Caterwauling

I watched the recent Barbara Walters special on “What is Heaven?” at work. (If that ain’t a paradox. …!) And it hasn’t been far from my mind ever since.

I was joking with one of my fellow editorial gods today that journalists don’t go to heaven. The establishment calls us the Fourth Estate, but I really think that’s foreshadowing of our destination: the Fourth Concentric Circle (of hell). And we debated whether or not to even capitalize it, but we know we’ll meet again there and be able to debate it for all eternity!

CALVIN AND CASH, TOGETHER ON TOUR AT LAST?

I miss my grandfather so much, and heaven is something I hope exists because I need to know that there is a reward for him for all the good he did while he was in this world. I don’t want “heaven” to be a concept someone created for heartbroken people like me, who need to cling to the hope that our loved ones can somehow live forever, even if it’s not right here with us.

But what if this is all there is? I think I may start living my life that way, if so. I don’t know that I expect my heaven to be a “reward” so much as a “reprieve” — a hiatus, if you will, between lives. (I’m a six — an old, old soul.) In my grandfather’s heaven, I hope he’s jamming with Johnny Cash and his hands don’t hurt anymore when he plays his electric guitar. I hope he’s writing songs and serenading my grandmother while he and Johnny are touring heaven and headlining all the best concert venues.

My heaven is to see my grandparents again. I don’t need much more than that. I do hope to have a glass of wine and a cigarette with Anais Nin and Henry Miller. I hope I can be a vigilante of sorts, too — I look forward to being someone’s spirit guide and sitting on their shoulder, helping them along the best course in life. I’ll have time for my friends and I’ll be able to dream to my heart’s content.

YOUR HEAVEN, MY HELL

After seeing my bully this weekend and knowing that glorious people like my grandfather are too good for this world, yet the assholes among us seem to never die, I wondered what the assholes’ idea of heaven is like. I mean, do they actually think they’re going to get in? Are they going to look God in the eye and declare that they are worthy because they’re good people? Are they fucking kidding themselves?

And what if they get in? Do they live in the Anacostia (or other bad area of town) section of heaven? Does the asshole who was rotten to me get access to me, when clearly I’ll be in a slightly better neighborhood? Is this where the idea of a caste system in heaven, as on earth, is actually a good idea?

My concept of heaven is to never, ever have to run into people whom I believe should be burning in hell. But if their idea of heaven is torturing me for all eternity because I was able to avoid them on earth, whose heaven wins out?

In the Babs special, some people seemed to convey their belief that you end up with the partner you choose, not necessarily the one you had in life. The married man might choose his mistress. So what happens to his wife who wants to be with him, or was there someone else on whom she’d had her heart set?

Would I have the balls to tell someone I loved them if we met again in heaven, if we didn’t have a chance to get that far on earth?

I read in one of Allison Dubois’ books that you look the way you want to in heaven. (Heh — it’s about time!) I picture my grandparents from 1950 when they got married. So young and bright and full of hope. She could have been a model, and he was a dashing young bachelor just back from the war and working to make a good life for them. Although they loved Mom and me more than anything in the world and I will always think of them as nurturing, I want to see them forever as carefree and happy and hopeful.

And I hope they somehow know that I’d give anything to have them back here with me, if I could have my way about it.

“This world’s gone crazy
And it’s hard to believe that tomorrow
Will be better than today.
Believe it anyway.”

— Martina McBride, “Anyway”

There’s a hole in my early mornings and/or late evenings that blogging used to fill. I looked so forward to sharing my escapades, the lessons I learned, the kindesses I received on a given day. And they don’t stop just because I’ve kicked up my feet and taken a break.

Among the hundreds of visits and dozens of communications from those kind souls who actually know how to get hold of me, I wanted to say I’m fine, theoretically. I’m tired and sad but I’m seeing little miracles coming to me, helping me to get through. I’m seeing the value of friendship in ways I never dreamed possible.

My heart has been deflated, but it’s starting to hold a little bit of happiness and anticipation again. My friends have been doing yeoman’s work in patching the holes with love, and in that, I can hold on to the hope that builds upon it.

That’s the thing with letting toxic people into your circle — they smoke out the goodness (read: the better things) that others can bring. They don’t want you to have a moment of happiness — they want to deprive you of oxygen and make you dependent upon them. And when you walk away, you wish you hadn’t wasted so much time on what little you had accepted as happiness.

“Sometimes all we can do
Is stand up tall
When they’re standing in line
Just to watch us fall.”

— Sugarland, “These are the Days”

And then when they come back to haunt you (through a shitty message pretending to be my recently deceased grandfather supposedly burning in hell because I wasn’t able to save him. Psychotic prick. Amid all your other antics like impersonation with intent to lose me another job, that was low even for you) and then threaten you, well, enough. I have to take my power back.

It was always my own power, but I had to assert it. If taking down the blog means I don’t have to see your spoofed IP addresses or those of your friends if you actually had any that you didn’t bully into being nice to you because they see what you do to those who dare to walk away, well, fuck it. I’m happy to go offline. And this comes not a moment too soon.

Bear in mind, you did not take away my blog. You didn’t discontinue my access to what has always been a happy place for me. I’ve just got better things to do right now than to give you access to my heart and my thoughts — access that I clearly denied, time and again, specifically to you, for reasons too plentiful and too embarrassing to list here.

I will continue to pray for your soul. I will hope that you don’t hurt anyone else the way you’ve tried to damage me. I will always wish that you don’t harm others or yourself any more. You were given a brilliant mind and abilities beyond what normal people can only dream of. Use them productively and make the world a better place. I have faith that one day, you will. I know you want to be loved, not feared and loathed. But only you have the power to make that happen, and I hope you do.

AND NOW, THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

On to better subjects, I have a little Christmas tree in my office, provided by “Mrs. Claus,” according to one of my boys who served as her elf, so he says. And I walked in Monday to find a pile of presents and baked goods under the little glass table on which it sits. I cried for a half-hour, as I wasn’t planning on having any Christmas and they made sure I did. A few others have followed suit, and I not only do I have the prettiest office around, but also the one with the most love.

My one dear, dear friend asked what she could do to give my mom and me some holiday joy. Which, let’s face it, is damn near impossible but it takes a real friend to want to try. And I remembered when I was unemployed two years ago with not two dimes to rub together. She handed me gas money and said I was not to spend the holiday alone — I needed to go see my family. And how was I to know that it would be one of my grandfather’s last holidays on this earth? What if I had missed it?

That’s a true friend — one who doesn’t want you to miss out on life’s special moments because it doesn’t feel right to celebrate when you’re just plain broken. That’s the last thing we need — more regrets.

I don’t want any more regrets. I need my mom’s and my safety and peace of mind to be the greatest gift of all this year. We’ve suffered enough. Hence, this is the last hurrah for this blog for now.

For those of you who are the types of normal, kind, wonderful people who have brought me so much joy at being an occupant of the blogosphere, feel free to keep in touch with me at adrasteia @ this domain.

Have a safe and happy holiday to all, even those who don’t deserve my goodwill but especially those who do. Every moment brings us closer to where we’re supposed to be, and no matter how hard things are or how much you might be hurting and praying for that year to click over to the next, you still have the capability of spreading magic to those whose hearts are heavier than yours.

You are loved, needed and wanted — someone may be standing right next to you, wishing they could reach out their arms to you and hold you close to them. Don’t waste another moment of your life immersed in situations that hurt you while letting ones that could lift your heart float by unacknowledged. Who knows what could happen if you hugged them back. …

“Well, it feels like we’re living from pay check to check
And we wake up wondering what might happen next
Yeah, sometimes it feels like we won’t make it through
But the hard times pass
Like the good ones do
Baby wrap your fingers and
Hold on tight
I’ll be right here beside you tonight
Baby climb up here
Watch the city glow
Let’s make a wish on the fireworks below
We’re making moments that we won’t forget
And feeling ones that haven’t happened yet.”

So I finally got to plowing through some of the eleventy billion blog entries I missed in my nearly two-month absence from my routine, and one day I might actually answer all the kind e-mails that so many of you floated my way during my time of loss. I’ve read them all; I just don’t know what to say other than thank you for being here for me.

I have one e-mail I need to answer, one from the boy I met the day I came back from San Francisco in October and haven’t seen since. He’s left the door open for me, when I’m ready to actually have a conversation. I’m just so afraid I might never be able to have two calm, non-drama-filled moments to rub together again.

I have loads of photos to upload from my stay in Vegas, but Mom had asked me to take photos of my grandfather at his viewing. Meaning, I can’t upload without seeing them, so I don’t touch that camera anymore. I don’t want to see him like that, although him sort-of at peace beats the torture I remember the hospital leaving him in.

From my November trip to Las Vegas, I’d brought home a special souvenir for my grandfather. But I never got to give it to him. Mom and I were actually collecting all kind of things for him, to make the house cozy and cute for his arrival back home. And now, there’s not even a house anymore — that goes away within mere weeks.

I’m trying to figure out how to move without breaking my lease. I am trying to find out if my building has any openings, as I do not want to step outside of the city (i.e., back to Virginia or, god forbid, Maryland), nor do I want to incur any additional moving fees (i.e., lease-breaking issues). I’m exhausted just thinking about the drama to come!

I made three dentists’ appointments for this week. I canceled the one where the people seemed most competent/friendly, not to mention they asked the right questions and were so very helpful. It turned out that they weren’t in my dental plan’s network, so I went with one that the worthless-in-an-emergency 1-800-Dentist found for me. I didn’t have a great feeling about it, but seriously, hitting myself in the jaw with a sledgehammer at this point would be a viable alternative to the current pain. (Hitting someone else would feel better, however, as long as I get to pick the victim!)

I realized, though, in canceling what I viewed as the better care, I am just like my grandfather. I remember him since the time I was young coming home from hospital and/or doctor’s visits to the fuckheads at the VA Hospital, chagrined and disappointed and downright disgusted by the lack of care and the fact that his issues always went unaddressed.

I had asked him many times why he went there when they didn’t treat him well. “It’s free, Punkin’,” he would say to me. He didn’t want to put the family in debt over getting “real” medical care, so he took their shoddy excuse of care without a word of complaint.

So when I feel guilt (and believe me I do) that we didn’t rescue him from the VA before they killed him, I have to remind myself that a lifetime of poor care culminated the only way it could, I guess. They fucked him up for life throughout the past half-century, they left every issue untreated and they tortured him till he finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I did end up making myself an appointment with a provider I felt good about AND who takes my insurance, so I’m at least moving in the right direction. I was actually sitting in a meeting today and absolutely fell apart with pain — I couldn’t even continue it. I tried to pop some pills but my mouth hurt too much for me to even swallow — I ended up spewing water everywhere.

(Which, BTW, a bottle filled with ice-cold water? Brilliant, I say. I have had to explain to way too many people why I have an Aquafina bottle attached to my neck, but hell, the curious stares are a small price to pay for a moment of numbness.)

I’m hoping they can just yank out my damn wisdom teeth while I’m there. I remember the last time I had wisdom teeth removed (on the other side of my mouth). The dentist literally had to crawl up on top of me and shove them out of my head.

There I was, lying upside-down with a military man pinning me down and shoving instruments into my mouth — sounds a lot like one of my better dates in recent memory. 😉 I wonder if this new one can do extractions with ME on top for a change?!?!

This venturing out into the so-called “land of the living” thing is exhausting. I almost admire the people who keep their distance from me because if you don’t know what to say, it’s best to stay silent.

Case in point: the mall. I should have known better than to go today. But I really just wanted to buy a pair of shoes, and everything’s picked-over and I know the parking lots are a no-man’s land, but I figured fuck it, I need to get out of the damn house already.

I stopped at Caribou for a break from annoying people and just a quiet moment in general. And those of you who know me know that I’m usually chatting up everyone in line and the cashiers and just trying to pass the time pleasantly. But today? It was all I could do to not throw hot coffee on anyone who pissed me off.

I ordered my stupid little coffee and as I waited for it, the woman in line behind me went on and ON about how she spent five hours wrapping gifts last night and four hours this morning, she has so many. And that she’s so exhausted and has so much more shopping to do and gawd, the money that just slips through her hands.

The three women behind her chimed in, commiserating, but she was looking right at me for a response. I don’t know why — my face is anything but friendly these days. I kept just trying to smile and not say a word, but when they all started pissing and moaning (playfully, I guess) about how the holidays are just SO hard with all the fuss, I got my drink and said, “I’m having no Christmas — I just had a death in my family.” And I kept walking.

I hate to ruin everyone’s parade. I know too many people like the way I just acted today — those who cannot possibly allow anyone to have a moment of victory or joy because WAH, nobody’s paying attention to them and their iddy biddy widdle problems. Boo fucking HOO.

It’s like, just let me feel bad for my grandfather, OK? Don’t make me pity you because you have so much money and so much family surrounding you that you just can’t take it. Wah, fuck off. You know what I’m geting this Christmas? A baseball bat to bludgeon you with.

I guess I never thought of the holidays as a burden. Sure, it was always a familial obligation, but it involved a nice dinner and maybe, if we could afford it, one or two gifts apiece. Last year my gift was a nice dinner and a good sleep in a nice house. My gift was having a bed in my own little bedroom in my family’s new house — I’d slept on the couch or rented hotel rooms for the prior decade-plus, so my grandfather was very proud to finally be able to give me a place to truly call “home.” It was the best gift ever.

So boo hoo to your fucking paper cuts, seriously. Call someone who cares — I ain’t answerin’.

Mom got something similar today. She was out running errands and someone said to her, “You look so sad, like you just lost your best friend.” She said she had, actually. And the person was stuttering and stumbling and sorry he ever spoke.

It’s by our nature that we typically help people to smooth over what they never dreamed would be a mistake to say, but it’s tiring. Some days, it’d just be nice to meet someone who exhibits some sense, for a change — someone who realizes that the world doesn’t, in fact, revolve around them and that others might just be doing their damndest to get through a day and even that’s a challenge.

While mostly everyone in my world has been a dream and a real friend, there’s always that one or two whom you wish you could just beat with a cluestick. Those are the ones in the outer periphery — the ones who could fall off the planet and never in a million years be missed. Those are the ones who are only out for their own purposes and have no concept of how bad I’m hurting — how hard I’m trying to get with the program already. I was telling my friend last night about one in particular, and my friend reminded me that I’m not going to forget who’s been good to me … and I’m not going to forget the one or two who weren’t. And she said when it’s their time of need, she hopes I will be just as cold.

I don’t think it’ll be hard — I think I’ve used up my compassion supply till 2008, at the earliest.

Not the same thing, but related, I was having a discussion with someone who told me I’m going to drive myself insane with guilt, with remorse, with anger. He said that it was my grandfather’s time to go, plain and simple. That he’d lived a good life and it was done, the end. That his number was basically up and you can’t keep God from taking him home when it’s his time.

I rallied “bullshit” and said just one week before his death, my grandfather was talking and laughing and eating and joking and planning. He was in a real hospital and his pain was controlled and he was alive and wonderful. It’s when that fuckup of a VA Hosptial took him back — ripped him from the good hosptial — that it all went to shit. They morphined him up and he slept fitfully 24/7 because he had enough drugs in him to knock him out but not enough to keep him sobbing and screaming with pain.

The death certificate said the cause was a myocardial infarction. Heart attack. The man didn’t have heart problems. I think he was in so much agony that his body gave out. I think he’d tried so hard to stay with the program but died from the torture. For Christ’s sake, we shoot animals in less pain! Where is the humanitarianism? The fucking VA gets its drugs for less than what Medicare pays — could they not spare him any good ones?

The last night I saw him, I’d asked his fuckwit of a doctor what else he could be given instead of morphine, and she said that was it. I said there are other drugs on the market — hell, demerol, even. He was sleeping with his eyes open and moaning and writhing in pain on the morphine — NOT WORKING. She said that’s it.

That same night, I approached his nursing staff to say he was in so much pain — I hated him being on the morphine (I made that clear) and asked what alternatives there might be to get him off that but get him comfortable. They looked stupefied. The one nurse, Jeff, even said that they could give him more morphine but any more drugs would push him “over to the other side.”

And hours later, one wonders if that’s what happened.

They said they found him unresponsive. Given that the staff itself is unresponsive, I wonder how long he had to lie there before anyone got a fucking clue. I can’t get the image out of my head, of him being under a sheet and them transporting him to the morgue. I can’t believe I am actually typing all of these words — that he didn’t pass over peacefully. I told that fuckhead doctor that I wanted to take him home right then, when we talked and he was still alive. I said we were willing to do anything just to get him home and let him enjoy the rest of his days, far away from them.

And maybe I’m being irrational, but one wonders if they just didn’t purposely kill him, although they sure did a hell of a job, Brownie, without trying.

So to the person who told me that it was his time, fuck you, too. Say you’re sorry to hear it, that it sucks and damn, he was a good man to have been a parent to you. And stop there. My cats get better medical care than that wonderful man was afforded.

In fact, a gal at work told me that she had a clause put into her living will that she get the same level of care that a family pet would at the end stages of life. Do whatever it takes to keep her functioning — if you’d do it for a cat or a dog, you’d best do it for her. And if that means good drugs to help her pass into that gentle good night, then hot damn, do it.

A gal at work just lost her father, and had to fly to China two days after the fact because that was the first available flight to get to him. I cannot imagine that flight. It reminded me, though, of being in the Vegas airport at 11 p.m. in the smoking lounge (shut up) and a good-looking guy about my age dressed in a suit came to ask me for a light.

He said his dad had died in Florida and he’d be arriving just in time for the services. He was dressed in case his luggage got lost — he’d be ready and not fussing. I remembered praying I wouldn’t have to make a similar ride (drive, in my case). God, that was a whirlwind, because I did. Never in my life drove 250 miles in three hours. And why, because there was no rush. All I was doing was meeting with the funeral director when I got there.

I keep hoping that some miracle will drop out of the sky, you know? I don’t know what to wish for — my only wish was to have my grandfather home from the hospital for Christmas. So, you see where my faith in wishes — and everything else — has gone.

I do, however, wish that those who are having a good holiday and don’t deserve it will enjoy it, and I hope they know they don’t deserve it and aren’t planning on their luck continuing. And for those who deserve to have a good holiday and good things in general, I hope those wonderful things come their way. I think that would be the only thing that would bring balance to this world right about now.

As for me, I need to have a chat with the Goddess to figure out why my visions led me to believe that my grandfather would come through this just fine. But like T and I were saying yesterday, Denial is great — we’re tall and skinny and cute waiters are bringing us amazing cocktails. There are no mirrors, just blue waters and white-sand beaches, in Denial.

Oh, well. I’ll get through this. Thank God I have a safe place to land, right where I am. I’m not sure where God was when my grandfather was struggling to hold on, but I have no doubt that I will be taken care of by reams of angels who, if they couldn’t do right by him, are going to make it up to me in any way they can.

And I’m going to let them.

I am thinking of bugging out of a Christmas party I’m supposed to attend tonight. You know, not being ready for happy people and all. *holds hair back, pukes*

I was thinking last night how, wow, this isn’t where I thought I’d be at 32. My career has finally caught up with my expectations, which had been my biggest ongoing struggle to date. But now, it’s time to work on the life outside of it.

I was also thinking that, wow, once I am supporting my Mom, well, there goes any chance I might have of trapping landing a man. But I hope not — she’s part of the package, just like any single parent brings a child into any new relationship. Initially she may be a dependent (hello tax credit!) but I know she doesn’t want to be a burden and once we get her established, I hope she’ll meet a sugar daddy who will take care of her. 😉 (Hey, if I’m gonna dream, do it big, right?)

The weird thing is that I’m not opposed to any of this. I want her down here. I want to help her right now, because I can. Because I always knew a day would come when all the elders (who got sick in succession — Mom’s taken care of her grandmother, mother and father without a break in-between) would be gone.

My grandmother had always told me to skip college — to get some crap job and save up for a car and wait to meet a good man. But that’s the thing. She got the best man out there. Her life worked out that way. I saw my mom date too many clowns, losers and bozos to believe in Prince Charming coming to find me.

Besides, like I said, I always knew that once everyone was gone, I’d be the one left standing. That’s why I left home at 18, to go to school and live on my own and eventually move out-of-state — to develop my own life, one that was insulated and isolated from everything. Something I could escape to, return to, take solace in.

I guess I took all the opportunities and now I can share them with someone who needs nothing more than escape and solace.

And it’s a lonely city here. Really it is. It will be nice to have someone to go to dinner with, someone to help upkeep the apartment, someone who cares that I walk this earth. Now, I need my space and am a terrible roommate because I’m happier being alone, but I’ll work on me. Maybe it’ll prepare me for something different in the future — something more what I had in mind.

That’s the thing. I had a very different picture in my head of me at 32. I guess I always had a loose plan, to get married in my early 30s, to possibly be persuaded to shit out a kid by 36 — I know medical science will allow me to be fertile well into my 60s, but I don’t want to be 110 at my kid’s high school graduation. 😉

I’m so afraid Mom and I will end up like Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest in “Practical Magic”, with people skulking up to the spinsters’ house in the middle of the night to ask us to cast spells for them. 😉 Because you know we would! (Leave your money on the nightstand. *cough*)

I was just thinking about how many times I did something locally — festivals, fairs, restaurants, whatever — and called Mom to say that the next time I had her and my granfather in town, I wanted to take them there. And now, she’ll be right here to enjoy all the things that I do. I hope she’ll like it here — I hope this is the change in life that she’s been needing, and that she takes it and runs with it and makes things happen for herself.

And maybe someday, I can hire her as my nanny and it will serve as the world’s justification for the recent miserable, fucked-up series of events that led us to this place in our lives.

And in that, I can start looking forward to the next phase of this journey. …

I guess this is the point where you have to stop hurting (or, at least, disguise it enough that you seem like you’re functioning at capacity again). You were there through the illness, you left for bereavement, you’ve been back physically if not mentally. So when do you just wake up and return to your old self?

Or can you?

Not being able to save my grandfather from the half-wits at the VA Hospital has wrecked me for life. That I didn’t take him out of there, or just elsewhere, will weigh on me every day till the end of time. And I know, I exhaust myself with arguments to the contrary. That, why was it my responsibility to do so, why did I have so little faith in the system, why am I not allowing myself to move on?

Why can I not just focus on the mounting pile of urgent tasks in front of me instead of staring at the wall and wondering what, if anything, I can do to make things right?

In a weird way, I’m starting to be a tiny, itty bitty bit OK, and I don’t like it. Things are still the same for me — I still live in the same place (alone), still have a great job (and a promotion that I have no idea why they think I’m smart or capable enough to handle, especially not now when my brain cells are jelly), still had a hope of just buying myself a stupid laptop computer for Christmas.

Which, ha. Funerals ain’t free.

If there are lessons to learn in all of this for me, it’s that living paycheck-to-paycheck may be a way of life, but it’s not a good one. Having the worst credit score in the world means not being able to borrow when you need help. Whether it’s insurance or savings or a rich, non-stingy relative, you need backup.

I think a lot of us isolate ourselves in this world, mostly as a matter of convenience and not always by choice. Then again, as I sit here staring at a pile of e-vites and wondering how to graciously tell everyone that Santa Claus joined the Taliban because I cannot stand the thought of being around happy people right now, I guess it is a choice. No one’s going to beg you to live your life the right way.

And sainthood? Doesn’t pay. I believe in being good and I think that’s the only reason my family members who have passed had good lives. They didn’t have anything materially but they ended things having one or two good, lifelong friends. And that’s more than a lot of people can say. Good people set the example for everyone else who ever came near them — when you come across hateful, spiteful and just plain useless people, you tend to forgive them and feel bad for them because they weren’t brought up right. And people like us want to save everyone, to show them love and how to be good. But it comes at the expense of not looking out for yourself first.

Like right now, I’m so exhausted from handling the weight of the world that I feel useless to those who are depending on me — those who might want me to help them or, hell, those who are paying me to help them. I am not only spent and inconsolable, but I’m also sick. I have a sinus infection that makes me unable to wear makeup. I haven’t had a period for two months and damn it, you still get bloated and achy and cranky even when it doesn’t show up. 😉

And the damn coffee machine’s broken — need I say more?

I feel like that coffeemaker. I feel like there’s nothing left to give right now and I just want to be unplugged and left alone for a little while longer. Unless I can be fixed, which, great. But the second that service guy comes in to make that magic box provide us with happy juice again, we’re all going to be in line, working it to death again. And I don’t want that to be me. I need the distraction, but I want to figure out how to enjoy this life that keeps kicking my ass as it’s passing me by.

I see how we end up — alone and suffering in a hospital bed. The funeral director had to wipe the torture off my grandfather’s face to make him presentable for an open casket. That hospital left him in so much pain that hours’ worth of work resulted in him looking not very much at peace, and certainly not as handsome and laid-back as he was in life.

I don’t want that to be me. I’ve got to break the cycle. I don’t want to hurt my whole life and hurt going straight into my demise.

I want to live and love and thrive. I want to be good to others but good to myself first. I want to shine as much as I can so that when the light goes out, the earth will still be warm from my glow.

I think that happened with my grandfather. I just wish we could say he was able to enjoy at least a portion of all the good karma that he generated — I wish it had come back to help him when he needed it most. But I guess that it gets paid forward — if so, my mom and I are in for a lot of luck, with all the great things he did. I just want to slow down enough to enjoy them when they come. …

This time in my life is what I am mentally referring to as the eye of the hurricane. I’ve just lost my grandfather and am starting to not collapse into heaving, wracking sobs every 20 minutes (more like once an hour — progress!). I’m back to work and trying to get back into the fast-paced groove I was in and will be in until the end of time.

But then there’s the next phase — paying for the funeral, helping Mom to stay in her house for another month until she can get packed, somehow moving her down here and either getting her into my current place or having both of us move to a bigger place.

Shoestring budget? Implied. *sigh*

Forget clicking the ruby slippers — just drop the damn house on me and put me out of my fucking misery already.

But whatever. I have another few days to breathe before we embark on the next phase of this odyssey.

Today a few things occurred to me. One, that everything I believed in and held true, is no longer. Mom and I are of the psychic variety — she more so than me, so I trust her greatly. But because she thought my grandfather was going to hang in there (so did I, though), I wonder if all of her other visions are just going to turn to shit. She’d seen a happy life for me, and I wonder if it’s still pending or whether one major event going off-course throws a wrench in the whole fucking project.

Two, and perhaps more importantly, I realize that I never saw the age on my grandfather’s face. He was spry and spunky and strong and passionate — he lit up for everyone around him and especially my mom and me. He always seemed young to me, like he’d never aged a day past 40. And if you look at the (rare, unfortunately) photos with him and me, he looks like he could be my father, not my grandfather.

But then there are the photos with others, or ones just of him. And he looks tired. There are lines in his face that I guess I never saw before, as every time he looked at me, he absolutely beamed. I miss sitting across the table from him at dinner — now Mom and I sit opposite each other instead of together on one side of the table. It’s unsettling to know that the change is a permanent one.

Mom had asked me to scan in the photo below — she loves that shot of him. And I didn’t get it — he was a handsome man, and I never thought this photo did him justice. (He was with one of my obnoxious great-uncles — nobody could shine around any of them, as they would find a way to squelch it.) That family exhausts me, so maybe that’s his excuse, but to me it really shows that I somehow missed him getting old.

I guess that’s what love is — not noticing anything but the good. Just looking into someone’s eyes and seeing a good-looking, kind-hearted hero of a man instead of someone who was struggling to stay good for his girls.

We found some writings of his, as he is the musician/songwriter of the family. And as much as he loved being alive, there’s a part of him that seemed resigned to going sometime. He wrote a lot about getting to see my grandmother again — he loved and missed her terribly.

I don’t know that, if they were married in this day and age, they’d ever make it to a milestone anniversary. I never thought of them as being in love — merely that they were determined to stick things out to the bitter end. They were both glorious, wondrous people, but polar opposites through and through.

Kind of like Mom and I are — I’m my grandmother, she’s my grandfather. I’m a temperamental fireball and she’s sweet and kind. Felix and Oscar. Oh, yeah, this roommate relationship is gonna be a disaster. 😉

In any event, one of my biggest fears is that I will be a lot like my grandmother and perhaps find the most amazing man on earth and not appreciate him enough. I don’t know that she did. I have no doubt she loved him with all her heart, but he drove her nuts. She always called him “Stupid.” I hated that.

Of course, when we were standing graveside, with the winds blowing at high speed as my grandfather’s coffin was lowered into the ground and our tears frozen to our cheeks, I’d remarked that Gram was probably out shopping in heaven for a T-shirt that reads, “I’m With Stupid … Again!”

I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just find it funny that when all was said and done, the idiot uncles who criticized our every decision hadn’t so much as hugged us or told us they were sorry for our loss. They hugged each other and left — off to eat lunch, because they were angry that we hadn’t planned a luncheon. Yeah, those assholes went out to dinner and breakfast and lunch but never saw fit to invite Mom or me.

In fact, it was two of my friends at work who offered to cook for us, and it actually was my grandfather’s best friends Barry and Mary Lee who ended up feeding us during that terrible week that just passed. They made huge meals and brought them to us, complete with dessert. They wanted nothing in return. Just like my grandparents would have done (and no doubt did, in their day). No wonder they were all friends — great people really do gravitate to each other, and thank God for that.

Let me tell you something about that family and their fucking luncheon. My grandfather loved those assholes. In fact, just months ago, the Brothers Grimm decided to get together for lunch at 1 p.m. at fucking Denny’s (whoop-dee-friggin-do). My grandfather had an appointment and couldn’t make it till 1:30, so he asked them if they wouldn’t mind waiting for him.

They minded. He came home to find they had already gone … without him.

This broke his heart. As their big brother, it really tore him apart. And looking back, it kicked off a downward spiral in his health. It was barely two months ago, but it makes a lot of sense that he started feeling pretty down.

So when these assholes wanted us to throw a fucking lunch party for them, I put my foot down (and would have put it through someone’s ass crack if they were standing close enough). I had told my mom that for my grandfather’s friends, nieces and his sister whom I love, I was more than willing to blow the rest of the rent money on a gathering. But that they excluded him and broke his heart over some stupid need to go eat a fucking patty melt without their brother, fuck them. Just, fuck them.

Mom thought it appropriate that they never saw him again. That he was too good for them anyway — that they had their chance to be good to him and it was lost forever.

My uncle (Uncle Pester) who picked a fight with me at the coffin did so over lunch. Not a post-funeral lunch (I couldn’t function the rest of the day anyway, so good thing we didn’t hang out), but that all he ever wanted was for me to call him while I was in town so the whole family could have lunch together. He bitched and BITCHED that I never made time for him, that my family never included him when I was around.

!

Uh, fuck you. Mmmkay?

Uncle Pester begged me to promise that I’d contact him next time I was in town. I kept trying to stay silent — really I did — as I didn’t want to lie to him. I know my tongue was bleeding from biting it, that’s for sure. I think my final answer was that Mom’s coming to stay with me so my visits to Pittsburgh were dwindling.

Now, that’s not to say that they *are*. I know it will hurt my mom to be far from the cemetery, as she likes to visit frequently and keep the graves tidy and decorated for every holiday. I will go back to the city in a heartbeat, but those who actually have my phone number? I can count on one hand.

I’ve been talking to a lot of people and reading a lot of comment/e-mail condolences from wonderful, glorious, strong and saint-like friends, and what’s sad is that we all have terrible stories to tell. Stories of a loved one who was lost unnecessarily, of fucked-up families and of financial havoc.

And while I’d never wish such horrors on anyone, not even my worst enemy (believe it or not), I feel somewhat better that I’m not the only one who’s at the end of her rope over the confluence of events that seems only to snowball — never to really de-escalate.

I just wish I were rich, y’know? That I could just pay off all the expenses and enter Witness Protection to hide from the relatives and just breathe and grieve already. To take a week away from everyone and everything and regain my strength before trying to work again. To focus on the memory of the greatest man who ever lived and not constantly be worrying about the expenses that lie ahead because of his loss.

To not have to hide my tears in the name of all that is proper and to hope that, because I have to pretend to be OK, one day my heart will believe it and eventually, I might actually be fine again.

So not only is it possible to sob at full intensity during a 250-mile drive, but let’s face it, it’s no big deal when you’ve already cried for seven days straight anyway. And listening to The Judds’ song in the title of this entry? It decimates what little peace a girl could possibly get.

“Grandpa, everything is changing fast
We call it progress, but I just don’t know
And grandpa, let’s wander back into the past
And paint me the picture of long ago.”

I’m miserable. I’m so sad I can’t breathe. The man I loved most in this world is gone and I’m not sure anyone on this earth could or even would ever be able to love me as much as he did.

I’m a little better now that I’m in D.C., although I’m looking for a place to plant a few money trees because I need to move. There’s no way I can accommodate Mom’s crap and my crap in my cute little place. (Maddie and Kadie’s shit landmines are already enough crap for one house, thanks.) Good God, the cost of real estate in Washington is atrocious.

Among the many rude things my extended relatives did was ask about how we were paying for the funeral, how we were going to pay Mom’s rent/bills and how much money I make, as they expect I should buy a house. I swear to holy Moses, I’m so through with everyone right now. Unless you’re funding any of this? Zip it.

I’ve decided that I want to have two kids. I always figured I could be persuaded to have one, maybe, if it’s with the right person. But now that I see how alone you are when your elders are gone, it’s not fair to put the weight of the world on one so-called breadwinner.

But whatever, it’s just money. Never really had any, never WILL have any, judging by the way life is going right now. But the career is in full swing and could be even fuller if I could just keep my head in the game and not have to be reminded to remove my keys from the ignition or to wipe my ass from front to back. Seriously, the short-term memory? Shot.

I’ve been talking to my grandfather in my head for days — hell, I’ve been talking out loud, too — anything to figure out where he is and if he’s OK. The other night, I think I got a sign. I was lying awake in a fetal position, sobbing (per usual) and I remembered saying earlier in the evening that I’d give anything for just one more hug from him. And in my hazy state, it felt like someone curled up behind me and held me tightly. I was wondering if it were my mom — she’s the type to crawl into bed with you.

But the bed didn’t move — I just felt like someone were holding onto me, just for a few moments, and I knew it couldn’t be her. I wasn’t sure whether I were dreaming or if that were my Grampy’s way of saying he’d made it to the other side, but I slept for the first and only time in the past week. (Trust me, I couldn’t knock myself out with three sleeping pills last night.)

Anyway, I snuck a call in to Mom today, who was sobbing (again, per usual). She had just awakened from a dream in which she was in the backseat of a car. My grandfather was driving and my grandmother was in the passenger’s seat. They stopped for gas, and my grandfather asked her if she knew how to operate the pump. She said she did, and she got out and pumped.

It came to $15 even, and she told him the total. He handed her money, and she went inside the station to pay the attendant. And when she came back out, they were gone.

I’m hoping they are together, that they are happy and free of life’s cares and doing nothing but enjoying the afterlife. They both suffered enough during their short stays on this planet — I miss them terribly,and their absence not only leaves Mom and me lonely, but it also creates worlds of problems to overcome in the short term. But to know they are healed, well, I can rest a little bit easier, and suck it up and deal with the aftermath somehow.

I’m so tired of every decision being life-or-death. I’m tired of being an overachiever — the expectations that I can handle what I’ve been given are sometimes more than I can bear. I was in South Park (Pittsburgh) with Mom yesterday, and watching a couple and their dog running around in the middle of a field. And I envied them so much — all I wanted was to be carefree and simply enjoying a moment.

I hate happy people. I hate it that the asshole who dented Mom and Grampy’s car (they both took it pretty bad) admitted he did it but refused to pay for it. Not to be an asshole, but that $1,000 he owes my family could have paid for the upfront grave-opening costs instead of me dipping into my rent money. I hate it that that derelict and his whore wife will have a happy Christmas and my mother and I are having the worst season of our lives. I hate it that people who are burdens to others will never die and yet that people who were bringing in joy as well as income (like my grandfather) have to go away and take all that light and salvation with them. I hate everyone and everything and all I want to do is make somebody hurt the way I am hurting right now.

For the prayer cards, Mom and I picked a verse that we’d used on my grandmother’s, which was that “God broke our hearts to prove to us He only takes the best.” It’s true, you know. My fuckhead uncles (Uncle Fester, Uncle Pester and Uncle Chester the Molester, for the unfamiliar) should have been in that damn casket, not my sweet and loving and genuine grandfather, who must have been adopted, I swear. Hell, I said that to some of my cousins, that the wrong one is gone. (I also called another cousin an insane fuckhead — yeah, the Tourette’s is in full gear.)

And I hate it that I’m so annoyed and bitter right now. (But trust me, they deserve it — the shit they put my mother through during the worst time in her life? Christ. Uncle Pester picked a fight with me right as I was talking to my grandfather in his little coffin. PICKED A FIGHT. Dickhead. I hate him as much as I hate the one who called my mom to read her off the day we buried my grandfather. And don’t get me started on Insane Fuckhead. Just, don’t. Another one who was trying to hold court like a goddamned queen and another one who pitched a bitch at me while I was at the coffin. I hate most of that family. There are good ones, but even them, you tend to doubt, given who raised them.

Anyway, I see opportunities in everything that has happened. I really do. I know I have the power to make a good life for Mom and me. It’ll be tough and it’s going to hurt and even suck for awhile, but it’ll work out in the end. It has to. I won’t accept any other resolution. It just kills me that my grandfather’s last words, literally, were, “Get a lawyer soon, or else I won’t be able to be here for you.”

I mean, holy shit. How do you live knowing that? You don’t. You just don’t. And I won’t let his last wish go unhonored. I couldn’t save him — and oh God, how I’d give anything to go back in time just a little over a week, when I was telling him to get back into bed, to just scoop him up and carry him out of that rathole and take him home where we could do no worse than the so-called professionals at nursing him back to health. But like I said, must every decision be life-or-death? Why can’t you just trust that the people who are supposed to help you, I dunno, WILL?!?!

We waste so much time in life, putting off visits and sentiments and things that would make us happy — that would make the people we love happy. And maybe that’s the point of all of this. I lost him — I worked too much and too hard to have the energy to go visit my family on weekends. And now, I had a cousin and a family friend offer to take in my Mom now that he’s gone, but I fought them both. They both think it’s unfair of her to infringe on my life when it’s only just starting to get good. But I want her — I want to not miss any more of her life, or her mine. We’re all each other has left in this life, and far be it from me to call the shot that keeps us apart even longer.

Damn it, I’ve made so many wrong decisions in life, I don’t want to make any more of that variety. I want everything, and I will find a way to make it work. My grandfather would want it that way, and in that, I will honor him. Because that’s what he would want, and this, I can do for him.

Today we buried my grandfather. It is the saddest and unquestionably worst day of my life.

The extended Manson Family has been in town and let me tell you, the wrong member of this family is in that casket. I plan to do a password-protected entry on the assholes who keep butting in, calling shots and otherwise making my mother crazy, but today is not about them.

And after today, it never will be again. He was our only tie to them, and they didn’t know him or love him like we did. The loss is theirs, but they don’t realize it.

We had a viewing last night. Nearly 100 people came out to give my Grampy a last round of hugs and kisses. You couldn’t rip me away from the coffin — what I miss most is hugging him and smelling like his cologne (Boss). And my Mom, a perfectionist till the very end, had our funeral director friend spray him liberally. It will be the last time I hug my Grampy. It will be the last time I smell like him all day.

It may very well be the last time I can function in life without a therapist.

The good thing about the funeral director being your friend is that he went above and beyond for us — he was the only one outside of a small group of wonderful friends who loved my grandfather with all their hearts who cared that Mom and I had just lost the most important person in our lives.

Our friend even sat with Grampy while we weren’t able to be there. He has known us for a decade, at least, and always loved coming over to hang with my family. (He took care of my grandmother’s funeral seven years ago, so he’s a big part of our lives.) He was more broken up about losing our beloved little man more than his stupid brothers were (I asked him to read my eulogy and he sobbed through the whole thing). What he said about hanging out with Grampy in the funeral home was how much he missed having him talking back.

He’s not the only one. That house is so empty without him. He’s everywhere, yet nowhere to be found.

Until someone tells me this was all a joke (and I saw the coffin be lowered and the vault be closed — it took that for me to believe it), I guess I’m going to have to learn to live with the guilt that we couldn’t save him and the fear that he hasn’t yet crossed over, because he wanted so badly to be with us and just wasn’t ready to go.

I had told my grandmother weeks ago (in my mind, as she always seems like she’s with me) to let us keep him for awhile longer. Once she got him back, she’d have him for eternity — all we were asking for were a few more years.

But, alas, he’s going back to her. I always suspected he was the one who loved more in that relationship, and I hope she was ready to have him with her again. All the man ever wanted was love — I am certain a thousand angels were thrilled to have them join their team, as he has enough love to take care of millions of people. But his two angels down here would rather be able to hug him just one more time. …

In any event, my mere meanderings here do not do this man a whit of justice, so here’s the goodbye I shared today:

CALVIN COOLIDGE (MANSON)
Feb. 24, 1926 – Nov. 27, 2006

It’s been almost a week since the world went flat, yet we’re all forever changed because we were lucky enough to know – and be loved by – my grandfather Cal.

My Grampy brought so much life, love, hope and joy to everyone around him, no matter how much his body was hurting him. He was everybody’s hero and friend, and he was the best friend in the world to me. And the world – our world – feels like it has stopped without him.

Grampy was a king among men – a man’s man, of course, but it was the women in his life who couldn’t help but fall in love with him, time and again. My grandmother Rose, my mother Robin and I have always been the center of his world. Never a day would pass without great big bear hugs, showers of whiskery kisses, fresh-picked flowers he found in the yard and an endless stream of compliments – he never missed a chance to tell us how pretty he thought we were, how much he loved the meals he was served, how lucky he was to have us, and how proud he was of us.

When I remember him – and the true tragedy is that seeing him in my mind is all I can do now – I see him with those sparkling blue eyes, illuminated with joy and his arms outstretched. He always called Mom and me his babies, his angels, his beautiful girls. He always told me he was going to cover himself with glue so that the next time he hugged me, I’d be stuck to him forever and ever – and he’d get to go with me wherever I went. And now, he always will.

While I’m glad he’s in a place where no one can hurt him anymore, it’s neither right nor fair that we are here today to mourn his passing – this man had more than enough life, love and spirit in him to last another 20 years, at least. Today we should have instead welcomed the opportunity to tell him, just one more time, how much we loved him back.

Every day held magic for him … and it was magical because of him. He enjoyed sunny days on his porch, having a cigarette and feeding the birds and neighborhood pets that gravitated to him. He smiled at strangers, lent a hand to friends at every opportunity (and always unasked), and influenced or perhaps even changed thousands more lives than those of the people in this room.

I could tell you a million wonderful stories about this man, but we’d be here forever, and we need to let him get “on the road again” to see his Rosie Girl. Besides, every story I have to tell turns out the same: Someone was in need, and he came to our rescue. He performed superhuman feats to make things right – or right again. The work he did as a friend, neighbor, brother, uncle, husband, father and grandfather brought him honor as well as joy.

The thing with Grampy is that he was fueled by being generous, and knowing he’d made a difference in someone’s world. I’ll never know how hard things might have been, or what he went without having, to ensure that we had a good life. And we did – his affection was genuine, his love unconditional, his appreciation of our time boundless. And even now, he wanted nothing more than to come home to us, to keep taking care of us as only he could.

I can’t remember exactly when his hair started to turn gray or the pain started to worsen, but he was never more alive than he was this past year. He loved his pretty house, his guitar, the road trips he and Mom took to see me, and just the wonder in everyone and everything — that all kept him young. He wrote songs whenever he could and lived each day the best way he knew how.

One of the many wonderful things about him is that no matter how much he was hurting, he never missed an opportunity to light up for anyone who needed a smile – he never seemed to run out of those. You couldn’t help but love him – it was downright impossible not to.

The world seems so empty and somber without him in it, as he was such a magnanimous presence. It’s hard to believe he’s really gone from this plane of existence, but the impact of the goodness he exhibited, and the love and respect he generated, will be felt for generations to come.

And in that, we will always have proof that he was once here and the world was once right.

Sleep tight, Papa Bear.