Death - Who Needs It? Part One
While I am delighted to be alive - and ever since my accident I appreciate it each and every day - I am not sure what benefit death brings. Certainly for the survivors it brings none. While the money (when there is some) may be nice, what price can you put on your parents? Grandparents? Best friends? Boss? Crewmate?Anyone?
You can't. I suppose, if your depth of feeling wasn't too much or it was negative, you could. My paternal grandmother: $1.98. My paternal grandfather: priceless. (Yes, I am distinctly making fun of that Visa or Mastercard ad.) But in truth, my grandmother was a vindictive, hateful, controlling woman who hit her son with knitting needles (no, not Ray; this is my biolagical father, Harry) and ruled the roost with a fist of iron. My grandfather was not all goodness and light - he was quite puscillanimous (look it up - you'll love it and the dictionary should always be your best friend), but he was a wonderful, sweet, intelligent man with nanny-goats (anecdotes) by the bucketload. He taught me the basics of farming, how to whistle (it's not his fault that I can't whistle like normal people), how to ride a tractor, and many, many other things. He died when I was 19, in 1987, and my grandmother... well, she lived quite a bit longer. In all honesty I have no idea if she died. I suspect as much - Pop-pop was 80 in 1987, so she would be somewhere around 97 - 100 years old now. I know bitterness keeps one going... but that long?
The first "big" death for me should have been my maternal grandmother in 1985. I was 17 when she died of pencreatic cancer. I was sad, but not distraught. We were not close. I really had hardly any relationship with her. My mother kept a distance from her and I was not a part of her life. I suspect when she talked about her grandchildren, I did not actually come up in conversation. That may be wrong and totally off base, but I have no reason to think it isn't.
HHHOOOONNNKKKKKK - the rig is back from it's call. Good old Bob - he always leans on the air horn for me. It's sweet, really.
Where was I? Oh, right. So that passed (no pun intended) basically unremarked. She lived to be 77, she died - and mostly with assistance. So much for the doctor who said she had six months. After two and half years, she had decided she'd had it. At her request, we speed up the process a bit. My mother has no regrets and why should she?
The first death that really, really hit hard was Pop-pop's and I missed it. Yes, my evil and heinous grandmother struck again. She may have had help from my biological father, but this was her. And no one else. I happened to go up to Pennsylvania on the spur of the moment to visit them after a two-year hiatus from any letters or phone calls. I went with my then-boyfriend, Joe Cataudella (he will have a posting all his own. I miss him, he was a great friend - and on that fateful day in Novermber or December of 1987 he really proved it!), and we went to 110 Rice Street in Trucksville. The Trebilcox' did not live there any longer and I went to the neighbours, George and Dorothy Pierce (they were wonderful people), who told me that ever since Jimmy died, Francis (my grandmother) lived in the apartments in Back Mountain. The devastation was... I can't describe it. I had had no idea - no clue - that my beloved Pop-pop was deceased. We went to the gravesite but there was no marker. He'd only died in July of that year, so nothing was there. It takes a year, I think, to get the marker.
So that was my indoctrination into losing a loved one. There is a lot more to that story, but there it is in a nutshell as relates to this posting.
The next big loss was when Steve Sudol died. Oh, gods, what a terrible time that was. It was 6 January 1996. We'd just gotten hammered with 38" of snow - QUITE unusual for New Jersey - and all was white and totally still. I remember that morning so well. It was Monday, nothing was moving. Luis and I lived on the other side of town and we had been out attempting to extricate our cars - a pointless effort with over a metre of snow. It was eerily quiet out, despite living so close to Route 80 - nothing was out, no planes, no cars, no animals. The only sound was the creaking of the snow-laden trees as they ponderously swung in the wind.
Not long after we'd come back inside, I guess somewhere around 09:00 or 10:00, the Phantom had called. He asked about the snow we'd gotten (not much different from him - he was in Little Falls at that time) and then asked, carefully, if Luis was around... an odd question, as where else could he be? So I told him of course Luis is around and that is when without any fanfare or preparation, he said, "Steven died."
I can not honestly remember what exactly happened after that. I am sure I cried, but did I wail? Throw things? I don't know. I do recall that Luis took the phone from me and held me and I guess Harry told him because the words were not coming from me. Steve was 44 years old and died from cancer. The three of us, Phantom, Steve and I did EVERYTHING together. It was awful. Once in a while I dream of him and having a conversation, even though he is dead and we both know it... I like that, though. It means that at least in my dreams, I recall his voice.
Well, it is late and I need to crash, so I will write anon about this - or later.
You can't. I suppose, if your depth of feeling wasn't too much or it was negative, you could. My paternal grandmother: $1.98. My paternal grandfather: priceless. (Yes, I am distinctly making fun of that Visa or Mastercard ad.) But in truth, my grandmother was a vindictive, hateful, controlling woman who hit her son with knitting needles (no, not Ray; this is my biolagical father, Harry) and ruled the roost with a fist of iron. My grandfather was not all goodness and light - he was quite puscillanimous (look it up - you'll love it and the dictionary should always be your best friend), but he was a wonderful, sweet, intelligent man with nanny-goats (anecdotes) by the bucketload. He taught me the basics of farming, how to whistle (it's not his fault that I can't whistle like normal people), how to ride a tractor, and many, many other things. He died when I was 19, in 1987, and my grandmother... well, she lived quite a bit longer. In all honesty I have no idea if she died. I suspect as much - Pop-pop was 80 in 1987, so she would be somewhere around 97 - 100 years old now. I know bitterness keeps one going... but that long?
The first "big" death for me should have been my maternal grandmother in 1985. I was 17 when she died of pencreatic cancer. I was sad, but not distraught. We were not close. I really had hardly any relationship with her. My mother kept a distance from her and I was not a part of her life. I suspect when she talked about her grandchildren, I did not actually come up in conversation. That may be wrong and totally off base, but I have no reason to think it isn't.
HHHOOOONNNKKKKKK - the rig is back from it's call. Good old Bob - he always leans on the air horn for me. It's sweet, really.
Where was I? Oh, right. So that passed (no pun intended) basically unremarked. She lived to be 77, she died - and mostly with assistance. So much for the doctor who said she had six months. After two and half years, she had decided she'd had it. At her request, we speed up the process a bit. My mother has no regrets and why should she?
The first death that really, really hit hard was Pop-pop's and I missed it. Yes, my evil and heinous grandmother struck again. She may have had help from my biological father, but this was her. And no one else. I happened to go up to Pennsylvania on the spur of the moment to visit them after a two-year hiatus from any letters or phone calls. I went with my then-boyfriend, Joe Cataudella (he will have a posting all his own. I miss him, he was a great friend - and on that fateful day in Novermber or December of 1987 he really proved it!), and we went to 110 Rice Street in Trucksville. The Trebilcox' did not live there any longer and I went to the neighbours, George and Dorothy Pierce (they were wonderful people), who told me that ever since Jimmy died, Francis (my grandmother) lived in the apartments in Back Mountain. The devastation was... I can't describe it. I had had no idea - no clue - that my beloved Pop-pop was deceased. We went to the gravesite but there was no marker. He'd only died in July of that year, so nothing was there. It takes a year, I think, to get the marker.
So that was my indoctrination into losing a loved one. There is a lot more to that story, but there it is in a nutshell as relates to this posting.
The next big loss was when Steve Sudol died. Oh, gods, what a terrible time that was. It was 6 January 1996. We'd just gotten hammered with 38" of snow - QUITE unusual for New Jersey - and all was white and totally still. I remember that morning so well. It was Monday, nothing was moving. Luis and I lived on the other side of town and we had been out attempting to extricate our cars - a pointless effort with over a metre of snow. It was eerily quiet out, despite living so close to Route 80 - nothing was out, no planes, no cars, no animals. The only sound was the creaking of the snow-laden trees as they ponderously swung in the wind.
Not long after we'd come back inside, I guess somewhere around 09:00 or 10:00, the Phantom had called. He asked about the snow we'd gotten (not much different from him - he was in Little Falls at that time) and then asked, carefully, if Luis was around... an odd question, as where else could he be? So I told him of course Luis is around and that is when without any fanfare or preparation, he said, "Steven died."
I can not honestly remember what exactly happened after that. I am sure I cried, but did I wail? Throw things? I don't know. I do recall that Luis took the phone from me and held me and I guess Harry told him because the words were not coming from me. Steve was 44 years old and died from cancer. The three of us, Phantom, Steve and I did EVERYTHING together. It was awful. Once in a while I dream of him and having a conversation, even though he is dead and we both know it... I like that, though. It means that at least in my dreams, I recall his voice.
Well, it is late and I need to crash, so I will write anon about this - or later.
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