levertovfan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
levertovfan) wrote2006-02-22 10:40 am
levertovfan) wrote2006-02-22 10:40 am
Condolences and my trip to Miami
My condolences to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jissa, gardenprophet, tudhalias, coraythan, and everyone else affected by Lily’s death. I can’t imagine how my college career would have changed if I had suffered the number of tragedies in my group of friends as your group of friends has suffered.
I was in Miami from Saturday morning through yesterday morning. When you are spending time with elderly relatives, and with in-laws who dislike their parents-in law just as much as their parents-in-law dislike them, time seems to roll by very slowly. Still, boredom is better than the alternative. There was the possibility that various decisions or actions that I’ve been making recently would come to the attention of my relatives and result in me getting various earfuls, but everyone was sufficiently distracted by my grandfather’s dementia, my grandmother slowing down, and my cousin’s ever so adorable children, two year old Brandon and newborn Sophie Mia, that I thankfully escaped their attention.
My grandfather, who turns 91 tomorrow, has been deteriorating physically for the past forty years but has always maintained a very active mind. In the past few years, there have been gaps in his long-term memory, but now his short-term memory seems to have more or less deserted him. He’s fallen a few times, and not only can he not get himself up when he falls, but he weighs so much that it takes a whole brigade of strong people to right him. Given that he and grandma still live in the same house that they moved into when my father was 3, and that grandma is his only caretaker, this is a serious problem, and might mean we have to put him in an institution, which would probably kill him.
We had occasion to see this in action. He fell off his bed when we were there. My father and grandmother, then my father, grandmother, and Uncle Bob, tried to right him and ultimately they had to call 911. It took four people to reach under him, bodily lift him up, and return him to a sitting position. This isn’t a sustainable situation.
I’m not precisely certain that I’m close to my grandma and grandpa, because so much that is in my life (lack of Judaism, lack of concern with doing the things girls and women are supposed to do) upsets them and so I don’t tell them about it, but I do love my grandma and grandpa very much. They tell me about their lives, and care very much about their whole family. They took care of me after my brother passed away. It’s really sad to see them this way, although of course not unexpected. I’m guessing that grandpa is going to die pretty soon. My other grandfather was also 91 when he passed away last year.
One of the high points of my trip was the opportunity to spend some more time with my father (after a break of five days). He’s extremely excited about his new book and talks of almost nothing else. He is self-publishing it. I did some editing and giving comments, but now I’ve been enlisted to learn In Design—which I’ve wanted to do anyway for professional growth reasons--and dump his book into it, at the princely sum of $12/hr. So, I will have employment of sorts once the copy of In Design arrives. wanders away singing “Oh, nepotism!” to the tune of a song I know called, fittingly, “Oh, progeny!”
jissa, gardenprophet, tudhalias, coraythan, and everyone else affected by Lily’s death. I can’t imagine how my college career would have changed if I had suffered the number of tragedies in my group of friends as your group of friends has suffered.I was in Miami from Saturday morning through yesterday morning. When you are spending time with elderly relatives, and with in-laws who dislike their parents-in law just as much as their parents-in-law dislike them, time seems to roll by very slowly. Still, boredom is better than the alternative. There was the possibility that various decisions or actions that I’ve been making recently would come to the attention of my relatives and result in me getting various earfuls, but everyone was sufficiently distracted by my grandfather’s dementia, my grandmother slowing down, and my cousin’s ever so adorable children, two year old Brandon and newborn Sophie Mia, that I thankfully escaped their attention.
My grandfather, who turns 91 tomorrow, has been deteriorating physically for the past forty years but has always maintained a very active mind. In the past few years, there have been gaps in his long-term memory, but now his short-term memory seems to have more or less deserted him. He’s fallen a few times, and not only can he not get himself up when he falls, but he weighs so much that it takes a whole brigade of strong people to right him. Given that he and grandma still live in the same house that they moved into when my father was 3, and that grandma is his only caretaker, this is a serious problem, and might mean we have to put him in an institution, which would probably kill him.
We had occasion to see this in action. He fell off his bed when we were there. My father and grandmother, then my father, grandmother, and Uncle Bob, tried to right him and ultimately they had to call 911. It took four people to reach under him, bodily lift him up, and return him to a sitting position. This isn’t a sustainable situation.
I’m not precisely certain that I’m close to my grandma and grandpa, because so much that is in my life (lack of Judaism, lack of concern with doing the things girls and women are supposed to do) upsets them and so I don’t tell them about it, but I do love my grandma and grandpa very much. They tell me about their lives, and care very much about their whole family. They took care of me after my brother passed away. It’s really sad to see them this way, although of course not unexpected. I’m guessing that grandpa is going to die pretty soon. My other grandfather was also 91 when he passed away last year.
One of the high points of my trip was the opportunity to spend some more time with my father (after a break of five days). He’s extremely excited about his new book and talks of almost nothing else. He is self-publishing it. I did some editing and giving comments, but now I’ve been enlisted to learn In Design—which I’ve wanted to do anyway for professional growth reasons--and dump his book into it, at the princely sum of $12/hr. So, I will have employment of sorts once the copy of In Design arrives. wanders away singing “Oh, nepotism!” to the tune of a song I know called, fittingly, “Oh, progeny!”