grown up and learned and thrived.  The stroke took some of that ability from him.  He had great difficulty “daydreaming”, something he was very fond of doing.  He could imagine entire universes in his mind, filling them with unearthly, yet emotional, creatures, but he had great difficulty putting himself into those situations.  This saddened him.

He also went through times of being lonely and down; however, he knew life was good and that God was with him, so he never stayed in those times very long.  His motto summed up his life and living:

-All things work out in the end; if it hasn’t worked out, it isn’t the end-

Know that Scott loved life and all of you; he would want you to live, at all costs – live.

Namaste,

Scott L Vannatter