farewell, farewell
Dec. 29th, 2010 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Christmas was lovely, if stressful. Two babies and two dogs and many many people do not make for mellow environs.
To top it off, I got a call on the evening of the 22nd that my sole remaining grandparent, my maternal grandma, had gone into the hospital in severe respiratory distress.
So I changed plans and rushed around and left by noon on the 23rd, so we arrived by dinner time that night. The next day my middle sister and I went to visit Gram, who was not exactly cheerful, but coherent. We had a nice conversation, she reminisced a bit about Christmases past, expressed her disappointment that she surely wouldn't be out of the hospital in time to come see the babies on Christmas, but mentioned that she was glad it was only Christmas Eve so we weren't wasting time with her instead of opening presents, which would surely be a great deal of fun the next day.
Middle sister and I left as Mom and older sister arrived, who also had a lovely conversation with Gram, and a good one with the lung doctor who'd arrived and started asking questions I didn't know the answers to. They had a good conversation as well, and then we all went out to dinner and went home.
That was the last coherent conversation Gram had. She worsened, grew more confused, couldn't follow conversations, and finally, at 1am on the 28th, a few hours after Z and I left to come back to Buffalo, she passed away.
So, I'm really glad I snuck away early and hit the road.
I took a zillion pictures. I'd just bought myself an expensive and nifty flash, and had a blast playing with it. It could be remotely fired by my camera, which meant that there were hours of fun of putting it random places and flashing people with it. Oh my goodness. I'm going to have even more fun with that on occasions yet to come, I guarantee.
Also, 3-year-old Baby Nephew is in a contrary phase, which means that whenever he sees a camera, he whips around so his back is to it, thereby spoiling the picture and making the adult in question angry, which is GREAT fun for him. I foiled him by having an instant shutter response-- that's what makes SLRs so great, among other things-- and also by learning the trick of waiting for him to turn around and come back to repeat the game. POW, got a picture, and it was really cute because he was laughing at me, so HA, FOILED.
After a bit of this he started coming up to me and somewhat shyly asking me if I'd take his picture, whereupon he'd pose nicely. He really thought my flash diffuser was pretty keen. And when I put the flash on its stand on a tripod, he thought that was AWESOME.
Unfortunately by the time we got around to setting up a formal photoshoot, he was exhausted and overstimulated and couldn't focus on the flash or the camera or his mother or his father or my sister making stupid faces behind me. So that was somewhat abbreviated and difficult. But I did get a couple of hilarious outtakes, and several decent shots of the whole family, so that was all right.
I also got a hilarious series of Baby Sister with her husband in matching sweaters. He kept looking reasonable, and she kept making faces, and I kept missing the good bits in between the face-making while my flash was recharging. Turns out it's not any easier to get good shots of silly 25-year-olds than 3-year-olds. Especially since we did that shoot outdoors and it was 20 degrees out.
I'll be posting the photos; I did my normal winnow-out-the-bad-ones method of photo editing, but it turns out that's not sufficient-- I still had over 400 I was starting to upload to Flickr. Wait a minute, nobody needs that many. So I have to go winnow out all but the best of them, and try again-- 200 shots of a busy Christmas long weekend is reasonable, 400 is not.
I scored some sweet loot-- my Southern Brother-In-Law has taken up woodworking, and made us all cutting boards, and also made me a knife block. It's really beautiful, and has "Aunt Bridget" carved under the base of it. Aww. I'm overjoyed, as my old knife block, well Z's really, is plastic, chintzy, and contains shitty knives we never use. The only reason we even kept it around was that we have no other kitchen shears and can usually locate them if they're in it. So, I'm debating whether to donate the old one or what to do with it... Meanwhile, the new one has only my decent knives in it, and is proudly placed on my clean counter. I cleaned the kitchen before running off for Christmas, because I'd arranged for someone to stop by and feed the cat, and always am embarrassed when the kitchen's a disaster. And then I forgot to leave them the key. So, uh... It really was nice coming back to a clean kitchen, though. Which I've always known, but never have time for.
I did extremely well at asking my family for presents for Z. He scored an anti-fatigue floor mat for the kitchen near the sink, since he complains of back pain while doing dishes and cooking. (I stand 40 hrs a week, usually, so I don't notice back pain so much, but it would be nice to have sometimes. Also, it's way nicer than the grotty cotton floor mat I'd had there before.)
He got me a hip flask from Sharingmachine.com, which was emblazoned with the slogan "It's Mother-Fucking Booze Time!" Hilariously, Baby Nephew #2, 14 months old, got ahold of it and played with it for a while, and I got a picture in which it's nearly legible. Yes. In 15 years this picture will totally be sent to him and he will love it.
I also got a vintage 1971 Good Housekeeping manual on "Needlecrafts", which has thorough instructions on every aspect of the needle-based home arts. I mean, upholstery, apparel sewing, draperies, macrame, knitting, and how to set up a loom to weave your own fabric. All of it. It's fantastic, and meticulous, and as a bonus, hilariously retro. ("Make this flower-applique babydoll dress with hand-embroidered smocking!")
Z asked if we could leave Monday, so we'd have Tuesday off and at home to recover. I agreed to this, and didn't regret it, though it would've been nice to be home to help Mom with, you know, Gram's arrangements and all. Middle Sister was still there-- her plane for Colorado goes today-- so she helped, at least. I asked Mom if she was OK, and she said she was just relieved-- Gram was a college-educated woman who traveled the world and retained her fierce independence up until the last few years, and her world had shrunk to be so tiny, and had left her so frustrated and confused and nearly unrecognizable. Mom had been mourning her for years, as she lost her by increments-- her ability to drive, her ability to walk, her ability to make coherent decisions-- and to have it finally over, meaning it can't ever get any worse, is a tremendous lifting of pressure, a freeing from sorrow and pain.
So I spent yesterday doing nothing, thinking I should figure out flower arrangements and the like. But I got a voicemail from Middle Sister while I was at derby practice: A couple years back Mom and Gram sat down to figure out her funeral, while Gram was healthy and in a good frame of mind. I knew this, but what I didn't know is that Gram had planned out, and pre-paid for, everything, including flowers from us-- three arrangements, one saying Mom, one saying Grandma, and one saying Great-Grandma. So we wouldn't have to bother thinking of it or making arrangements when the time came.
That's how together the women of my family are. They don't fuck around. Gram never fucked around. Shit got done or didn't, and that was that. We're all like that, and I can't muster the energy to feel bad about it.
I am unlikely to attend the wake or funeral. The funeral is New Year's Eve. I'll make sure to ask my mother one more time whether she's sure she doesn't need me. Gram had a lot of friends-- her 90th birthday party 2 years ago was packed with people who knew her from all different walks of life-- and so it's not like if we don't come, she won't be sent off in style. But I'm the only grandchild still living within the state, so, if anyone's going to be there, it'll be me.
I have no plans for the holiday, though-- it's Z's birthday and he gets to choose what we do, and he almost invariably chooses to stay in. So maybe I'll go. We'll see-- I'd have to leave tomorrow, and beg off work.
Seeing as how it's really slow here, however, that may be possible. So we'll definitely figure that out tonight.
Being the closest, I have possession of many of Gram's effects. She was happy to see them go somewhere they'd be used. Among them is her sewing machine, an Elna Supermatic from the 50s. I have all the parts of it, and all her sewing implements.
So I figure I should probably make something for my mother and each of my sisters with it. A little wall hanging or lap quilt, perhaps? I don't know how to quilt, but it's covered in that manual I just got. I also got a rotary cutter and mat-- from Gram, as it happens, though I know it was Mom-- I saw where she'd written a list to give to Gram to tell her what "she" had bought each of us. She'd been doing Gram's Xmas shopping for years, though; that wasn't new.
I also, from my uncle, got an antique quilt. That's a separate thing to consider. Each of my sisters got a pieced cotton quilt that our great-grandmother or her mother (I don't remember; Christina Carpenter Zeh, mother of Mabel Zeh Denison, mother of Elizabeth Denison Shaver, who was my Gram-- what does that make her?) had made in the late 1800s. For some reason, Uncle Pete decided I should get the oddball one, which he'd purchased at auction years ago. It's a silk pieced crazy quilt lavishly embroidered and painted, and dated 1889, with the woman's name embroidered in a corner-- something Freedman, I have to look again. Mine's in slightly rough shape-- the cotton ones are washable and still in usable condition, but mine has parts where the fabric is deteriorated. I don't even think I could get it dry cleaned. I have to figure out how to restore/conserve it, or at least how not to damage it further.
It's beautiful, though. I've got to take it to Z's aunt, who is an avid quilter. She'll know what to do.
Now I'm filled with a sense of purpose etc. and want to get going on all the things I was putting off until after the insanity of the holidays. But I'm stuck at work, where nothing is happening. It's great-- I have a ton to catch up on, and could do so, now. I just have to get motivated and not succumb to boredom.
To top it off, I got a call on the evening of the 22nd that my sole remaining grandparent, my maternal grandma, had gone into the hospital in severe respiratory distress.
So I changed plans and rushed around and left by noon on the 23rd, so we arrived by dinner time that night. The next day my middle sister and I went to visit Gram, who was not exactly cheerful, but coherent. We had a nice conversation, she reminisced a bit about Christmases past, expressed her disappointment that she surely wouldn't be out of the hospital in time to come see the babies on Christmas, but mentioned that she was glad it was only Christmas Eve so we weren't wasting time with her instead of opening presents, which would surely be a great deal of fun the next day.
Middle sister and I left as Mom and older sister arrived, who also had a lovely conversation with Gram, and a good one with the lung doctor who'd arrived and started asking questions I didn't know the answers to. They had a good conversation as well, and then we all went out to dinner and went home.
That was the last coherent conversation Gram had. She worsened, grew more confused, couldn't follow conversations, and finally, at 1am on the 28th, a few hours after Z and I left to come back to Buffalo, she passed away.
So, I'm really glad I snuck away early and hit the road.
I took a zillion pictures. I'd just bought myself an expensive and nifty flash, and had a blast playing with it. It could be remotely fired by my camera, which meant that there were hours of fun of putting it random places and flashing people with it. Oh my goodness. I'm going to have even more fun with that on occasions yet to come, I guarantee.
Also, 3-year-old Baby Nephew is in a contrary phase, which means that whenever he sees a camera, he whips around so his back is to it, thereby spoiling the picture and making the adult in question angry, which is GREAT fun for him. I foiled him by having an instant shutter response-- that's what makes SLRs so great, among other things-- and also by learning the trick of waiting for him to turn around and come back to repeat the game. POW, got a picture, and it was really cute because he was laughing at me, so HA, FOILED.
After a bit of this he started coming up to me and somewhat shyly asking me if I'd take his picture, whereupon he'd pose nicely. He really thought my flash diffuser was pretty keen. And when I put the flash on its stand on a tripod, he thought that was AWESOME.
Unfortunately by the time we got around to setting up a formal photoshoot, he was exhausted and overstimulated and couldn't focus on the flash or the camera or his mother or his father or my sister making stupid faces behind me. So that was somewhat abbreviated and difficult. But I did get a couple of hilarious outtakes, and several decent shots of the whole family, so that was all right.
I also got a hilarious series of Baby Sister with her husband in matching sweaters. He kept looking reasonable, and she kept making faces, and I kept missing the good bits in between the face-making while my flash was recharging. Turns out it's not any easier to get good shots of silly 25-year-olds than 3-year-olds. Especially since we did that shoot outdoors and it was 20 degrees out.
I'll be posting the photos; I did my normal winnow-out-the-bad-ones method of photo editing, but it turns out that's not sufficient-- I still had over 400 I was starting to upload to Flickr. Wait a minute, nobody needs that many. So I have to go winnow out all but the best of them, and try again-- 200 shots of a busy Christmas long weekend is reasonable, 400 is not.
I scored some sweet loot-- my Southern Brother-In-Law has taken up woodworking, and made us all cutting boards, and also made me a knife block. It's really beautiful, and has "Aunt Bridget" carved under the base of it. Aww. I'm overjoyed, as my old knife block, well Z's really, is plastic, chintzy, and contains shitty knives we never use. The only reason we even kept it around was that we have no other kitchen shears and can usually locate them if they're in it. So, I'm debating whether to donate the old one or what to do with it... Meanwhile, the new one has only my decent knives in it, and is proudly placed on my clean counter. I cleaned the kitchen before running off for Christmas, because I'd arranged for someone to stop by and feed the cat, and always am embarrassed when the kitchen's a disaster. And then I forgot to leave them the key. So, uh... It really was nice coming back to a clean kitchen, though. Which I've always known, but never have time for.
I did extremely well at asking my family for presents for Z. He scored an anti-fatigue floor mat for the kitchen near the sink, since he complains of back pain while doing dishes and cooking. (I stand 40 hrs a week, usually, so I don't notice back pain so much, but it would be nice to have sometimes. Also, it's way nicer than the grotty cotton floor mat I'd had there before.)
He got me a hip flask from Sharingmachine.com, which was emblazoned with the slogan "It's Mother-Fucking Booze Time!" Hilariously, Baby Nephew #2, 14 months old, got ahold of it and played with it for a while, and I got a picture in which it's nearly legible. Yes. In 15 years this picture will totally be sent to him and he will love it.
I also got a vintage 1971 Good Housekeeping manual on "Needlecrafts", which has thorough instructions on every aspect of the needle-based home arts. I mean, upholstery, apparel sewing, draperies, macrame, knitting, and how to set up a loom to weave your own fabric. All of it. It's fantastic, and meticulous, and as a bonus, hilariously retro. ("Make this flower-applique babydoll dress with hand-embroidered smocking!")
Z asked if we could leave Monday, so we'd have Tuesday off and at home to recover. I agreed to this, and didn't regret it, though it would've been nice to be home to help Mom with, you know, Gram's arrangements and all. Middle Sister was still there-- her plane for Colorado goes today-- so she helped, at least. I asked Mom if she was OK, and she said she was just relieved-- Gram was a college-educated woman who traveled the world and retained her fierce independence up until the last few years, and her world had shrunk to be so tiny, and had left her so frustrated and confused and nearly unrecognizable. Mom had been mourning her for years, as she lost her by increments-- her ability to drive, her ability to walk, her ability to make coherent decisions-- and to have it finally over, meaning it can't ever get any worse, is a tremendous lifting of pressure, a freeing from sorrow and pain.
So I spent yesterday doing nothing, thinking I should figure out flower arrangements and the like. But I got a voicemail from Middle Sister while I was at derby practice: A couple years back Mom and Gram sat down to figure out her funeral, while Gram was healthy and in a good frame of mind. I knew this, but what I didn't know is that Gram had planned out, and pre-paid for, everything, including flowers from us-- three arrangements, one saying Mom, one saying Grandma, and one saying Great-Grandma. So we wouldn't have to bother thinking of it or making arrangements when the time came.
That's how together the women of my family are. They don't fuck around. Gram never fucked around. Shit got done or didn't, and that was that. We're all like that, and I can't muster the energy to feel bad about it.
I am unlikely to attend the wake or funeral. The funeral is New Year's Eve. I'll make sure to ask my mother one more time whether she's sure she doesn't need me. Gram had a lot of friends-- her 90th birthday party 2 years ago was packed with people who knew her from all different walks of life-- and so it's not like if we don't come, she won't be sent off in style. But I'm the only grandchild still living within the state, so, if anyone's going to be there, it'll be me.
I have no plans for the holiday, though-- it's Z's birthday and he gets to choose what we do, and he almost invariably chooses to stay in. So maybe I'll go. We'll see-- I'd have to leave tomorrow, and beg off work.
Seeing as how it's really slow here, however, that may be possible. So we'll definitely figure that out tonight.
Being the closest, I have possession of many of Gram's effects. She was happy to see them go somewhere they'd be used. Among them is her sewing machine, an Elna Supermatic from the 50s. I have all the parts of it, and all her sewing implements.
So I figure I should probably make something for my mother and each of my sisters with it. A little wall hanging or lap quilt, perhaps? I don't know how to quilt, but it's covered in that manual I just got. I also got a rotary cutter and mat-- from Gram, as it happens, though I know it was Mom-- I saw where she'd written a list to give to Gram to tell her what "she" had bought each of us. She'd been doing Gram's Xmas shopping for years, though; that wasn't new.
I also, from my uncle, got an antique quilt. That's a separate thing to consider. Each of my sisters got a pieced cotton quilt that our great-grandmother or her mother (I don't remember; Christina Carpenter Zeh, mother of Mabel Zeh Denison, mother of Elizabeth Denison Shaver, who was my Gram-- what does that make her?) had made in the late 1800s. For some reason, Uncle Pete decided I should get the oddball one, which he'd purchased at auction years ago. It's a silk pieced crazy quilt lavishly embroidered and painted, and dated 1889, with the woman's name embroidered in a corner-- something Freedman, I have to look again. Mine's in slightly rough shape-- the cotton ones are washable and still in usable condition, but mine has parts where the fabric is deteriorated. I don't even think I could get it dry cleaned. I have to figure out how to restore/conserve it, or at least how not to damage it further.
It's beautiful, though. I've got to take it to Z's aunt, who is an avid quilter. She'll know what to do.
Now I'm filled with a sense of purpose etc. and want to get going on all the things I was putting off until after the insanity of the holidays. But I'm stuck at work, where nothing is happening. It's great-- I have a ton to catch up on, and could do so, now. I just have to get motivated and not succumb to boredom.
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Date: 2010-12-29 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-29 06:39 pm (UTC)She sounds like she was an impressive person!
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Date: 2010-12-29 07:15 pm (UTC)I am totally going to be like her.
Your family is made up of amazing people.