Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Fr. Dan Shuh...
Our parish, St. Susanna in Mason, suffered a tremendous loss last Friday when our Pastor, Fr. Dan Shuh, passed away following an 18 month battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).
Fr. Dan was truly a unique priest. He was ordained close to five years ago after spending many years working as a Kroger store manager. He was previously married (he lost his wife to cancer in 2001), a father of 2 and a grandfather of 6 - several years ago he actually had the joy of baptising one of his grandchildren; I'm sure that doesn't happen everyday.
Fr. Dan was also a big man. I wouldn't want to guess how much he weighed at his peak but I'm sure he would be the first to admit that he could stand to lose a few pounds. That was one of Fr. Dan's most endearing attributes; he didn't take himself too seriously - he could laugh at himself and enjoyed it even more when others laughed along with him. Many of his homilies were filled with humor but they also were extremely thought provoking. He was also great at spinning a tale - I'll never forget his story a few years ago about a ski trip he had recently taken. Imagining Fr. Dan on skis was a funny enough picture but relating how a wipeout had nearly caused an avalanche on the slope had the entire congregation, as he text messaging generation would put it, LOLing (laughing out loud). And he delivered the perfect punch line when he said a teenaged skiier going up the lift yelled down to him..."Awesome wipeout, dude!" I doubt the young man realized he was yelling down at a priest.
ALS is a horrible disease. It robs the body of all muscle use while the mind remains as sharp as ever; the person essentially becomes a prisoner of his/her own body. Over the past 18 months we watched this big, teddy bear of a man dwindle down to skin and bones. He spent a good portion of the last year confined to a wheelchair and his voice had been reduced to an inaudible whisper. It truly broke my heart to watch this horrible disease take control of Fr. Dan's body. I often questioned why God would allow something like this to happen to such a wonderful man. Fr. Dan, on the other hand, faced this challenge with grace, dignity and the quality that I mentioned above and will always remember him for; humor. There are 3,200 families at St. Susanna and like a loving father should do; Fr. Dan comforted us throughout his illness. He was a strong man of tremendous faith and fully accepting of the plan God had for him.
In September Fr. Dan realized he was no longer able to handle many of his duties as Pastor and made the difficult decision to take a lesser role. He wrote a letter to the entire St. Susanna community and ended it with the following...
"As you can see, no one has given up hope for a miracle. I have not, the Archdiocese has not, and I certainly know that you have not. But God's plan is not always easily understandable. We must have confidence that God's loving plan for all of us has our best interests in mind."
Reading that gave me comfort - it allowed me to be at peace with God's plan for Fr. Dan. He taught us how to enjoy life to the fullest and peacefully accept and understand the journey God had laid out for him. I know he touched many lives at St. Susanna and we are all much richer for having known him. Our parish has lost a wonderful man. May he rest in peace.
Fr. Dan was truly a unique priest. He was ordained close to five years ago after spending many years working as a Kroger store manager. He was previously married (he lost his wife to cancer in 2001), a father of 2 and a grandfather of 6 - several years ago he actually had the joy of baptising one of his grandchildren; I'm sure that doesn't happen everyday.
Fr. Dan was also a big man. I wouldn't want to guess how much he weighed at his peak but I'm sure he would be the first to admit that he could stand to lose a few pounds. That was one of Fr. Dan's most endearing attributes; he didn't take himself too seriously - he could laugh at himself and enjoyed it even more when others laughed along with him. Many of his homilies were filled with humor but they also were extremely thought provoking. He was also great at spinning a tale - I'll never forget his story a few years ago about a ski trip he had recently taken. Imagining Fr. Dan on skis was a funny enough picture but relating how a wipeout had nearly caused an avalanche on the slope had the entire congregation, as he text messaging generation would put it, LOLing (laughing out loud). And he delivered the perfect punch line when he said a teenaged skiier going up the lift yelled down to him..."Awesome wipeout, dude!" I doubt the young man realized he was yelling down at a priest.
ALS is a horrible disease. It robs the body of all muscle use while the mind remains as sharp as ever; the person essentially becomes a prisoner of his/her own body. Over the past 18 months we watched this big, teddy bear of a man dwindle down to skin and bones. He spent a good portion of the last year confined to a wheelchair and his voice had been reduced to an inaudible whisper. It truly broke my heart to watch this horrible disease take control of Fr. Dan's body. I often questioned why God would allow something like this to happen to such a wonderful man. Fr. Dan, on the other hand, faced this challenge with grace, dignity and the quality that I mentioned above and will always remember him for; humor. There are 3,200 families at St. Susanna and like a loving father should do; Fr. Dan comforted us throughout his illness. He was a strong man of tremendous faith and fully accepting of the plan God had for him.
In September Fr. Dan realized he was no longer able to handle many of his duties as Pastor and made the difficult decision to take a lesser role. He wrote a letter to the entire St. Susanna community and ended it with the following...
"As you can see, no one has given up hope for a miracle. I have not, the Archdiocese has not, and I certainly know that you have not. But God's plan is not always easily understandable. We must have confidence that God's loving plan for all of us has our best interests in mind."
Reading that gave me comfort - it allowed me to be at peace with God's plan for Fr. Dan. He taught us how to enjoy life to the fullest and peacefully accept and understand the journey God had laid out for him. I know he touched many lives at St. Susanna and we are all much richer for having known him. Our parish has lost a wonderful man. May he rest in peace.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Catching up after a couple of weeks/The Chooch...
Sorry I haven't 'blogged' lately. I've attempted to add updates a couple times but never got around to pressing the 'publish post' button. We'll see if we get that far today!
I'm sorry to report that Abbey's team did not win the state championship in field hockey; they lost to the eventual state champ in the semi-finals. They had a tremendous run and with 18 0f the 22 girls returning next year I'd say the future looks bright for MND field hockey.
Aaron had a great experience at Kairos - he was very talkative afterwards and he even signed up to be a leader for the next session.
Judd turned 20 0n November 3 - we went up to Dayton and took him out for dinner, it was a whirlwind evening but it was good to see him.
This week is the big Ohio State/Michigan game. We plan to head up to Columbus for the game and given that the Wolverines are having their worst season in history; perhaps the tickets won't cost the $400 scalpers were asking two years ago.
As a result of my recent birthday party I've been able to get back in touch with an old friend from our days at the Cork 'n Cleaver. Kevin (or The Chooch) was/is one of the funniest, most witty individuals I've ever met. We used to sit around following our shifts at the Cork, drinking 50 cent (or in many instances - free) draft beers and laughing till we nearly pissed our pants. Most of our laughs were at the expense of our fellow employees - one of the biggest collection of misfits this side of Santa's island for misfit toys. I met Julie working at the Cork and with the exception of her and Kevin's wife, Susie or Swooz (who is literally one of the nicest persons I've ever met), I think we all could have been categorized as misfits.
Some of the more memorable characters included the cook who tried to ingest mass quantities of nutmeg because he read it would make you halucinate, a waitress who caught her husband having an affair and decided to get back at him by having an affair of her own with the biggest loser she could find (fortunately, working at the Cork she had many options), there was the hostess who got loaded one night after work and vomited all over my new Nike gym shoes and our assistant manager who we affectionately called POP, short for Pass Out Pearson - every night he would get so drunk that he'd pass out at the end of the bar. This is just the tip of the iceberg - there were so many others but it would take all day to list them. We had a manager who told a woman he had to fire her because our regional manager said she was ugly; the same manager got fired because he fudged our inventory in order to get a Christmas bonus with each month he had to fudge it even more and by April he was $6000 in the hole. Fortunately they closed the restaurant so he was going to lose his job anyway. I could go on and on and on. The point I'm trying to make is this, the Cork was pretty messed up place but Kevin made it fun; if he was working the same shift - we had a great time. And he and Swooz were awesome friends - I can remember hanging out with them, numerous times I spent the night at their house. I remember one night we were going 'home' and we stopped to get a late night snack at Taco Bell. Keep in mind that people who couldn't get a job at the Cork probably found employment working the overnight shift at Taco Bell. We went through the drive-thru and Swooz ordered a burrito with just a little lettuce - well we get our food and head on our way and Swooz starts laughing hysterically. She had opened her burritio and they had literally put just two strands of shredded lettuce on the burrito - Swooz and I were laughing hysterically but Kevin wanted to go back and find the idiot who made the burrito which Swooz wasn't about to let him do. As I sit and type this it sounds like a pretty stupid incident but Kevin was at his best during this kind of moment - just hysterical.
My brother, Rich, tried to get Kevin to come to my birthday party but unfortunately he had other plans. Had he been able to attend it would have been a wonderful surprise but just getting back in touch and thinking about some of the old Cork 'n Cleaver memories has been a lot of fun. Kevin wrote about me on his blog so I thought I'd give him equal time on mine. I'm not quite the writer he is and you could never get a grasp of who he truly is by what I've written here but Kevin and Susie were great friends at a time when I was trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. It's been great reconnecting with The Chooch.
I'm sorry to report that Abbey's team did not win the state championship in field hockey; they lost to the eventual state champ in the semi-finals. They had a tremendous run and with 18 0f the 22 girls returning next year I'd say the future looks bright for MND field hockey.
Aaron had a great experience at Kairos - he was very talkative afterwards and he even signed up to be a leader for the next session.
Judd turned 20 0n November 3 - we went up to Dayton and took him out for dinner, it was a whirlwind evening but it was good to see him.
This week is the big Ohio State/Michigan game. We plan to head up to Columbus for the game and given that the Wolverines are having their worst season in history; perhaps the tickets won't cost the $400 scalpers were asking two years ago.
As a result of my recent birthday party I've been able to get back in touch with an old friend from our days at the Cork 'n Cleaver. Kevin (or The Chooch) was/is one of the funniest, most witty individuals I've ever met. We used to sit around following our shifts at the Cork, drinking 50 cent (or in many instances - free) draft beers and laughing till we nearly pissed our pants. Most of our laughs were at the expense of our fellow employees - one of the biggest collection of misfits this side of Santa's island for misfit toys. I met Julie working at the Cork and with the exception of her and Kevin's wife, Susie or Swooz (who is literally one of the nicest persons I've ever met), I think we all could have been categorized as misfits.
Some of the more memorable characters included the cook who tried to ingest mass quantities of nutmeg because he read it would make you halucinate, a waitress who caught her husband having an affair and decided to get back at him by having an affair of her own with the biggest loser she could find (fortunately, working at the Cork she had many options), there was the hostess who got loaded one night after work and vomited all over my new Nike gym shoes and our assistant manager who we affectionately called POP, short for Pass Out Pearson - every night he would get so drunk that he'd pass out at the end of the bar. This is just the tip of the iceberg - there were so many others but it would take all day to list them. We had a manager who told a woman he had to fire her because our regional manager said she was ugly; the same manager got fired because he fudged our inventory in order to get a Christmas bonus with each month he had to fudge it even more and by April he was $6000 in the hole. Fortunately they closed the restaurant so he was going to lose his job anyway. I could go on and on and on. The point I'm trying to make is this, the Cork was pretty messed up place but Kevin made it fun; if he was working the same shift - we had a great time. And he and Swooz were awesome friends - I can remember hanging out with them, numerous times I spent the night at their house. I remember one night we were going 'home' and we stopped to get a late night snack at Taco Bell. Keep in mind that people who couldn't get a job at the Cork probably found employment working the overnight shift at Taco Bell. We went through the drive-thru and Swooz ordered a burrito with just a little lettuce - well we get our food and head on our way and Swooz starts laughing hysterically. She had opened her burritio and they had literally put just two strands of shredded lettuce on the burrito - Swooz and I were laughing hysterically but Kevin wanted to go back and find the idiot who made the burrito which Swooz wasn't about to let him do. As I sit and type this it sounds like a pretty stupid incident but Kevin was at his best during this kind of moment - just hysterical.
My brother, Rich, tried to get Kevin to come to my birthday party but unfortunately he had other plans. Had he been able to attend it would have been a wonderful surprise but just getting back in touch and thinking about some of the old Cork 'n Cleaver memories has been a lot of fun. Kevin wrote about me on his blog so I thought I'd give him equal time on mine. I'm not quite the writer he is and you could never get a grasp of who he truly is by what I've written here but Kevin and Susie were great friends at a time when I was trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. It's been great reconnecting with The Chooch.
