The first hint that something was up was before first service,  when Pastor Jeff found me perched on the steps leading up to the back balcony, working on some music.   “It’s good to see you safe and sound,” he said – which struck me as a rather strange greeting.  He went on to explain that the church office had received a number of calls already that morning from people who had read in today’s Racine Journal Times that Gregory D. Berg had died.

Huh?

Fortunately,  Jeff and I were at the same birthday party last night, so he saw me alive and well as late as 9:15 p.m.- so he was fairly certain that this had to be about somebody else (the Journal Times is good, but they’re not that good)  plus the death notice gave the person’s age as 60.  Still,  he said he was somehow reassured to actually lay eyes on me to know with absolutely certainty that I was still very much of this world.

And that scenario continued to replay itself through most of the morning, with all kinds of people- including a few members of the church I don’t even know that well- coming up to me to express their relief that the death notice hadn’t been mine.

And it continued even at home,  with several phone calls coming in including one on the answering machine that I will keep for a long, long time.  I won’t give the woman’s name but she is someone I know fairly well in several capacities, including her work as a reporter for one of the local newspapers.  Her message essentially said:  ‘Hi, Greg, this is Rachel Marie Reporter,  and this may sound a bit strange but we have received all kinds of phone calls

[at the paper] from people who saw the death notice for Gregory D. Berg- which concerned me, too.  But we were able to do some checking and were able to determine that it wasn’t you who had died.  But until we had made that determination,  this was really quite upsetting to me,  given all that you do in this community.  So thank you for not dying.”    Or words to that effect but much more articulate than my paraphrase.

It is one of the strangest experiences I can ever remember- and one of the strangest things about it is that all of this springs out of someone else named Gregory Berg dying – and at the age of 60, which is too young – so I am refraining from cracking a lot of jokes about this out of respect for those who are mourning this man’s death, whoever he is.   It’s also strange because it’s almost a little like someone who is believed to have perished in some sort of disaster who unexpectedly reappears, like Tom Hanks in “Castaway.”   Actually, it’s just the faintest echo of that but still….  it’s the strangest sensation to have people come up to you and say how relieved they are that you’re alive.  And by the way,  our friend Henrietta Welch,  who is in her mid- nineties,  has been fielding phone calls all day long from people who read the death notice and were concerned.  Her answer to all of them has been the same-  “He’s fine.  He’s only 48, not 60.  And he’s D. Gregory Berg, not Gregory D. Berg.  And I saw him at church this morning.”  She has fielded ten such phone calls already and expects at least a couple more before all this blows over.

So to reiterate-  Someone named Gregory Berg died this weekend.   That someone wasn’t me.  I am very much alive- and somehow I am not taking that for granted today.

Pictured above:  Reading to Lorelai on Thanksgiving Day.