(no subject)
My grandfather is dying of alzheimers. Tonight. Or maybe tomorrow, I don't know, my grandma made it seem like she got 'the' call and has set a date for a service.. weird, kindof.. especially considering she's setting it for my great grandmother's birthday.. She'll be 99 (bless her soul). I know everyone's envious for that party. To be fair, I suppose my grandmother isn't thinking entirely straight but when is she ever?
The point of this entry is that she mentioned getting a poem printed up on cards for people and that made me think maybe I'd send her a poem about Grandpa and she could print that too.. neither my grandmother nor my grandfather.. Actually, no one in my family acknowledges that I write poetry. Most of them don't know, but it's not because I'm a closet poet.. it's because, no one really cares to know, and that's the saddest part of being me. I'm pretty alien in my family, the whole reason why if you're reading this you probably like me in some way, because I actually care about you and people and humanity as a whole. But I promise you I came from an entire family structure of either right wing Christian moralists or cockily apathetic 'content americans' and I have declared a sortof war on the lot of them. Of course I don't have any weapons. So basically that means, I talk as little with my family as is humanly possible. My grandfather was no exception, but my isolation from him came long before I recognized anything 'wrong' with the way my family 'worked.'
For the time he and I have been on this earth together I think maybe the actual time I spent with him could total maybe a summer. I've never allowed myself to feel shortchanged about this, or about how little my family means to me. But even in that time I don't remember any attempt at bonding experiences.. Maybe he was already starting to decline by the time I could remember. There was a month he stayed with us one summer (the bulk of my knowing him) and I remember walking down the block every morning to get the paper.. he was following stocks but I had no clue what that even meant back then. Thankfully he did, because his (unfortunately super-conservative) investment decisions would help pay for my college education. Also with the whole buying a house thing.
Yeah, this is scattered. I can't write the poem. I don't have enough memories to make one.. I didn't really know the guy. I remember feeling bad when I met a classmate or friend who didn't have grandparents. I had full sets, and a great-grandmother on each side.. I was lucky. But in truth I don't know them. I never did, they never came to visit us, we never went to visit them, and I never realized that the memories I've forgotten about would mean anything at all. The something I should have realized all along, the one dawning on me at the end. The time that he and I shared together, what we talked about on our walk to democrat point that one summer, for example, was time that slipped away from him at some point during the onslaught of the disease. And when that happened I became the sole custodian of the memory, the only person left who knew what it was like then and there. And it wasn't important enough then for me to keep.
The point of this entry is that she mentioned getting a poem printed up on cards for people and that made me think maybe I'd send her a poem about Grandpa and she could print that too.. neither my grandmother nor my grandfather.. Actually, no one in my family acknowledges that I write poetry. Most of them don't know, but it's not because I'm a closet poet.. it's because, no one really cares to know, and that's the saddest part of being me. I'm pretty alien in my family, the whole reason why if you're reading this you probably like me in some way, because I actually care about you and people and humanity as a whole. But I promise you I came from an entire family structure of either right wing Christian moralists or cockily apathetic 'content americans' and I have declared a sortof war on the lot of them. Of course I don't have any weapons. So basically that means, I talk as little with my family as is humanly possible. My grandfather was no exception, but my isolation from him came long before I recognized anything 'wrong' with the way my family 'worked.'
For the time he and I have been on this earth together I think maybe the actual time I spent with him could total maybe a summer. I've never allowed myself to feel shortchanged about this, or about how little my family means to me. But even in that time I don't remember any attempt at bonding experiences.. Maybe he was already starting to decline by the time I could remember. There was a month he stayed with us one summer (the bulk of my knowing him) and I remember walking down the block every morning to get the paper.. he was following stocks but I had no clue what that even meant back then. Thankfully he did, because his (unfortunately super-conservative) investment decisions would help pay for my college education. Also with the whole buying a house thing.
Yeah, this is scattered. I can't write the poem. I don't have enough memories to make one.. I didn't really know the guy. I remember feeling bad when I met a classmate or friend who didn't have grandparents. I had full sets, and a great-grandmother on each side.. I was lucky. But in truth I don't know them. I never did, they never came to visit us, we never went to visit them, and I never realized that the memories I've forgotten about would mean anything at all. The something I should have realized all along, the one dawning on me at the end. The time that he and I shared together, what we talked about on our walk to democrat point that one summer, for example, was time that slipped away from him at some point during the onslaught of the disease. And when that happened I became the sole custodian of the memory, the only person left who knew what it was like then and there. And it wasn't important enough then for me to keep.