Every time they hear a car door slam, every time the phone rings, they jump. She was supposed to be there by noon on Saturday. Now it's Thursday, and no one seems to know where she is. They gathered for her funeral last night. Barbara Kirkendall, 80, died on Nov. 5 at the Cleveland Clinic. Her death was swift and unstoppable, seemingly caused by an aggressive blood infection. Doctors wanted to know more, so Kirkendall's husband consented to an autopsy.

Every time they hear a car door slam, every time the phone rings, they jump. She was supposed to be there by noon on Saturday. Now it�s Thursday, and no one seems to know where she is. (Update: Her ashes were delivered to the family on Friday morning.)

They gathered for her funeral last night.

Barbara Kirkendall, 80, died on Nov. 5 at the Cleveland Clinic. Her death was swift and unstoppable, seemingly caused by an aggressive blood infection. Doctors wanted to know more, so Kirkendall�s husband consented to an autopsy.

She was cremated afterward. Her remains were picked up by a postal carrier, transported to Columbus and signed out for delivery to her Far East Side home, where her husband lives. The money-back, Priority Mail Express 1-Day guarantee said her ashes would arrive at noon on Saturday.

�I was up at 5 o�clock in the morning, just waiting,� Norman Kirkendall said.

The package never showed.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Van Allen said a �vigilant search� is underway to find out what happened to it.

Meanwhile, Norman Kirkendall can�t sleep. He has his own heart problems, and lately it feels like that muscle is going to beat out of his chest.

�I feel like I�ve lost her,� he said yesterday.

He met Barbara at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. He was an instructor and she was one of his students, and asking her on a date was so taboo that he did it through Morse code.

Norman couldn�t help himself. Barbara was petite and beautiful, and with her brown hair and brown eyes he thought she looked like a movie star.

They didn�t do much on that first date, just sat on the beach and talked and later went out dancing. But something clicked. They married so fast, people said it wouldn�t last.

They celebrated their 61st anniversary last month, a marriage full of moves to Scotland and Germany and California and Colorado. They became parents to five children � Norman named the first Barbara to honor his wife, like all those boys named for their fathers � and then grandparents and great-grandparents.

Barbara got sick with a blood infection last year, and after major surgery they thought she�d be OK. But she got sick again. A few weeks ago, she told her husband she didn�t know what was wrong with her, but if something happened, she said, she wanted an autopsy done.

�If she could save someone else�s life, she would want that,� he said.

Her memorial service was yesterday in Canal Winchester, and her family gathered from around the country to say their goodbyes. Today, they were hoping to have a military burial in Dayton, but Norman said that isn�t happening until the post office finds his Barbara�s ashes.

�Somebody,� he said, �needs to do something.�

lkurtzman@dispatch.com

@LoriKurtzman