Are you anti- or pro-crastinating?
This is Chiloquin, Oregon, where my mom lives now. Tomorrow morning, we hold a funeral mass for my sister in Klamath Falls. I got here early Monday morning, after flying out of Austin late Sunday night, nearly missing my connecting flight in Las Vegas (because I think our gate number wouldn't come up on a roulette wheel or something), and sacking out at our friend Alex's place in Medford for three hours before renting a car and driving here. (Damn! I'm tired just recounting it!)
As I noted on the responses to Sunday's post, thank you again for all your kind thoughts and wishes on my sister's passing. You are all part of my family, and having you in my life helps to cushion the remarkable blow of losing my sister. I can say "thanks" yet again, but it doesn't seem enough. I hope it suffices.
At the moment, I'm procrastinating over something I have been trying to do since Sunday morning: writing a eulogy for Junior. Where do I start? Do I tell the story of how I repeatedly hoodwinked her with clever, sartorial and utterly false explanations of what a calorie is or the origins of Boxing day? Do I recall how, in high school, she would come home from school and recount a dirty joke for our mother that she had heard at Sacred Heart Academy that day, then ask whether she should have laughed at it?
All the things I say about Stacy will ultimately be well-received and wholly insufficient. But writing and speaking are the two things I do best, and they're the only gifts I can offer to my sister. She always bragged to others about how I did those things, but these will be the most difficult I've ever written and tomorrow will take all of my energy not to break down in the middle of the two or three minutes I will take.
Hope you don't mind me having what amounts to a panic attack for an Oregonian, not currently abroad, but treading on ground I didn't think I'd be walking for many more years. I'll let you know how it comes out.
As I noted on the responses to Sunday's post, thank you again for all your kind thoughts and wishes on my sister's passing. You are all part of my family, and having you in my life helps to cushion the remarkable blow of losing my sister. I can say "thanks" yet again, but it doesn't seem enough. I hope it suffices.
At the moment, I'm procrastinating over something I have been trying to do since Sunday morning: writing a eulogy for Junior. Where do I start? Do I tell the story of how I repeatedly hoodwinked her with clever, sartorial and utterly false explanations of what a calorie is or the origins of Boxing day? Do I recall how, in high school, she would come home from school and recount a dirty joke for our mother that she had heard at Sacred Heart Academy that day, then ask whether she should have laughed at it?
All the things I say about Stacy will ultimately be well-received and wholly insufficient. But writing and speaking are the two things I do best, and they're the only gifts I can offer to my sister. She always bragged to others about how I did those things, but these will be the most difficult I've ever written and tomorrow will take all of my energy not to break down in the middle of the two or three minutes I will take.
Hope you don't mind me having what amounts to a panic attack for an Oregonian, not currently abroad, but treading on ground I didn't think I'd be walking for many more years. I'll let you know how it comes out.