Journal SolemnDragon's Journal: Bring out yer dead! 19
Let me begin by informing you that we (the kitten and i) are not at work today.
I am, in fact, in my pyjamas, on the couch. The kitten is also on the couch, but as this is a part of her natural habitat, we'll let that slide for now. It's hard work being a kitten, or so i'm told. Let's get back to the fact that i'm not at work, among the office ladies and the stress.
Feeling all right? Why, just fine, thank you.
I'm taking TWO GLORIOUS DAYS OFF.
They aren['t empty days, there's a lot to do, but there will be some quiet time just for me to sit and contemplate in them too.
For starters, we need to pick up the car today, after a lot of dither and paperwork. Also i'm home to start preparations for the Days of the Dead Dinner i have every year (remember that? Yes. That's tomorrow night.) Unfortunately, time crept by me and we didn't think we'd be holding it this year given everything that's been going on, but at the last moment we looked at each other across the couch and said, "Let's hold it anyway, who cares if the late invite means fewer people can be there." We have to hold it, we didn't feel right not doing it.
It may be a six person affair this year, and the menu's still not finalised, but the dinner WILL go on. The feast survives.
And i'm happy about it, it's one of the things that marks te year out for me. Everyone has their seasons.
But also, i'm home because i haven't had a real day off in months, and just plain couldn't take it any more. i don't care if the companywide initiative means that i will have days of detail-oriented, exacting data entry and scrambling to get my other work done on top of it. Or rather, i do care, and i really, really needed a break. I can't continue without one; i'll be in better shape if i stop and free myself of the chatter for a couple of days.
So, today and tomorrow, i will be hanging out, getting in some of the groceries for the dinner, cleaning house a bit (Blinder is in charge of decorating) and i have a couple of things to do while i'm home, like finally getting my recalled battery replaced, and so on. Things that have been put off in the shuffle from day to day. Every so often, you have to stop the wheel and sort things out, and that's what they days of the dead is about.
It's about stopping EVERYTHING.
The idea is to consider death. I'm pagan. Death is a part of the game, part of what we go through. It's part of the ticket price. I love the world and it is what it is, and we will eventually stop being alive.
Is death the end? Who knows. Who cares? The point is that having once existed, you're a part of everything that is. And this is the day coming up (and night) where we celebrate that, where we celebrate those who have gone, and their influence, and we celebrate being alive and ABLE to celebrate them. We consider our own mortality by considering that of those we've known.
I really like this holiday. My feasts tend toward the enthusiastic rather than the dramatic (i make punch for this occasion that i make for no other, and expect it to be drunk, though i'll be making a nonalcoholic version for blinders) but that's me, i like people being well fed and entertained, and i don't really like goth chicks so i don't plan to be one.
I like alive. I like food and i like wine and i love my friends, and this is the night of the year, more even than the winter holidays, when they get to be the guests of honour, and be toasted and appreciated and so do their ancestors and friends. Welcome to dinner; bring your dead.
So i'm having a nice time, sitting on the couch, reflecting on my friends. Smoochy, johndiii, dubiousdave, others among you- i wish you were local enough to attend. You guys have had serious and lasting effect on my life and i will be setting aside a plate and a glass on your- and your ancestors'- behalf.
I fear death. Let's be honest. I fear death because i am afraid i won't leave anything permanent behind, by which i mean my unfinished books. I fear that i won't have completed anything that truly benefits humanity. If i die, those of you close to me are to go through my writings and share anything that you think will benefit the living in any way. But i'll try to get that done while i'm alive, and try to get myself to the point where that's easier. I'm not crawling out from under my horrendous childhood for nothing; i mean to write more freely and i mean to get to the point where i can finish tasks, and that goal has taken me to the point of being able to treat the aftereffects of that early trauma. The goal has always been to cheat death, just a little, by leaving something that matters, and by living life more fully while i have it.
Of course, the one thing i would be leaving that matters most is- you.
You matter. More than you can imagine, to those close to you. Even the most depressed of you have a place in this world that can't be filled by any other. You each carry a pain no one else could bear and a light that no one else could match, and when you die it will strike those who know you deeply. That's how it works.
So today, and tomorrow, i make an interesting request.
Tell me about your dead. It's not my intent to bring you sorrow, but to give you an opportunity to rejoice, to celebrate them and delight in the changes in the world that still echo their presence. You are what they created in the world- your relatives, your friends, they are a part of you.
The unknowns, the ones who lived ages ago, and the recent- anyone you can CELEBRATE, even if they were crazy and cranky in life. I know it may bring you sorrow, and you're allowed to cry. But... there is joy there, too, the vibrant and lastingkind, where good people touched your life, and they have ot vanished and they are not gone.
I have a grandfather who was a real joy, but also had a wicked sense of humour and a slightly authoritarian nature. I never knew him as well as i would have liked, but my mum (whose father he was) assures me that he would have absolutely adored me, and i would have been crazy about him.
I don't know if that's true, but as a child, i adored him. He was the centre of the family, and without him, everyone drifted. No one speaks to one another much. My grandmother took up drinking and hasn't stopped, and i don't think she can at this point in her life. My aunts and uncles are far-flung; my great uncle honestly believes that he is the head of the family (and when my grandfather died, his wife actually committed the truly victorian faux pas of arriving with the intention of counting the silver!)
But he isn't really, to the rest of us my grandmother still is, and my mother likely will be after her, because they are the people who still make the effort to speak to one another. My mother is like him, strong and practical, and i think he would have liked her exceedingly well, because what i know of his actions in life matches much of who she's turned out to be, in both intent and result. They had the same values, although it would have taken them several extremely uncomfortable decades to figure it out.
My grandfather was the one who, with my uncle, convinced me that olives grew in the holes of swiss cheese. Of course they do, if they don't pick them, they have to slice the whole thing up into olive loaf after it ripens.
Well, i was young then. Now i am an adult, and i will be serving olives at the dinner, just for him.
Tell me about your dead, and how your life is richer for them.
I've been fortunate (Score:2)
Being the oldest of oldest and having a relatively small family that I know (we moved a lot when I was a kid) leaves me not experiencing a lot of death among friends and family. Even though I turn 39 in a couple of weeks, I still have 3 of my 4 grandparents, though I know that won't last long at this point.
My dad's dad died when I was 12, and I didn't know him terribly well, except to remember that he was a very kind and sensible man. It took years of family research to find out he was quite a character
Ahh, the shades of death and memories past (Score:2)
Which brings new meaning to the term "punch drunk" :-D
So many have passed before me, and they are all missed but not forgotten. I wish I could have shared my kids with my grandparents, but alas only one grandmother survived to see my oldest, and their time together was brief. But in a way they do spend time with my kids, since who they are shaped who I am, and will indirectly shape my kids as well. Recently the incredibl
Good ole Nana... (Score:2)
I've been dabbling now and again at writing a JE about her death and (lack of) funeral - I really need to push that across the f
To my Grandmother... (Score:1)
- Big Band Music
- How to be a lady
- How to host a dinner party
- How to really clean a house
- How to set a table
- How to tell a story
- How to be a true classic.
Goth chicks (Score:2)
Huh? Is the end of that sentence meant to be related to its start? Most of the goth chicks I know (which is quite a few, as it goes) would generally tend towards the enthusiastic rather than the dramatic. The tortured soul writing poetry in a graveyard is somewhat of a stereotype[1], and not particularly representat
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It's not all gloom and poetry, but you CAN'T tell me it's not drama either. My point was that this will be less elvira and tina the troubled teen, and more dinner.
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However, drama is a non-starter now-a-days.
Elvira is getting a little long in the tooth now, but this Tina of whom you speak...
It's a little over two weeks to my daughter's birthday. Eleven years since the date of her birth. Slightly less since her death. In a roundabout way, it brought home that there is probably something more important than whatever you are thinking is important this minute and that character not only
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Well, I can tell you it's not drama, and from my personal experience, it's not. Particularly over something like dinner, which just tends to be... well, dinner. I'm not even convinced that it's a transatlantic cultural difference, either. For example, one of our lot was quite active on the New York goth scene before moving to the UK, and doesn't
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If your Goth Chick is happy you are totally failing.
To people I knew (Score:1)
Paternal Grandmother: Tried in vain to instill the same level of faith and devotion to a (fairly unpopular and socially isolating) religion that she had. Taught me the value of doing what you believe regardless of its popularity. She kept up the door-to-door ministry right up to the morning she had her stroke. She's only one of two members of the faith that I never questioned the validi
It's tough being a kitten. (Score:2)
The only dead people I know are my two grandfathers and my paternal grandmother. There almost was a 4th, but we won't talk about that one.
My paternal grandfather abandoned our family for a new wife when he was in his late 60s and I w
we spoke (Score:1)
both of my Grandfathers spent too much time in the bottle to enjoy living life. The way that I can thank them is that neither one of my parents drank too much and have done a good job raising our family in a more functional and loving way than has been known in our lineage.
My sister found her Self just before she died so she left in a happier and more fulfilled way.
And of course all of my previous pets ( cats, dogs and fishes ) who were daily reminders that being human is n
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Unfortunately (Score:2)
As written by another team member:
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but I'm feeling *better*! (Score:1)
I first realized my mortality when I was in the Navy. I had a subscription to my home-town newspaper (well, one of them, anyway... It's since gone out of circulation: the Evening Express, from Portland, ME), and I read through the obits, expecting to see my great grandmother listed. One day, I found a classmate of mine there. It said he was killed in a motorcycle accident. Now, he and I weren't in the same
Souls Past (Score:2)
I am named after my mother's father (so my maternal grandfather). He was the JF I am named after. He was there when I was born in '79 and was said to be very proud. He died soon after. He was a generation older than most grandparents. My father's mother (my paternal grandmother) will always remark that he was a very kind man. The way she says it makes it sound as if he made a strong impression on her.
It turns out that my actual ma
There have been many (Score:1)
My mother, rest her soul. She visits me regularly, especially during our choir concerts, because we are singing one of her favorite songs this fall. The same song was also sung by the choir at her memorial. (i threatened her for years before she died that the choir would sing at her memorial and she knew i'd follow through)
The other was a choir member and friend that died of throat cancer. Gwendo was a lovely woman and was instrumental in h
Speaking of writings... (Score:2)