what is there to say

There is little of interest in my life right now.

Three years have passed along with two positions at two different funeral homes. Now, no job. I'm going to school full time and need to find some part time work to support this habit.

Perhaps the funeral industry is not for me. I am of service to families, great service, I know, but I can not seem to play well with others. Am I at fault for their stupidity? I think not. Am I to blame for their inability to manage well? Again, I think not. However, I am fully responsible for my own inability to shut the hell up and do what I'm told. I don't know why it's so difficult for me.

Two years have passed and I am now re-taking anger management. Actually this time I'm co-leading the class. Does that mean I'm really, really angry?

Three months have passed since the end of my job. I am in a place of utter confusion and chaos. How did I land here again? How much therapy can one soul need?

Five years have passed since I quit the high-tech industry and began my floundering. Is this growth? It seems that my life is paralelling my 17-yr-old daughter's. College next year for her and the beginning of a new phase. At 43, I should not be at a beginning stage. I should know where I am headed. I should be secure in a career. I should not be so lost.

truths

there are truths about me to powerful to ignore.

I have greater financial worth dead than alive.

I am swimming under a great sea and the surface seems so far from reach.

I am melodramatic beyond belief.

I am capable of self pity on a grander scale than even I imagined.

My legs are tired and I have walked only from the television to the refrigerator to the computer.

Thousands have lost their jobs, and it was beyond their control.

Violins strum so loudly, I can not hear my fingers press the keys. The thought makes me laugh.

I am searching for a way out of this dark.

No longer a journey in a house of death, perhaps the page will become a journey from the death of who I thought I was to the person I am to become.

Tears of frustration and of rage have been my comfort for months. Quiet moments of lethargy. Loud moments of pain. Angry moments of disgust.

I'm tired now.

Tired of being in this place. Ready to move forward but unsure how. Ready to discover what awaits me. New truths. New tapes playing.

I am trusting.

God, who in all his wisdom, must know what I can endure.

I am trusting.

That he will comfort and grow me as maybe I finally learn to lean on him.

Corey and self pity

It's been seven months and my little dog is still dead. Not that I thought he wouldn't be. Just that i thought it'd get easier. He's haunting me in the past couple weeks. I see him out of the corner of my eye. I hear him barking outside. I saw him in the back seat of my car last week as I was getting in to head to work. I feel him brush past me in the hallway.

I'm overwhelmed at work. Feast or famine. Feast this week, which makes time go quickly, but there isn't enough time to do all that needs to be done. I'll be pleased when my service/burial tomorrow is over. It's a difficult family. Two more services this week, but at least neither is mine, they belong to the other two directors.

I'm overwhelmed with homework. Did I say that a requirement of being hired as a funeral director was that I need to be fully licensable within two years? So, I have to take some classes.

That's my evening. Dog dead and I just feel tired and overwhelmed.

There oughta be a country song in there somewhere.

Yee-haw.

The cat I met today

Last fall a young man died. I'll call him Micky. Late teens. Stupid freak accident. Huge service. My new FH took care of him. Lots of media attention. Today his mom asked me to bring some pictures of the service that we still had to her house. She gave me the code to the front gate and the code to the main building entrance. As I walked up to the building I saw a cat through the windows beside the door. I punched in the code and worried a little that the cat would try to scoot out past me. No worries, he was apparently my greeter. He meowed a hello and stepped back so I could come in. Then I realized he wasn't just moving for me to come in, he'd stepped back to show me the way. He took me to the elevator and told me to press the button like I didn't already know to press it. Once inside, he told me to press again. Literally it's like he was meowing to me what to do. Without hesitation I said, "Hello Micky. Be a little patient, I've never seen a cat taking an elevator." He turned up his nose and pressed his face to the door. When we stopped, he squeezed his paw into the tiny opening of the door and pushed it as though he were making the door open faster. We got off the elevator. He turned right, I turned left. Well, he said I turned the wrong way (meowing). I said I wanted to go left (human words). He said to just hush and follow him (meowing). I followed him. He took me straight to Mickey's door. I knocked. He said, "they won't hear that". Then he looked into the window beside the door. I ignored him. He was right. They didn't hear me. I rang the doorbell. He gave a pointed sigh and continued looking in the window. Again, he was right. Someone came to the door. I was so flaberghasted. I said something stupid like, "Your cat greeted me downstairs". The cat ran in the door and I never saw it again.
What an odd last couple of days.

I topped it off by attending a senior citizen dance tonight that we sponsered, but that's a whole nother posting...

and it doesn't stop yet

Today I took a baby's urn back to an 18 year old mom who lied about the dad. Gave me some guy's name who swore to me he didn't know her so how could he be a dead baby's father. Ends up that mom's step-dad is baby's father. How can people like that exist? It makes me so darn mad.

continuing my verbal diarreaha

Yesterday I went to a lady's house to do the paperwork for her mom. I don't really like to go to houses as it freaks me out a little but sometimes it's necessary. Mom was 91, daughter is late 60s and wheelchair bound. Her front door was open, so I knocked and stepped in. She sat there in her wheelchair from across the room and she didn't say anything at first. I called her by name, and she just said, "holy smokes!" I smiled a little and said excuse me. She repeated herself, "Hoooollllly smokes!". I didn't know what to do and was thinking that she knew I was a woman cuz we talked on the phone and female funeral directors aren't all that odd anyway. Ha!! That's not what she meant. Apparently she thought I'm "smoking hot!" It made me laugh so hard. She invited me to come in and sit. Well there was only one tiny spot cleared on a love seat with STUFF stacked EVERYWHERE, exactly why I don't like to go to the homes of strangers. She said, "I'm not a lesban, but my daughter is and she would fall in love with you." I was cracking up. She pulls her glasses to the tip of her nose and then looks me up and down and stops at my boobs. I fall a little short in this area, but apparently it was sufficient. It was hilarious. Not that I think late 60s is old, but it's not spring chicken either and I've certainly never been checked out like that by a senior citizen. Some years back I discovered that once behind the wheel of a minivan, I became completely invisible to men. (true story but I'll have to save it for another day). Now apparently I'm invisible to all BUT old women in wheelchairs who have rooms full of Winnie the Pooh and other miscellaneous crap in piles over every possible horizontal surface in their homes. Smoking hot. yee-haw. That made my day. It was amazingly weird. Oh! I almost forgot. I asked for her grandparents' names for the death certificate. She couldn't remember but told me all that information is inside a suitcase under the sink in the front bathroom. I kid you not. I asked if she wanted me to get it for her. She said yes. So I squeezed past her, then past a walker in the hallway, and stepped into an absolutely spotless bathroom. What??? How could it be so clean. I kneel in front of the sink and open the door and sure enough there's an old-fashioned, hard-sided, blue suitcase under there. I take it out and bring it back to the living room and help her open it and I'm stunned to see all of her mother's important documents in there. Her baptismal certificate, high school graduation papers, all kinds of stuff. Who keeps that in a blue suitcase under the bathroom sink? Incredible.
The woman was actually wonderful. A great story teller. "Are you sitting down for this one, Noelle, oh yeah, you are, it's a good one..." I completely enjoyed my time with her and I'm even looking forward to seeing her again to take her mother's urn home, but I was also very glad to get into my white minivan with company logo on the door (not so invisible), pour on the hand sanitizer and be on my way. Smoking hot? maybe; shallow? undoubtably.

ok, so I'm breaking my vow of silence

Not that I made a vow of silence, but the past two days have just been incredible. Very good and very weird.

First for good. Today my old funeral home called me, I stay in touch with them somewhat regularly. They wanted to let me know that one of my families was there and asking for me and wondering if they can get my new phone number. So of course I said sure. They were one of my last families to work with. Three sisters whose mother died. I cremated her and then put her into about a zillion little boxes. They went to Pier 1 and got beautiful beaded jewel boxes, I'm sure you've seen them if you've been in there. So four of those. Two angel keepsake urns that they bought from me. And then they each had four or six, I can't remember, little pill boxes, also from Pier 1. I sent them there for urn shopping. I don't know why folks spend hundreds of dollars for urns when you can get perfectly good ones at Pier 1 and Ross and Kohls. Anyway, that's not the point of anything. The sisters were wonderful and I cared so much for them and it was truly an honor to get to end my time at that FH with a family like them. Today, they didn't just call me, they came to see me at my new work. AND they brought me candy. AND they started to cry and I started to cry and it was very neat. (selfishly, it was also good that my new coworkers got to see that i do a good job with my families). So that was an awesome thing for me today actually. I know that families follow directors around to whatever funeral home they go to and now maybe I have one of my own families to follow me. Neat.

blogging

I don't seem to be very good at blogging anymore. Maybe it's the topic. I've become more and more protective of my families and feel less likely to tell their stories. Also I had to sign a couple forms that I wouldnt' keep a blog or other online posting regarding my work. So it makes me a little nervous. There are a couple apartments upstairs in our funeral home and a couple of students live there. They're both going to mortuary school and get free rent and a little pay for answering phones, cleaning, opening the funeral home on weekends. One of them had a blog and someone found out about it and he got in a lot of trouble. Well it must not have been too much trouble because he still lives there and works there and I never heard it from him only from other folks. But it makes me leary of posting stuff.

Maybe I'll start a new blog...

back to work

start the new job tomorrow. I'm not excited. I'm hoping for snow. Weatherman says I won't get it. Guess it'll be fine. I'll just keep thinking of the money in the bank for our trip next summer. I've not even started, and I'm already counting the days till vacation. How spoiled am I?

Interview part 2

So the interview went well. Mostly it sounds like a decent job and a good place to work. The funeral home is corporately owned, so i'd get to participate in a 401k again. Who knew how good that could be. The money is livable, right where Steve told me to ask for (which I didn't ask, they just told me). The hours are fine. On-call every third weekend, which is also livable. Directors at my last job worked the weekends on a rotating schedule. I wouldn't have to work unless a service were planned or a death occurred and the family didn't want to wait till Monday to come in. I wouldn't have to do removals because they have two students who do them all. Removals are picking up dead folks from the place they died and since it seems that most people choose to die in the middle of the night, not doing removals is a very good thing. Two things could keep them from offering me the job. First is the other person they've been talking with about the position. He flies in from out of state next Monday for his interview. So, he may win. Second is that I don't have a college degree. Sad but true. Without a degree, I can't graduate from intern to funeral director. The state says I have five years to get the degree. Denny says he'll give me two. He also said if I did some online work he'd give me a designated hour each day to do it, so I'll have less homework during the evenings. He also said they'd reimburse my tuition. I had an appt this afternoon at the community college to see what they had to say about a timeline. I missed it but can go in a few minutes during their walk in time.

All this to say I wasn't even sure i wanted to work yet and now I might have a new job AND I'll be going back to school. Guess we'll see what happens.

interview

So, I've got an interview tomorrow and somehow I'm not all that sure how i feel about it. Friday I looked on the state funeral director's website to see what i need to do about my intern license. It expired on my bday in December, but since I'm not working I don't have a director to be signed up as my mentor. Well, I clicked the employment link and a funeral home right here in my city had an opening. I right away grabbed the phone and thought if Kiki answered I'd talk to her, anyone else and I'd just hang up and not worry about it. Well, Kiki answered. She used to have my last job before me and she's the reason I went into the industry, well she's not the reason, but she encouraged me. I've thought before when I've talked to her that she thought I should stay as an office manager and not be a director. So it was a little hard to blurt out, I saw you guys are hiring for a fd, but I did it. She was very excited to hear from me and she right away gave me the cell number for the manager who'd taken a day off. She said their home has switched to central prep, so I wouldn't have to worry about learning to embalm. whew! Central prep is the way a lot of corporate owned funeral homes work. Bodies are taken to a central location where embalming, dressing, and casketing are performed. Then they go back to their own funeral home for services. It was a concern for me, as I've realized I really have no interest in embalming, but then how can you really be a funeral director if you don't deal much with dead folk. Hmm. Anyway, the manager, I'll call him Denny, goes to my church. I've seen him there and also he's come to my old work a couple times before to chat. So I felt only a little uncomfortable to call him at home. I hurried and called before chickening out and he was also very glad to hear from me. He told me he'd have to rethink his whole strategy and would love to talk with me more on Monday when he's back in the office. We chatted a couple minutes and I hung up with my head swimming. When Steve got home from work, I no longer felt so guilty about sleeping till 10am, since I'd gotten such a positive vib from both Kiki and Denny. Crazily, I feel a little like I'm not quite ready to go back to work though. Steve has been amazing in the past couple years and I don't wanna push my luck, but I also kinda like being at home. Let's see, quit a well paying job with tons of benefits and stock options; stay at home and remodel for almost a year; take a low paying job with no benefits in a funeral home of all places; quit again so that I can travel around with him for a couple months; now when it looks like another job may come my way poor Steve has to listen to me whine about "maybe I'm not ready to work again". Yes, I DO know how good I've got it. I'm not saying I think I'm a shoe-in for this job, I wouldn't be that arrogant, but I wasn't prepared for how happy they both were to hear from me. Denny called me this morning and asked me to come in for an interview tomorrow. He said he's heard nothing but great things about my work and he'd love to talk with me more. I figured that Friday he'd be calling directors I worked with to see what they thought of me and it sounds like I was right. So, I guess it's a good thing I bought that new suit Saturday. Gray wool, lined of course. It looks pretty good on me, if I say so myself. I sure hope I can remember the dry clean only part though! Anyway. I'll go in tomorrow and see what they have to say. Wouldn't it be awesome if later in the week they were to offer me a position that's Tuesday thru Thursday? I'd take it for sure! :)

Job Hunt

Today the official job hunt begins. Well, I updated my resume and that's about as far as I've gotten. Does that count? I know which funeral home I want to work in next, I just don't know if they want to hire me! Guess maybe next week I'll have to tell them they do, no huge hurry...

I feel as though I don't have much of a purpose lately except to be a "lady of leisure", whatever the heck that is. Two solid months of traveling with Steve have left me fat and happy, but now I need to do something about the fat part! Maybe it's the turning of the new year and maybe it's the beginning of letting go of Corey but today I am ready to start fresh. Well, again, not in a huge hurry...

This year I'd like to get a new job, begin to run again, learn Italian, well conversationally at least, and remodel my kitchen. The kitchen will probably not get done because of Italy in September and that will probably take the budget, well part of it, enough to slow it down. Right now I better finish with my resume. Well, right after i read some blogs...

Corey

I fear I am losing my mind. Corey is dead and has been since November 1st and I seem to still be moving through a fog. I feel like a murderer and I am haunted by his small face, his eyes looking into mine. He was my 8 lb poodle and I put him to sleep. That sounds so noble, like i did him some huge favor. Like the end result isn't still the same. He is dead and I am not.

I tell my grandson that Uncle's in heaven now. "Did God take Uncle Corey?" "yes", i whisper. "Then I don't like God. You tell me where heaven is and I'll go get him back!" I try to explain that Corey died and then God took him. It's lost on his not quite four year old mind. "

This is my first Christmas without Corey in twelve years. He was a pound puppy when I got him, well not a puppy but at least five years old. I just had my first birthday without him. He won't have another birthday.

I can see it in the eyes of those around me. Okay, enough now. But I am driven to tears at the drop of hat. I will take his toys out of the living room today. Family starts arriving for the holiday and even I recognize that it's time to move them, if only for the extra space which will soon be devoured by presents. Presents. Bah.

We are looking for more lights for the tree in a Christmas box, digging through the closet under the stairs. Steve tells me to look away. I have no idea what he's talking about and wonder how he's secreted away a gift for me amongst lights and ornaments and angels. There is no gift. I see that what he is trying to shield from my eyes is Corey's elf outfit. And I know that Steve can not bear to see me cry again. It's not as though I sit around crying. But it's not as though I am present in our lives either. I am stuck in between and unsure of how to get back. I've been traveling with Steve since I quit working and everytime we come home, it's fresh and new all over again. Corey is not here to greet me. Corey did not fly along with me. Corey is not.

It's Christmas and there should be cheer. I am raging inside. The last two days I am the woman I despise. Ugly, snapping, belittling Steve, barking orders at him, barking, ha, barking. I just want my effing dog back. I am compelled to go into the back yard, move the little pile of stones, and dig him up. I want to hold him, please can't he lick my cheek one more time. In the first week, Steve understood and he held me and gently talked me through the need to dig him up. Now I can not tell him that the feeling is just as strong. I know what death does. I know that what is buried is no longer my dog. But I am unable to focus on that and instead he is still fluffy and soft and he remembers me like when he was young. In my mind, he is no longer the blind old dog, but a younger version of himself, when he always knew who I was. There is no senility, just his regular grumpy, psychotic self. He was crazy. Anyone who met him had no doubt of his mental capacity, but he was my friend. My secret keeper.

It's my birthday and Steve tells me to close my eyes and hold out my hands. Even though we have agreed there will be no surprise dogs, I am still anxious. Excited and revulsed that there could be a small squirming puppy heading into my arms right now. And then the weight of the book rests heavily in my outstretched hands. A sigh of relief. Another of remorse. A travel book, for Italy, next summer. I am delighted and disappointed. We have an agreement, but still for a second, I hoped and yet I feared.

I remind myself that I did not lose a child. I remind myself of the words I've rehearsed. Old, senile, arthritis, going blind, good life, long life, happy life, incontinent, pain, biting, "for his good", no more suffering. I remind myself of his age and of his physical and mental ailments. I remind myself of the families I've worked with. Of their first Christmas this year without their loved one. I remind myself of all I am blessed with, of the love in my life.

There is no need to remind myself of the friendship of Corey.

hmm....

Well, I've started this post lots of times and then find I can't continue it. The last two months have been difficult. I came to the decision that I was not being the best person I could be due to the management, in fact I was becoming a person I don't like, so Steve and I made the decision that I'd quit my job. I've been out of work for three weeks now. In January I'll start looking again and will see what comes up. There are so many things to say in this post yet I find that i still am unable to open myself up to do so. Maybe soon.

humor

one of Skip's stories

So Skip and I were talking today about the casket mix up and he told me that a couple years ago he had two Russian guys. He was embalming the second one and someone had set the clothes near the table for the first guy. Well, Skip ended up mixing the clothes, he said, "Heck, they both had long names that I couldn't pronounce." So the family came for the service the next day and said the guy looked great only they didn't know whose clothes he had on. I was laughing so hard. I can't imagine how I'd feel seeing my dead husband in someone else's clothes. I asked Skip what he did and he said, "Whaddaya think? I switched the heads!"

Then we were both laughing so hard.

It's what we say to each other alot ever since one of my girlfriends emailed me a joke about Bubba the Mortician. There's probably a website of Bubba the Mortician jokes somewhere, but i've not looked for it.

It was very good for me to have Skip to make me laugh today. I needed it.

the man's an idiot

JK (Jargon King) is stupid. Plain old stupid. I had a viewing yesterday for the father of a well-known author who lives here locally. She's also a member of my church (not that i know her, several thousand people go there at different service times, plus i probably wouldn't know her anyway, not quite the same circles we run in, although she was mostly down to earth and very nice, and she gave me two signed books). Anyway, this isn't really about her, although i was a little intimidated to be honest. It's about the viewing of her father. The family was scheduled to be there yesterday at 4:00 for the family preview, followed by extended family viewing at 5, and then public viewing at 7pm. At 1pm, JK tells me there was a little bad news. According to him, the casket company sent me the wrong size casket. I ordered a 1X and he said they sent two regular sized ones, one for me one for the Gardens. He told me how he'd measured mine and it was regular and he called the company and they told him mine had not been delivered, so he measured the one he had again and determined it to be his. So he put his tiny little old lady in it. Only to then somehow find out it was mine. I was livid. LIVID. I just looked at him. I said, "Didn't you or anyone else think to look at the family name on the delivery sheet?" "Well, uh, um, No." "Didn't you wonder why it had handles on both ends, not just the sides?" "What does that have to do with it?" Oh my word. According to what he's told me, he supposedly managed 44 funeral homes for one corporation. According to what he told our courier it was 66. So, supposedly he has a TON of funeral experience, yet somehow he doesn't know that this most common of oversized caskets, has handles on both ends. "Why didn't anyone call me?" "No disrespect intended, but we didn't think you'd know." There was no point arguing. It was done. So what was being done to fix it. Well, let me back up. At my funeral home, we don't have a very good lift system. In fact we have a horrible one. Once before I got there Skip lost a big man while using it. Then last summer, me and Szechwan and another guy lost a big lady. It was mortifying. We all three cried. Szechwan got hurt trying to catch her and the lady was fine. Last week Skip, who's all of 5'6" and 150 lbs, plus he's over 60 and just had a heart attack a few months ago, got whirled around by someone he had in the lift. The guy was in the air and Skip was pushing him to the casket, when he started to whirl and took Skip with him. He said, "It was just like a blippity blip three-ring circus" and "I thought it was in some sort of blankety-blank rodeo". (add your own expletives, you'll probably choose the right ones) Anyway he grabbed the casket and got the guy wrestled in. But he wasn't willing to take the chance with my big guy. Skip planned to use the stationary ceiling lift at the Gardens to put him into his casket, which is why my guy and his casket were over there instead of at my funeral home. And of course Skip was at my funeral home doing some embalming when JK decided to help out.

A long and angry story short. Tiny lady in my 1x casket. My guy is dressed with no place to go. The casket company saved the day and five guys built me a new one, delivered it to the Gardens AND stayed to help Skip put my guy in it. Then he (Casket Company Guy) helped Skip get the casket in the van so he could drive it over to me, all by 4pm. How amazing is that. Except. JK had already made me call the family to tell them viewing would have to be an hour later, "because the casket company had delivered the wrong casket". I didn't know what else to tell them, so i lied like he told me to. Then i hung up the phone and cried. And cried. I am so overwhelmed with work right now and then a huge screw up like this. I was so frustrated. The family was mad.

When it all worked out and the casket company saved the day, JK called me and told me to call the family back and tell them they could still come at 4. I refused. They'd already rescheduled what they needed and I thought it would be much less professional to call them back and say never mind. I'd already done as much damage control as possible and didn't want to give them any reason to question the situation more.

The viewing was great, it really turned into more of a service kind of thing. Great music, lots of sharing. The real service was today at a church and JK came to my home when it was time for the family to come over for a last viewing before closing the casket for good. He wanted to apologize to the family for the casket company's mix up. What???? I forbade him from speaking to them about it. There was no point in drawing it to their attention any more. They were pleased with how he looked, the chapel was full of flowers and their viewing was a wonderful time of great stories, there was no reason to remind them that we'd messed up. I tried not to let JK be alone with any of them.

The best part of it all is that the Casket Guy called me this morning to verify that i wasn't angry with them because he doesn't want to lose my business. He said JK gave him back the extra one (the real one that the old lady belonged in) and that they'd measured it at their warehouse, and it definitely was the narrow or regular-sized one. He said aloud what I knew. JK messed up and put the lady in the wrong one and then started trying to blame everyone else. I thanked him profusely for saving the day and told him how happy the family was even if they saw him later. He and his crew totally saved us on this one. It was reassuring to know that everyone involved knew what really happened. It all would have been much easier to stomach had the idiot just admitted it rather than blaming others. Even today he started in with it again. He's an idiot and somehow i still gotta figure out how to treat him with respect for the position he holds even though I do not respect him. This is a lesson I keep getting in life. Mostly because I've worked for a bunch of idiots, I guess.

long week

I'm exhausted. Completely. At least today I only got one more new call. I'm floating ten calls right now and I feel like a juggler. The new manager, Jargon King, calls me from The Gardens every morning and puts me on speaker phone for their morning meeting and asks how they can help me today. I've said no thanks because the last person who came to help had no idea what to do and it took longer to teach her how to use the typewriter and the copy machine than it was worth, until yesterday when I asked for someone to come over and do a preneed arrangement for me. That idiot had no idea what to do. He stammered and stuttered and said, "Uh, we have four services today and we don't have anyone to help you." I wanted to ask, "why then are you wasting my time, i'm too far behind to participate in the pretense that you're supporting me." The Boss's daughter piped up that maybe her older sister could come over and help. JK then spewed some crap like, "oh, now there's an idea, I didn't realize we could utilize her knowledge in this way. Noelle, I'll see what I need to do in order to facilitate making this happen for you. I'll get you the support you need to be successful today and we'll be in touch to fill you in on a timeframe." All i could think of was, "ok". Gone was my own silver tongue. IDIOT (spoken aloud in true Napoleon-ese after hanging up the phone ).

Ok, here's a few of my families.
1. Dad, 80s, natural causes. Daughter, 40s, caretaker for him and for Mom, who has dementia. Dtr brought Mom to arrangement conference. Dtr has the biggest circles under her eyes, she's exhausted, and she cries, for what i think is probably the first time. She's given up her own life to care for her parents who aren't wealthy people and she has no idea how she'll pay for a 650 dollar cremation. I am deeply saddened when she pushes Mom's wheelchair out to the car.
2. Wife, 58, liver cancer. Diagnosis to death = 6 weeks. Husband, devasted. Four children early 20s to early 30s. Two grandchildren who'll never get to know her. They're all in shock. Her daughter and I have swapped emails about the folders. Her last one was signed "love, X". I cried to see it. She's so vulnerable right now that she absentmindedly included me in her circle of trusted ones. She and her dad, Husband of deceased, came in this afternoon to make sure the CD she'd burned would work in our sound system. It did. I think she just wanted to come in to sit in our chapel for a few moments. Husband said she was a little upset with him cuz he'd had a drink before coming in there. I chuckled and said I often want to have a drink before coming in.
3. Boy, 12, brain cancer. He came to us from the same social worker as the Stripper's son some months ago. Born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Ward of the courts. Passed from home to home all of his life until 3 years ago when he got to go to Guardian's home where he became a part of a real family for the first time ever. Guardian and Social Worker made the arrangements together. The three of us cried alot and I didn't even know the Boy. They're having a memorial service this weekend at a local high school cafeteria where there'll be corndogs, hot dogs, cookies, and fun stuff that a 12 year old boy loved. No vegetables and no fruit because he wouldn't have eaten it. How fun.
4. Husband, 60s, blew off head in front of wife. Held gun to her head first and said he should kill her because then there'd be no way for him to chicken out and not kill himself. After terrifying her he pulled the gun back to himself. Asshole. She's so angry. And confused. And sad. There is nothing more selfish than to take one's own life. They just bought a new truck and a fifth wheel and were planning their retirement. I am trying not to judge him too harshly because i don't think that suicide should cancel out the entirety of a life. It's an act of desperation and I do understand feeling that way. Maybe it's why it's so draining to me. I've felt that desperate before, I get where he was coming from. But I chose to think of those around me whereas he chose to wallow in himself. That's the part I don't understand, making the decision to ignore the pain of family and friends left behind and making the decision to take the most selfish path there is. I just don't get it.

I long for 95 year olds who die peacefully in the night. I'm a little tired.

meme (i don't know how to pronounce that)

Tag, I'm It
Patience tagged me and since I'm worrried about the cost of her therapy should I ignore her, I decided to play along. No fancy fonts or colors or anything but questions and answers.

1. Are you happy/ satisfied with your blog, with its content and look?
Yes. It's plain, but it's functional. Content has been a bit lean of late though.

2. Does your family know about your blog? Only my husband

3. Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog or you just consider it as a private thing? No. I'm not embarrassed, but i've also not shared it with some people.

4. Do blogs cause positive changes in your thoughts? Maybe i'm a little too dense or perhaps a little too shallow because i read blogs for entertainment, not so much for changes in my philosophy.

5. Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or you love to go and discover more by yourself? Commenters and my own exploring. Although i've not really been able to come across any subject i've been looking for. I just land on random blogs.

6. What does visitors counter mean to you? Do you care about putting it in your blog? it's kind of weird to see that the count goes any higher than the number of times i look at my own blog in order to click the links on it.

7. Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures? no. Well, they're all thin and beautiful and absolute fashionistas (am i using that word in the right context?)

8. Do you think there is a real benefit for blogging? it helps me clear my mind sometimes and entertains me other times.

9. Do you think that bloggers’ society is isolated from the real world or interacts with events? isolated.

10. Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing? I've not been criticized in my blog nor would i care if someone who didn't know me in real life said anything critical.

11. Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them? There are political blogs?

12. Did you get shocked by the arrest of some bloggers? didn't know about it.

13. Did you think about what will happen to your blog after you die? Not until reading this question. I think it would be appropriate for my husband to write the last blog, which could tell all about my funeral. tee-hee.

14. What do you like to hear? What’s the song you might like to put a link to, in your blog? I would not like to hear music. I would leave the blog without bothering to read.

1. Name the person, with link, who tagged you. Patience
2. Complete the questionnaire without changing the questions. Ok
3. Tag people. No

Catalogs I get in the mail