Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
My grandmother died last night. This wasn't a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she's been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn't perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I'm going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn't.
I think it's interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don't know that I'll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I've felt a tension in my gut. Now that she's passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying... so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it's the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I'm so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don't have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
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Heh, wowwwwww this arc is a huge piece of deja vu for me. Been where Terence is, been where the others are too. This rarely works out well unless someone snaps out of the “Things used to work fine, why you no do them fine go do things!” mindset and takes the extra time to get the new person really read in. Too many years of having people you can just tell to go get stuffs done without much explication tends to make many a mighty edifice sway in the wind when you don’t have those people to lean on anymore. Question is, do people realize this and take corrective action, or shout at the new folks while the house burns. If this was an entirely realistic con portrayal – I’d suspect option B honestly. Seeing as how this is a comic, and people sometimes try to act like sensible humans I’m going to vote A.
Actually I’ve been where they are and one of the things every new staffer needs to learn is to ask for help, as almost noone will think about that possibility. Of course, a real concom will not give a newcommer a hugely important impossible task to see how they’d handle it, but people with potential will get tasks that are out of their scope or comfort zone, just to see how good are they at handling them and if they actually get the thought of asking for help. A team needs to work like a team in the way that every member should be comfortable enough to ask for help and not just become abrasive and hostile.