The funeral is early tomorrow afternoon. I have cooked the entire reception for 25+ people by myself, and I'm excited to see how it all goes. Also hoping for good weather.

I've been thinking often about my late friend Tom. Tonight, I went over to his LJ (lj user="sufitom"> and read some random entries. I found myself grieving for him again. I felt a strong urge to leave comments; my brain tells me that he can't read them anymore, but my heart thinks that perhaps he can ( Read more... )

It struck me today that so many more people have died over in Iraq and Afghanistan, in this so-called "war on terror", than actually perished on 9/11. It makes less sense to me with every passing year- particularly the Iraq part. I suppose there is no straightforward solution.

Memory eternal!

Today, I went to the harp store with Nick and Serina. Nick and I got to play the special Louis XIV (or something) Lyon and Healy harp that the store owners apparently think they're going to be able to sell (?!). The sound was rich, warm, and supple; they'd knocked the price down to around $89,000, which is a nice discount considering the original ( Read more... )

The pilgrimage was even more amazing than I had anticipated; it seems that way every year.

There is an article about Tom in the Tikhonaire; I'll type it out tomorrow. I'm pretty sure Fr. Victor wrote it.

Bed!

The blessing of Tom's grave was last night. There were seven of us there, including Fr. Victor. Tom's family hasn't erected his headstone yet (apparently there's some issue with the way they want the stone to face and they're trying to work it out with the cemetery) so we had a bit of difficulty finding his exact plot. We're pretty sure we got it, ( Read more... )

There's a Parastas for Tom tonight at 5; I *finally* found directions to the cemetery where he's buried. At this funeral, I was so out of it that I didn't even put the address in my GPS, and I've been regretting it ever since. Now I have it; it's only 10 miles away. This will be the first time Andrew gets to see Tom's grave.

May his memory be

I have just found out that my accompanist in undergrad, Bethany, is dying in hospice of brain tumors. She apparently had some seizures in July, and then the doctors found the tumors. She had a full course of radiation treatment, but according to the email I recieved her speech was compromised and she isn't doing well at all ( Read more... )

Pavarotti is dead, and I'm still bummed about it.

So, Pavarotti has passed away from pancreatic cancer ( Read more... )