   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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this is why I have 2 alarm clocks to wake me up for work
My radio-alarm rings first to wake me up, and again to tell me it’s time to get off the computer and head to work. If something important is happening, I also set my phone to go off as well.
I find setting my cell phone to play long bits of increasingly harder to sleep through music. Usually the long “Climbing the Down” sequence from Watership Down, or Rascal Flatts singing “God Bless the Broken Road”. In case of seriously anticipated emergency, “Ride of the Valkyries”. 🙂
I have a Twitter bot that’s notify enabled on my phone.
It sends tweets over and over every morning until you reply to it with “Ohayo!”
It took me a little while to realize the Z’s were the alarm and not Megan snoring.
It was supposed to be Megan snoring because her alarm never went off, but now I guess it’s whatever people want it to be. 😛
I love the light through the blinds at 10:30. Actually I love that whole overhead view – a nice new perspective.