by Ian Crockett
Following graduation from college, rather than take a cushy advertising job in Downtown LA, I decided I would run away and join the circus. In the early 80’s there was a traveling circus headquartered in Southern California that featured several hundred performers, over 100 animals and a tent larger than a football field that would accommodate 5,000 people per performance.
When I first interviewed for the position of marketing director, which was a fancy name for Promoter or Advance Man, they indicated it would be highly unusual to hire someone married due to the ten and half months of travel required. My reply was you haven’t met my wife, so for the next three years we traveled around the United States in a black cargo van that had nice carpeting and paneling, but only two seats. We would rent furnished apartments or stay in motels with kitchenettes and lived in 35 different cities for one month at a time. Many friends and plenty of strangers said we were crazy and that one of us would put the other in a pine box. Instead it created a bond and a unique friendship that many couples never achieve.
Following that three year adventure, I landed a job in the world of advertising. The company, which I ended up purchasing ten years later, had clients nationwide. In my efforts to service them and build the agency’s clientele and reputation, I have logged over six million frequent flyer miles with over three million on American Airlines alone. For a couple that was joined at the hip for three years, being separated was excruciatingly painful. The same friends, but different strangers said it would ruin the marriage and tear apart that special bond they had seen with the two of us. Instead it brought us even closer together and made us cherish every second we spent together.
Three years ago, she became an ordained minister. During the reception an old friend gave her a congratulatory hug and pain shot through her body that originated from her stomach. After visiting the doctor, it was determined she had a pulled muscle and physical therapy was prescribed. However prior to one visit with the therapist, her blood pressure was over 200. They quickly rushed her to the hospital and placed her in the cardiac unit thinking she was having a heart attack. Several days later after a battery of tests, the new diagnosis was cancer.
Our first visit to the oncologist was on a Monday and we were relieved to hear it was treatable. Her first chemotherapy treatment was the next day and everything was looking up. That night, which was actually Wednesday morning, she awoke up in so much pain; I rushed her back to the hospital. Over the next two days, more tests were conducted and by Friday she was released to home hospice. Two months later my best friend for the last 32 years died.
I’m a business owner and a college professor. My circus years taught me how to put on spectacular events and my enormous amount of traveling has taught me to think on my feet. However I was the most unqualified person in the world to figure out what to do next. I knew she wanted to be cremated and I wanted to have an event that celebrated her life and let the world know how much she meant to me. Even though I had taken the two months off to be the one to care for her, I had not planned ahead or even thought of what goes into a memorial service. I just knew Fairhaven Memorial Services would be my mortuary of choice.
Fairhaven’s South Orange County management team will always have a special place in my heart. They actually came themselves to take the body away. They sat with me and patiently went through the order of service. They came up with ideas such as a memorial booklet that all guests would receive that included a poem that seemed as if it were written for her and the obituary I had written myself. We had pictures of us and ones that included our daughters and granddaughter enlarged, a picture video of her life accompanied by four songs I selected including Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called To Say I Love You, which is what I used to say each day when I called in from the road and a number of other items commemorating her time on earth.
The Fairhaven people didn’t know her, but helped create a day she could have orchestrated herself. Friends flew in from around the country, my employees and vendors volunteered to help bring to life the terrific Fairhaven ideas and suggestions and it was all done in less than a week. During her ordination, she told everyone that one day she would fill the church. On that day it was filled to capacity with people standing in the doorways. As I said in my previous blog, memorial services are for the living. This one accomplished all my objectives and would have had my wife’s approval. I thank Fairhaven Memorial Services for helping make the living present that day make the hole in their heart a tiny bit smaller and feel a little better about the incredible loss they all suffered.