Tag: death

Saturday’s Theme Music

Sunshine! Blue skies. Been wondering when they’d come a-calling again. Beginning to think blue skies and sunshine were ghosting me. I thought we were getting on well but then suddenly, nothing. Honesty, this weather is so fickle.

Back home in the manse. Cats thrilled to see us, demanding that we show how much we missed them. Attention and affection. Treats and food. More attention and affection. More. More.

It’s 54 F outside and feels like a pastoral spring day under development. 6:17 AM saw the sun step into Ashlandia. It’ll be here until 8:01. Weather debates offer us a range of high temps from 67 F to 71 F possible. I’ll take the higher one, thanks.

Came back to news of a death, cousin’s wife. Cousin died two years ago, cancer. Few years younger than me. Nobody has details about her death. Just catching up on more general news, mostly political, and Alphabet’s CEO’s pay of $200M per, local news. Been off the grid basically.

Songwise, Der Neurons plugged “My Generation” by The Who from 1965. I was nine when it was released but I became an enduring Who fan. That line, “People try to put us down,” is pretty apt. We’re boomers and oh how some of the youngsters are pissed with us. Speaks huge tomes about generational attitudes toward one another, doesn’t it? We were being put down as teenagers and put down as oldagers. Well, screw ’em, we say, but with more words. Of course, the most famous line out of the song is, “I hope I die before I get old.” Talkin’ ’bout our cynicism. Let’s not all just f-f-f-fade away.

Stay strong and positive. Hope the sunrise favors you with a satisfying day on each and every one. Here’s the music. Half my coffee is already gone. Good stuff.

Cheers

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Keep Dancing

An acquaintance died. Over eighty, he lived a solid life. He’d been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer not too long ago. He and his wife were getting ready to go for a walk. She said something to him, behind her, as she put her shoes on.

He didn’t answer.

She looked around and found him dead.

She’d prepared herself. Still, a shock that it was so sudden, without preamble. She has kept on with all her usual activities. I learned of his death through my wife. She went to exercise class and heard the news. When she saw the widow, she hugged her.

The woman asked, “What else can I do?”

My wife replied, “Keep dancing.”

“Exactly.”

Smiles, hugs, and tears went on.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Some journeys take you exactly where you know you’re going. You know exactly what to expect when you arrive. Other journeys are just a stopover in the larger picture.

But some journeys are mystical. You don’t know if it’s the final stop or the start of a full new journey. All you can do is wonder.

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Words Wait

A friend has gone into hospice. Failing heart. Surgery to replace his pacemaker was aborted a few months ago. Measures were made to help him sufficiently recover for a new pacemaker. Whatever happened since, he’s in hospice.

I thought about him and me, and him and his life, trying to find words for where we’re at. I finally decided, I was happy to know him, enjoyed his company, admired his accomplishments, respected his principles, and enjoyed his company. The words feel empty and lost, as satisfying as reaching into an empty bag.

It’s the nature of existence as we know it to live and then die. Sometimes the space between the beginning and end are cruelly small. His was not. He’s done the first. Now he will do the second.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Time to start the day and get underway. We’re at the port of Friday, January 20, 2023. Next destination: Friday evening. We’ll get there after the sun sets on Ashlandia, 5:10 PM.

“Ashlandia, where time is never the same.”

Sunrise at 7:36 AM found Ashlandia frost bound beneath full blue skies. Snow and ice still cap higher mountains and ridges, a winter photo delight against that blue. 25 degrees F says the local weather station while prognosticators tell us that a 48 degree F high is expected. That’s a little cold for Ashlandia’s winters. We usually see the thermo squeaking down to 30 before braking to a full stop, but we’ll live. We’ll complain, but we’ll live. Well, some, such as me, complain, but others just march along with it. The shelters are open for whoever needs them, and hot meals are being provided gratis in several locations. Crews have remained busy removing fallen trees from the month’s earlier windstorms. A drive around yesterday showed all were gone. No houses or buildings experienced major damage, so we’re thankful for that.

My wife remains in bed, affected by her RA and Raynaud’s. One of her fingers looks ghastly, white and waxen. She says it’s painful and stiff but doesn’t complain. She was planning to make me a cherry pie yesterday but I nixed that. We just had sugar pie instead. She skipped her exercise class this morning, which is never a good omen.

Mom’s list of issues continuous a daunting trend of increasing. Little seems to improve for her and pain shadows every decision and conversation. She soldiers on, a tough old broad, as she likes to self-reference, but she seems so tired from the constant fight to live.

With all the dreams I had last night, The Neurons packed the morning mental music stream with songs on dreaming. I ignored them. We lost David Crosby this week, another talented musician who brightened my life. The Byrds were on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1965, which was my childhood, playing “Mr Tambourine Man”. I was nine then. Though a little too mellow for my budding rock and roll tendencies, I admired their style and harmony and their songs stayed comfortably lodged in my mind. Formation of CSN and then CSN&Y was a positive addition to the folk-rock scene, where their harmonies and smart lyrics adjusted my budding teenage attitudes.

Got my coffee. French roast, which is my usual. Unsweetened and untouched by milk or cream, it offers a sharply bitter living on my tastebuds, with a friendly chocolatey overlay.

Stay positive. Sail on to new horizons. Here’s the music, in living color. Cheers

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‘Nother Military Dream

It was another military dream but with a marked difference. First, a friend, Jeff, who was also in the military was in the dream.

I was at some unidentified Air Force base. I was a chief master sergeant, E9, and was due to attend a conference of CMS that was due to start. (This is two ranks above my RL retired rank.) I worried about my hair, my uniform, and my shoes as attendees began arriving. But I slipped away and pressed my uniform, taking care of that, putting razor sharp creases in it. Then I stayed low until the barber opened. When I walked into the barber shop, there were two barbers and no customers, so either one could immediately cut my hair. Both knew me by name.

After getting my hair cut, I left the shop and looked down at my shoes. They were scuffed and old. I said to myself, those aren’t my shoes, and they immediately changed into highly polished new shoes.

I felt a lot better about myself. I ran into Jeff, also a CMS. He and I chatted. I ended up telling him about a cousin who died of cancer (a cancer did die of cancer in RL). We were walking around as we talked. Female military spouses were all over the place, and they kept flirting with me. The attention flattered me.

Jeff and I stayed together through the morning, sitting down and eating. Then the conference was due to start. Another CMS came up and asked if I was going, because it was getting under way. I told him that I’d left the military twice and came back twice, but now I’m done. I wasn’t going to attend. I was taking off my uniform and leaving.

I went off to find a bathroom. When I found one, I undressed and then peed and discovered that my pecker was half purple. One of the wives walked in on me. While taking a long look at my body, she apologized for entering. I replied, “I don’t mind. I’m just wondering why my penis is half purple.”

Dream end.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

The window of opportunity for Sunday 11/27/2022, has opened. By the numbers 7:15, 39 F, 49 F, 4:42. That would be AM sunrise, current temperature under an off-gray sky, today’s high, and to close the day, sunset this evening. Snow warnings are issued for later this week but we’re not expecting anything like what hit New York earlier this month. Old photographs of the digital type remind me that we’ve had snow in October and November before, always wet, heavy stuff that didn’t stick around for longer than a fruit fly’s life.

We’re celebrating another friend. We learned yesterday that she passed on Wednesday night. An artist with three sons, she was 96. I’ve only known her for sixteen years, since she was eighty, but she enthralled me with stories about growing up in Klamath, OR. Her late teens had her decide to move to San Francisco to study art. She went to school and lived the life, falling in love, marrying, moving to Sunnyvale, raising three sons while zipping around in a red Triumph sports car. There were trips to New York and Broadway plays, and then her husband’s death, and her return to Oregon. All that happened before she was fifty. I so loved talking to her and enjoyed her spirit. Her mind had slowly trickled away in its abilities, leaving her puzzled about people’s identities and what was going on, and disassembling her ability to paint and write, but she always shared a fantastic smile. Her youngest son has been taking care of her for the last ten years in her house on the hill. Art and laughter used to fill it. It had become more and more silent in the last two years.

The microwave has gone offline again. I did the usual tricks to restore but they resulted in a no-go. So, a deeper, more prolonged process of troubleshooting and repair. So, in case I thought I might have some free time, I don’t.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday, oh boy. “Give me something to believe in.” read the label on the scratched light blue Volkswagen Beetle. The Neurons immediately kicked “Something to Believe In” by Poison from 1990. It’s a soft rock ballad about losses and inequities. As relevant today as it was back in 1990, noting the TV charlatans living in mansions, driving luxury cars and scamming money from people as the homeless crises rises. Bret Michaels wrote the song and was mourning the loss of friends as he wrote it and felt it when he sang it. You should check out the words.

Stay positive and test negative. Enjoy some fresh air, sunshine, and beauty where you find it. Coffee has been consumed, and more will be consumed. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sammy

He glanced up when a women entered the coffee shop and strode with long legs to the counter. Then he caught himself from shouting and leaping out of his chair.

The woman looked just like his little sister. If his sister had not been dead for forty years — if he’d not seen her die (God, stop that thought) and hadn’t gone to her services, consoling Mom and his other sisters — he would have been sure it was Sammy, the name she chose when she was little, telling everyone, “My name is not Debby. It’s Sammy.” Asked why she’d changed her name, Sammy thrust out a hip, removed sunglasses from her nine-year-old face and replied, “Look at me. I’m not a Debby.” It was delivered with such precocious contempt.

Carmichael couldn’t stop himself from watching her. Like Sammy, this woman was stunning, brunette with thick hair and sunlight delivered highlights, long-legged, athletic in stance and motion, like she’s waiting for play to resume. All his sisters were the same, except Sharon, who seemed to be from a completely different set of genes, except she shared their grandmother’s hips, face, and neck — well, all of it as she aged, almost becoming Grandma’s spitting image. The other problem was that the woman looked as Sammy had when she’d died, so she couldn’t be Sammy. Sammy would now be sixty-two. So, that was impossible. Also, what would bring Sammy to Corvalis? Sammy wouldn’t be this far north. She wanted warm sunshine. He’d always thought she’d end up in southern California. That’s where she always declared she was going to live, and Sammy had the will to make it so.

The woman turned, strolling from the counter, sunglasses in hand, as Sammy always did. She glanced his way. He met it with a small smile and slight nod. God, the resemblance to his sister was shocking. He should take a photo, maybe explain why, then —

Her eyes widening, she walked toward him. “Carm? Oh my God, is it you?”

Carmichael sat back and held off answering for seconds. Then, “Do I know you?”

The woman stopped six feet away, sunglasses pointed to her chest, long hair held back by the other hand. “It’s me, Sammy.”

“Sammy?” Carmichael dumbly nodded. He refrained from adding, you can’t be Sammy because Sammy is dead. Didn’t seem like a polite thing to say. “Sammy…Sammy who?”

“But — I’m sorry. You — but it can’t — ” Sammy shook her head with small and precise movements. “I’m sorry, but you can’t be Carmichael.” A smile charmed him. “I thought you were my brother. You look just like him. But you can’t be.”

“Why?” Carmichael asked.

“Well, he died almost forty years ago,” Sammy replied with a small sigh. “Car accident, along with my mother and sister.”

“Sharon?”

Sammy froze for two seconds. Her brown eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? How did you know that?”

“Because my sister is Sharon. She was with us when you died.”

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