I'll be in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving.
and on the phone, my mom said, "What I really wonder is how we got here-- how we got to this point where something like this could happen. I will be fifty in December and the things that I'm hurt over that feel like they happened yesterday happened almost nine years ago..."
There is a half-siamese cat laying at the foot of my bed. She is not mine, but she wouldn't leave. I was annoyed that she was let in at first, but now her purring is kind of comforting. Ryan, Molly, and Nick all just left, and now it's just me and the cat and the Patty Griffin cd Ryan got me for my birthday.
And this feeling that results from not knowing how we got here, either. My pap died on Sunday and my Aunt Cathy sent my sister Marie an email to let her know. No one else in my family received word at all until Cathy called Marie to make sure she got the email. Marie called all of us. There will be no funeral.
I understand respecting someone's wishes-- he didn't want a funeral. Honestly, if anything I understand his life "philosophy" more than those that call for elaborate ceremony at the end. Still, I want an excuse to come home, to see my sisters and brother. Also, while I may question the value of a funeral in the present, I've never dealt with death without one...
On my walk today I couldn't avoid the leaves covering everything. Caldwell is more colorful than it has been the three previous autumns. I couldn't avoid thinking about how in autumn everything dies, but it is also a rebirth. I want to think of these deaths, these changes as a rebirth, a renaissance for my family. My dad and his dad may be dead, but my siblings and I are figuring out how precious we are to one another. We are figuring out the kind of adults we want to be, what kind of relationships we want to have, what we aren't willing to compromise.
Blood. I wanted to say something about blood, about relations, something poignant but I don't remember.
I need to back up from this for a moment. I need to take tomorrow to think, but not just to think, but to feel, feel what's been bubbling since June or August or yesterday.
What am I going to make of this rebirth? (Where am I going? How did I get here...)
There is a half-siamese cat laying at the foot of my bed. She is not mine, but she wouldn't leave. I was annoyed that she was let in at first, but now her purring is kind of comforting. Ryan, Molly, and Nick all just left, and now it's just me and the cat and the Patty Griffin cd Ryan got me for my birthday.
And this feeling that results from not knowing how we got here, either. My pap died on Sunday and my Aunt Cathy sent my sister Marie an email to let her know. No one else in my family received word at all until Cathy called Marie to make sure she got the email. Marie called all of us. There will be no funeral.
I understand respecting someone's wishes-- he didn't want a funeral. Honestly, if anything I understand his life "philosophy" more than those that call for elaborate ceremony at the end. Still, I want an excuse to come home, to see my sisters and brother. Also, while I may question the value of a funeral in the present, I've never dealt with death without one...
On my walk today I couldn't avoid the leaves covering everything. Caldwell is more colorful than it has been the three previous autumns. I couldn't avoid thinking about how in autumn everything dies, but it is also a rebirth. I want to think of these deaths, these changes as a rebirth, a renaissance for my family. My dad and his dad may be dead, but my siblings and I are figuring out how precious we are to one another. We are figuring out the kind of adults we want to be, what kind of relationships we want to have, what we aren't willing to compromise.
Blood. I wanted to say something about blood, about relations, something poignant but I don't remember.
I need to back up from this for a moment. I need to take tomorrow to think, but not just to think, but to feel, feel what's been bubbling since June or August or yesterday.
What am I going to make of this rebirth? (Where am I going? How did I get here...)