my backwards grief

Grief is a funny thing. Mom died two months ago, Dad two years and two months ago. In my day-to-day life, thoughts of them arise regularly. These memories range from the time immediately before their deaths to the farthest edge of my childhood horizons. Most times, my brain seems ever reasonable in its reaction. Almost Spock-like on the emotive scale. The same is true when Mom & Dad come up in conversation. I can easily talk about them -- about nearly every aspect of them -- without becoming sad. In fact, so many stories are happy that laughter isn't out of the question.

I've wondered if maybe my ability to grieve correctly is broken. I mean, Mom's only been gone a few weeks. Shouldn't sadness be the norm for me at this time? Why am I able to go about living my life with any modicum of cheer in my smile and sunshine in my heart? Am I doing it wrong?

My friend, Maria, is originally from Croatia. Even though she's lived in the U.S. for many years now, her family still follows Croatian custom closely. When her father died, it was expected that she would mourn for three years. Three years of wearing a black scarf. Three years of not attending any social events like weddings. Three years lamenting the loss.

My Mom had been gone three days, and I was back at my office. Three months will pass, and I'll have Christmas decorations adorning my home when I invite family and friends in for a holiday party. I can barely imagine how well I'll be three years from now.

Yet, I do have grief. And without fail, it catches me by surprise. It's when I'm just strolling along living my life, and an unexpected reminder pops up. Tonight, it was this note above - the message on the back of a photograph of my brother when he was an infant. Dad had written, "Little Gerry... He will hate us for this... ." Seeing Dad's handwriting pushed me off a cliff and into an ocean of grief. Even though what he wrote was funny! How does this make sense?

I always loved my father's handwriting. It was artistic, graceful, individual, carefree. It may as well have been a picture of his soul. I still have letters he wrote to me when I was in college and after I'd moved to Seattle. Some of them barely say anything at all. "Enclosed are photos of some of the latest bird carvings." "The grandkids are getting big." "We can't wait to see you at Christmas." But the elegant, sweeping script written with pen and ink was beautiful and unique. More importantly, he was beautiful and unique. And tonight, I miss him so painfully that I'm nearly drowning in tears.

Why this reaction? Why now? It's been more than two years? Shouldn't big sadness like this be reserved for Mom moments because she's so recently departed? Shouldn't Dad moments be more reserved reflections because I've had a couple more years to adjust to the idea that he's gone?

I don't get this grief thing.

stuck

I was just going to post a picture (no words)... something I found on Google by searching images for "stuck." This one came up, and it made me realize that the best way to get unstuck involves other people helping. Gosh, that would be nice.

fall go boom

I fell off the daily blog wagon. But hard. There are reasons. There are excuses. There is the freedom that I need not explain any of it to anyone. Suffice to say that things are changing in my life. And the daily blogging doesn't fit in the way I thought it might when I started in January. I may be back occasionally. sanguinary blue may go dark at some point. But I do not need to be obligated to an egomanical and desolate soap box anymore.

See you around. Maybe.

way behind

A little illness, a bunch of work, some house guests, and other miscellaneous chores, and you'd think I was too busy to write in my blog. My prerogative, I guess.

It's raining. Again. And windy. Again. Payback for a significant decrease in snowfall this winter?

tonight's excuse

It wasn't the sleeping cat anchoring me to the couch... it was me, sound asleep moments after Ted went to bed, and unmovable until just recently. Geesh.

trapped

My cat wouldn't let me get off of the couch tonight. I was stuck; held hostage by ten pounds of blue tortoiseshell fluff. Anchored firmly between my feet, she curled into an adorable -- yet immovable -- ball. I was her captive. Not much accomplished, other than watching "Dreamgirls" and communing with my kitty.

happiness is...

Four schmumfy kitties all sleeping within arm's reach. Three on desktop afghans, one on an afghan-topped hammock below. Truly, I am blessed.

Of course, actually getting a photograph of all four of them together proves too challenging for me. Maybe some day.

Art by Ann Mroczenski

erin go huh?

One might assume that, with a name like Kelly, I would be partying it up today. Well, I wore green to work. A short-sleeve, 5-button henley under a long-sleeve crew-neck sweater, and a purple skirt with small flowers and leaves to complement the top half of the ensemble. I helped my department write a limerick for the contest (we didn't win). I had Irish Stew for lunch. I missed my Dad (he often called himself The World's Largest Leprechaun). No beer, green or otherwise. No bacchanalia. No kooky hat. Guess I'm just no fun.

Some Irish wisdom from a friend:

May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you wherever you go.

Some old Irish wisdom I heard years ago (source unknown):

May you be in Heaven half an hour
Before the devil knows you're dead.

cheating

I admit it. There are a couple entries in the 2010 sanguinary blue that were not written on the day they were posted. I've 'fessed up. What's my punishment? Shall I write a phrase repeatedly on the blackboard?

I will not cheat on my blog again.

I will not cheat on my blog again.

I will not cheat on my blog again.

I will not cheat on my blog again.

I will not cheat on my blog again.

Yah, right.

tchaikovsky would be proud

This is my little friend, Alia. For Christmas*, we gave her a kit of unadorned wooden nutcrackers along with a paint set. Without any direction, and with amazing determination and drive, she had completed them all in less than two days. Zoom in on this picture. They have handlebar mustaches. It's all very cool.

* We celebrated Christmas with Alia's family weekend before last. Three previous attempts had to be rescheduled for various reasons. If you're wondering, yes, it's fun to have Christmas in almost-March.

wagon

I've fallen off the blog wagon. Missed a day, with no power outage for an excuse. Pathetic entry today, with no excuse of any sort. When will I really get into the daily blogging groove? Bets on the date?

Here's a funny.

yes, again

sorry

Can't do it today.

time to purge

There are 11,311 messages in my personal email box. Oh don't worry. Only 4,749 are unread. Hey, don't I get credit for at least opening 6,562 of them? Among the unopened are daily headlines from the New York Times, real estate listings, Sirius satellite radio program updates, LinkedIn connection updates, and messages I send to myself from work (recipes, reminders, topics to blog about, links to articles, etc.).

This is in contrast to my work email box, which ebbs and flows depending on a variety of factors, but rarely gets above 100 and rarely holds anything that hasn't been read within hours of arrival. The box was getting a bit big (75), but today, I managed to chip it down to 16 messages (and all of them read). It was not easy. The reason the messages were there was because something needed to be done with them.

Oftentimes, that something is a series of things (make a call, update a task, create an appointment, build a spreadsheet, create a file, you get the idea). Sometimes, it takes an hour to put away a single email.

Obviously, I don't make such time for my personal email. Probably twice a year, I plumb the depths and do some serious deleting. Time to do that again. If only I had time.

olympics

Though I didn't watch much of the Olympics (I think my total time watching opening and closing ceremonies is greater than the time spent watching actual competition), I miss the cool sport-specific logo that graced Google every day. And I admit to feeling slight regret when people talk about certain events or athletes that I didn't see at all. Interestingly, I still find my spirit buoyed by the mere existence of The Games -- even if I didn't see much of them.

remember

This is really interesting.



And it makes me think of my mother and my father for very different reasons.

i had an excuse

Someday, I'll fix my father's obituary. You see, like so many other people in the same situation, I had only a couple days to write it. And although he had been in ill health for many years, and the underlying fear of his eventual passing was always somewhere in my mind, I made no attempt to prepare for writing about his life when the time came.

And so, in my fresh grief, I struggled to celebrate him, the amazing person that he was, and all of his accomplishments. First, trying to include them all. Then trying to edit them to a reasonable length.* All while my head physically hurt from crying for 24 hours straight, getting 45 minutes of sleep, repeatedly questioning every decision I'd made in the previous 10 days, and realizing that two decades' worth of anticipation of death doesn't lessen the impact.

But I need to give this task more time, concentration, and effort in order to effectively right the wrongs I perpetrated in the original. And so for now, I simply say, it needs amendment. Amplification. And a thought process not pickled in sadness. I hope that day comes sometime soon.

* Some other day, when I'm not experiencing a moment of loss, I'll discuss the travesty that is being required to pay (a lot) for newspapers to run obituaries. I don't care how poorly your publishing business is going -- obituaries are a matter of public record. And everyone's life deserves to be acknowledged, whether or not their surviving family members have any money at all.

third time's a charm?

Nope. Another day with a pathetic blog entry. And this weekend's super busy. Not looking much better. Oh well!

quoting britney spears

Oops, I did it again. Still need to get my head around this daily blogging thing. Maybe by the end of the year, I'll be better at it. Here, watch a nice video. Actually this is the first time I've seen the video. But I really like the song.

oops

I was supposed to write something today, wasn't I? Bad me.