Back from the funeral

[echoweaver]

I arrived home on a completely uneventful flight from Indianapolis Wednesday afternoon. I didn't really try to see any friends (sorry guys) because it seemed like family needed all my time, and when they didn't need me, I needed to be alone to recover. That part wasn't a big surprise.

Comments

[callylevy]

*hugs* A little note to say I read this through, and I'm thinking of you and your family. Grief does strike at odd times; recently I got very upset when I realised I was about to graduate again, and this time neither parent could be invitees

[echoweaver]

Wow, that poem is beautiful. And you're right -- it IS just the right tone. I know this is part of life, but I do not approve, and I am not resigned. Knowing death comes to everyone doesn't make it pretty or romantic. It just makes it true.

On the positive end, I hold tight to the pagan mantra, "What is remembered lived."

I'm so sorry to learn you have lost both of your parents. It sounds like it's an oldish loss to you, but a new one for me in hearing about it. (That sentence was prettier in my head :-p.) I can just imagine how that would be on your mind with your graduation pending.

[callylevy]

I hadn't heard "What is remembered lived" before, and it's lovely.

Thank you. Dad and Mum died of different cancers, in 2002 and 2004 respectively. My Dad's death was sudden, and the process around it all a bit of a daze. In contrast, my Mum was ill and in pain for over a year, and when she died it was a relief. It's one of those things that I don't tend to think about but I carry with me, if that makes sense. At some point it stops being present at the front of your head and just becomes part of who you are. In that sense they never can be lost. What I miss is probably the possibility of new input.

[echoweaver]

At some point it stops being present at the front of your head and just becomes part of who you are. In that sense they never can be lost.

This seems exactly right.

It's actually present tense, "What is remembered lives." It's an unfortunate typo b/c I think the tense matters :).

[verin_the_brown]

Even after living through this ordeal with Grandmother first-hand, where she planned everything well and kept Mom in the loop, his overpowering sense of independence and privacy leads him to put my brother and me in a situation where doing the same thing for him and mom will be a living Hell. I don't know that there's anything we can do about it. We'll have to poke a little harder, another day, and see if anything can be arranged.

Wow, he is the antithesis to my mom, who has all these color coded files that she insists on showing us every time we visit.

I'm not really sure grief his healing exactly, more just learning to get used to the fact that someone isn't there who should always be there.

Wow, I haven't really experienced grief, but that sounds like it's very accurate.

[echoweaver]

Wow, he is the antithesis to my mom, who has all these color coded files that she insists on showing us every time we visit.

Though it's a bit morbid, I would choose this.

Dad has some really deep-running issues resulting from life experiences I can only guess at. It really think this is the same impulse that led to to our huge fight over my request of a $50 loan to buy Turbotax. He is a loving person and a good friend. And while I think he netted very positive in the fatherhood department, there are certain things that normally go with the package of having a family that he just hasn't and won't accept. It's not like my brother and I can choose NOT to deal with his effects after his and mom's death, for example. We're his kids. Society hands us that role. But helping us seems to involve some kind of loss of individuality, a sharing of secrets, that hits his sense of self in a way I can't fathom.

This sounds very bleak, but I really hope he predeceases Mom.