True confessions

There's a common expression: "the final nail in the coffin." It means the end of something, right? To use another idiom, the final nail in the coffin is also "the last straw." Well a coworker aptly said that seeing the name on the grave marker is the true "final nail in the coffin." There are a lot of final nails in the coffin for grief. Watching your father take his last breath, seeing his body carted out of the house, seeing him lying in the coffin, seeing the coffin carried out of the hearse and to his final resting place are all "nails in the coffin." But nothing is quite the unexpected sucker punch to the gut that getting this photo emailed to you is. I'd change the idiom if I could, from "nail in the coffin" to "name on the gravestone." Seeing your father's name carved in stone- his gravestone - brings about a finality like nothing else. His body is no longer hidden away in the ground. His death...

... that you didn't pull the second page of the hymn out of the hymn box. And didn't realize it until you were halfway through your introduction... You can fix this. Just keep playing. With strength and flexibility y ou previously didn't know you had ,  reach your left hand across your body to grab the hymnal that you foolishly put just out of reach of the piano (to reduce clutter on the piano) and open it to the right page as fast as you can. Throw in a little ritard and you'll be good to go. Nobody needs to know. * Don't try this at home ** Refer to Rule 10 and 10c. #discountdoublecheck

There's a fun fact about this rule. No matter how many times you break it, you'll never learn. You'll get comfortable and forget to check which parts of the liturgy are actually in the bulletin. If you're lucky, your pastor will ask to do a quick run-through, and will point out all the missing lines you would have just played. But you won't always be #blessed like that. So just Double Check.

When you show up to church and there's a trumpet set up next to the piano, just roll with it. Even if you had no idea there would be an instrumentalist.