MaMa is gone. She died around 1:00 this morning, and an era passes away with her.
Talking to family this morning as we made the rounds of phone calls to pass the news along, the most shared sentiment seems to be relief. I think most of us had our big moment of grief and shock when we understood that the end was coming soon, and we've been anticipating this ever since. The best we could have hoped for was that it was as peaceful and painless as it was.
We're still going to have many moments of sadness as the reality of this continues to sink in, but the worst of this is past for all of us. Her pain is over, and we're no longer waiting to see how much longer her end would be drawn out. And we have the luxury, now, of remembering her as she was before her long decline, and loving that memory of her in all her strength and dignity. That was, I think, the only immortality she ever wanted.
I'm sure I will have more to say in the time to come, but for now, suffice to say that she will be missed, and not soon forgotten.
Deyr fé
deyja frændr
deyr sjálfr it sama
en orðstírr
deyr aldregi
hveim er sér góðan getr
Showing posts with label there is no death there is no death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label there is no death there is no death. Show all posts
January 17, 2009
January 14, 2009
Not Single Spies
Two things from the last day or so in the Not Good News column:
First, the latest word on my grandmother (better known to us, and most of of you, as MaMa) is that she is not well and fading fast; she's no longer able to eat, which likely puts her remaining time (barring bona fide divine intervention, which I doubt she would welcome even if she believed in it, which she doesn't) as a matter of days. This is not shocking news; she was moved recently to hospice care, and the clock's been pretty much winding down ever since. She is comfortable and well-cared-for and the end is being allowed to take its course, which has been her wish for a long while.
I visited her in her nursing home last April, when she was okay but a little confused, and it wasn't terribly long after that when she stopped knowing who people were when they came to see her. I've felt for a while now that going to visit would be much more for my sake than for hers, and neither of us would get much benefit or comfort from it. If that sounds like a shocking casting-off of filial duty, know that I've wrestled with my conscience on it enough to be prepared to live with myself. A better world would, perhaps, have had her last days spent surrounded by her family in her own home; that world would also not have robbed her of so much of herself in these past few years, so that she's simply existing as a shell of what she used to be. The sad truth is that she's been slowly but surely taking her leave for a while now, and this next step will simply be the final stage of a long process. The MaMa I will mourn is one who is already departed, and that's whose memory I mean to keep alive.
The second thing is that our Monty is currently in doggie hospital for the next couple of days, as we discovered that yesterday morning he ate an entire one-pound fruitcake* - full of raisins, which are very very bad for dogs. We took him to the emergency vet last night, where they are keeping him on an IV and watching his toxin levels. He was, for the record, his usual happy playful self when we took him in, and has been doing well - Stacy called this morning and his kidneys were in good shape (renal failure is the cause of most raisin toxicity deaths, for reasons that are still apparently a little mysterious) but his liver was hurting a little, so bringing him in for detox was the right decision. The doctor is optimistic and so are we, but we're a little anxious nonetheless, so if you have any good thoughts to spare for a very silly little dog whose dad was very careless about what he left lying around the house, they would not be unwelcome.
Updates as I know them.
Update 1/15: Mom talked to someone at the nursing home yesterday who said that MaMa's prospects are anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. That's imminent, but not quite as immediate as I first thought. It could still be more or less any time, though.
Monty's second round of blood work early this morning was pretty good. His kidneys are fine, though one of his liver levels went up some and we need to have him tested again in a few days. He's been perky and in good spirits.** They're trailing off his fluids and he'll get to come home tonight. We are, needless to say, greatly relieved.
_____
*Those of you who were around for, or got word of, the Great Hoagie Caper of Thanksgiving 2008 will be less than shocked to read this. I suspect he put the whole thing away in less than 90 seconds, getting the wrapper off included.
**And, almost certainly, loud. We've been able to hear him on the phone whenever we've talked to someone in the same room with him. How is it that we ended up with the mouthy kid?
First, the latest word on my grandmother (better known to us, and most of of you, as MaMa) is that she is not well and fading fast; she's no longer able to eat, which likely puts her remaining time (barring bona fide divine intervention, which I doubt she would welcome even if she believed in it, which she doesn't) as a matter of days. This is not shocking news; she was moved recently to hospice care, and the clock's been pretty much winding down ever since. She is comfortable and well-cared-for and the end is being allowed to take its course, which has been her wish for a long while.
I visited her in her nursing home last April, when she was okay but a little confused, and it wasn't terribly long after that when she stopped knowing who people were when they came to see her. I've felt for a while now that going to visit would be much more for my sake than for hers, and neither of us would get much benefit or comfort from it. If that sounds like a shocking casting-off of filial duty, know that I've wrestled with my conscience on it enough to be prepared to live with myself. A better world would, perhaps, have had her last days spent surrounded by her family in her own home; that world would also not have robbed her of so much of herself in these past few years, so that she's simply existing as a shell of what she used to be. The sad truth is that she's been slowly but surely taking her leave for a while now, and this next step will simply be the final stage of a long process. The MaMa I will mourn is one who is already departed, and that's whose memory I mean to keep alive.
The second thing is that our Monty is currently in doggie hospital for the next couple of days, as we discovered that yesterday morning he ate an entire one-pound fruitcake* - full of raisins, which are very very bad for dogs. We took him to the emergency vet last night, where they are keeping him on an IV and watching his toxin levels. He was, for the record, his usual happy playful self when we took him in, and has been doing well - Stacy called this morning and his kidneys were in good shape (renal failure is the cause of most raisin toxicity deaths, for reasons that are still apparently a little mysterious) but his liver was hurting a little, so bringing him in for detox was the right decision. The doctor is optimistic and so are we, but we're a little anxious nonetheless, so if you have any good thoughts to spare for a very silly little dog whose dad was very careless about what he left lying around the house, they would not be unwelcome.
Updates as I know them.
Update 1/15: Mom talked to someone at the nursing home yesterday who said that MaMa's prospects are anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. That's imminent, but not quite as immediate as I first thought. It could still be more or less any time, though.
Monty's second round of blood work early this morning was pretty good. His kidneys are fine, though one of his liver levels went up some and we need to have him tested again in a few days. He's been perky and in good spirits.** They're trailing off his fluids and he'll get to come home tonight. We are, needless to say, greatly relieved.
_____
*Those of you who were around for, or got word of, the Great Hoagie Caper of Thanksgiving 2008 will be less than shocked to read this. I suspect he put the whole thing away in less than 90 seconds, getting the wrapper off included.
**And, almost certainly, loud. We've been able to hear him on the phone whenever we've talked to someone in the same room with him. How is it that we ended up with the mouthy kid?
December 20, 2007
Flying and Changing and Living Without Death
Several times over the past year or so I've been reminded of the wondrousness of little light's incredible blog, Taking Steps, and yet neglected to add it to the blogroll. I've fixed that now.
If you want to know why you should be reading it, look here, and here, and here, and here.
If you want to know why you should be reading it, look here, and here, and here, and here.
December 18, 2007
William Carlos Williams, Kinsey, Asbury Park, and This
Okay, I am officially done slagging New Jersey now.
Garden State, you are hereby forgiven for Trenton.
Garden State, you are hereby forgiven for Trenton.
September 18, 2007
The Breaking of the World
Another in a year of lost lights: Jim Rigney, who wrote under the name Robert Jordan, died on Sunday.
He was, by all accounts, a fine human being as well as an accomplished writer: kind, funny, generous, and even in his declining health larger-than-life. The late John M. Ford thought the world of him and his work, and drew the map at the front of the Wheel of Time books; now they are both gone into the Mystery, alas, and the world is poorer.
He was also one of those names who polarized fandom, with his work often seeming to generate praise and vitriol in equal measure, and the reflexive slagging of his books got to be unfortunately popular in a lot of circles. And certainly it's possible to go on at length about his flaws and excesses (I myself drifted away from the series a few volumes back, when the event-to-page-count ratio seemed to be steadily decreasing), but I think, as Elizabeth Bear once said of another popular author, that it doesn't matter what he did wrong in light of how many things he did right. If nothing else, the criticism of his work as generic and derivative was undeserved; he did an awful lot to drag epic fantasy out of the Tolkienian mold, engineering a world that was neither medieval nor strictly western European in its inspiration, rich and evocative and wonderfully strange. (And on top of all that, he also wrote Conan just about as well as anyone since Howard himself.)
He inspired me to write one pretty good song, which I think was the first I put a barre chord in on purpose, and made an enormous impression on the way I think about epic fantasy and its possibilities. Despite not having kept up with the books themselves, I've continued to admire their imagination and ambition (and I've never stopped wanting a heron mark sword, either). I'm very sad to learn that he didn't get to see his grand tale through to the end (though there are rumors that he disclosed the secrets of the final volume to his wife and a few close friends, so it's just possible the rest of us will, after all), but I hope he knew how deeply his creation touched the people who loved it, and how much joy it gave his readers to have his world take up space in our heads.
Some remembrances of note (among many others) here, here, here, and here.
He was, by all accounts, a fine human being as well as an accomplished writer: kind, funny, generous, and even in his declining health larger-than-life. The late John M. Ford thought the world of him and his work, and drew the map at the front of the Wheel of Time books; now they are both gone into the Mystery, alas, and the world is poorer.
He was also one of those names who polarized fandom, with his work often seeming to generate praise and vitriol in equal measure, and the reflexive slagging of his books got to be unfortunately popular in a lot of circles. And certainly it's possible to go on at length about his flaws and excesses (I myself drifted away from the series a few volumes back, when the event-to-page-count ratio seemed to be steadily decreasing), but I think, as Elizabeth Bear once said of another popular author, that it doesn't matter what he did wrong in light of how many things he did right. If nothing else, the criticism of his work as generic and derivative was undeserved; he did an awful lot to drag epic fantasy out of the Tolkienian mold, engineering a world that was neither medieval nor strictly western European in its inspiration, rich and evocative and wonderfully strange. (And on top of all that, he also wrote Conan just about as well as anyone since Howard himself.)
He inspired me to write one pretty good song, which I think was the first I put a barre chord in on purpose, and made an enormous impression on the way I think about epic fantasy and its possibilities. Despite not having kept up with the books themselves, I've continued to admire their imagination and ambition (and I've never stopped wanting a heron mark sword, either). I'm very sad to learn that he didn't get to see his grand tale through to the end (though there are rumors that he disclosed the secrets of the final volume to his wife and a few close friends, so it's just possible the rest of us will, after all), but I hope he knew how deeply his creation touched the people who loved it, and how much joy it gave his readers to have his world take up space in our heads.
Some remembrances of note (among many others) here, here, here, and here.
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