Jackie's Last Day

 

Jackie’s Last Day

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Today was Jackie’s last day. Even for me it is hard to imagine that the day has come when she could turn her white jacket. But it is a time of many emotions. A time of accomplishment...certainly. But it is also a day filled with melancholy...as if she has left a portion of the task unfinished...abandoned, and failed friends that must struggled on without her.

Today was a very different day than the time I had set my farming days behind. The task for me was a slow winding down of duties. A series of steps one month following the other. A carefully planned exit. Jackie’s exit was planned as well, but there was no gradual blend from her working time to the time that comes NOW. She went to work this morning and when the shift ended so did the more than forty years of service she gave.

The change was very abrupt.

Perhaps too much so.

The joy and tears of this week will carry on for a time. It will also take us a bit, to get used to this new normal. But we will. Life is meant to be lived and we intend to keep right on living while we can. To do some of the things that past scheduling made difficult. Now Jackie can make her own timeline.

During these final days, people have stopped by the pharmacy to tell my dearest that she had made a difference. It is a sentiment I have repeated for thirty-two years. My modest wife in unable to register the magnitude of the effects that her years have made. God love her.

I love her too, and am proud to say that Jacqueline C. Vander Velden is my wife. The woman who did her part to serve the health care of our community for most of her career, considers herself only a minor player of a very large team. She would shun the award she so deserves. Jackie will tell you it was just the profession she chose while yet in John Glenn High School. Day in and day out, this pharmacist would tell you, I was doing my job.

Perhaps.

But I disagree and stand humbly in her shadow.

For the people of Plymouth, Indiana benefited from her care, her diligence, and her compassion.

So today on this fourth day of September 2021, I give her my congratulations for all the years of your service. You, my love, have reached this special moment with honor and dignity. Retirement is not an ending, but the beginning of a new adventures. And I am pleased...so very pleased... I am able to share this next chapter, as I have shared the one just completed, with you.

John